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He turned it toward her. Elizabeth took it and drew a little nearer the window so that the light fell upon the painted face.

“She looks as though somebody has told her to be very good.”

“Repeatedly.”

“Did she succeed?”

“Long enough to satisfy the painter. Not long enough to satisfy her governess.”

Elizabeth smiled. She gave the miniature back with care, and Darcy set it where they could both see it.

“I was considering the nursery,” he said. “Somewhere above the child’s reach.”

“Anna may like to look at it when she is older.”

“That is what I wished.”

He sat, and Elizabeth took the chair opposite him. The little face between them made it possible to begin a conversation he had been turning over in his mind since Anna came to sleep beneath his roof.

“I shall tell her,” he said.

Elizabeth looked at him.

“Whose daughter she is. I do not mean to have her grow up believing that her mother was a stranger to this house.”

“I am glad.”

“I had not decided how to speak of it when we first discussed her coming here. I could think only of the next question somebody might ask, and how much of Georgiana’s life I must expose in answering it.”

“Anna will have questions of her own.”

“Yes.” He looked down at the miniature. “She must be able to ask me.”

“I cannot tell her every unhappy circumstance while she is too young to understand it,” he said. “But I can tell her that Georgiana was her mother. I can tell her that she was loved.”

“And what made her laugh.”

He looked up.

“You know a great many things about her which have nothing to do with the end of her life,” Elizabeth continued. “Anna may hear those before she is old enough to ask the difficult questions.”

“I have been afraid that speaking of one would oblige me to speak of everything.”

“She is a child. You may begin with a story she can understand.”

He could tell Anna how her mother had practised the solemn expression before a mirror, and spoiled it whenever he came in.

“Martha remembers her when she was young,” he said.

“Then Anna may hear Martha’s stories, too.”

“I shall speak to her and Thomas. I do not wish them to suppose that letting the child know one part of her family is intended to take away another.”

“They will be glad you have considered it.”

He put the miniature back into its case, leaving the lid open.

“There is something else I have not told you plainly.”