Exclamation: Oh! I had forgotten there were only nineteen chapters and the Epilogue! I suppose that means I have succeeded now in updating the final part of this story before my baby comes! :D

Thank you to all who waited and read through to the end! Your enjoyment and encouragement is most appreciated!

Epilogue

No one but the Colonel, and perhaps in some ways, Marianne, was prepared for the succession of children to follow Mary's birth. It was not that the general populace had trouble understanding why Colonel Brandon and his young wife might wish to fill their many grand and spacious rooms with smaller people of their own—less civil tongues may have wagged at a desire to continue populating until an heir to the estate was acquired—and certainly no one was in a better position to provide for so many dowries; but four girls in a row, all surviving infancy and beyond was something of a welcome miracle to the gentry.

The dear people were more than happily resigned to the fate of raising four daughters, and with the trials of the Dashwood family's past still impressed upon Marianne, and through her history, the Colonel, the latter knew and understood the significance of laying up for each of his girls to be well looked after in the event of his death, regardless of how well off their prospective husbands might turn out to be.

The Colonel was most verbally adamant, despite his generosity to his daughters, that he would find suitable husbands for them all when the time came.

"I should be on the lookout for young men of good character and morals," he remarked from his chair, quite unprompted as he and Marianne watched their young daughters at play, the newest of them all sleeping easily in her mother's arms, undisturbed by the low conversation and familial noises.

His wife observed his dark expression, thinking it wholly disconnected from the gentle scene before them. Just as all lively children, the girls had their disagreements and unpleasant rows from time to time, but this evening all seemed content to play amiably together, or at least break away without complaint if the activities of another sibling didn't quite suit their interests.

Ellen had created a village by arranging wooden blocks into towers and rows, while baby Sarah sat up against Duke's warm belly, fascinated by the sound made by repeatedly knocking two of the blocks together. Mary observed Ellen's workmanship with a judging eye for a while, offering better ideas for proper stacking in a tone that suggested superior wisdom, but she soon gave up on her younger siblings entirely to build more impressive towers a few yards away, unrestrained by faulty architecture.

Marianne bestowed a feather-light kiss on their youngest daughter's downy head before answering her husband. She never tired of watching Nan as she slept. She thought all of her daughters had been pretty infants, but Nancy seemed the first to take after her father in looks, possessing more aquiline features than the others as infants, and she was more thrilled than she could say to think the delicate face would form into a distinguished, noble one like Colonel Brandon's. Her eyes, too, already held a seriousness and depth about them that she hoped persisted until adulthood.

She could not think of a more worthy way to spend an evening than here with her Colonel and their daughters. She could not even recall the last time she demanded poetry or a romantic novel to while away the time. It was felicity enough to hear the Colonel read a pretty faerie story to the girls, or explain in small words how this or that creature they were curious about liked to live and eat. She felt as if she was happiness itself as she surveyed the occupants of that cosy room.

Her husband, however, was still scowling.

"You look quite serious, my dear," she remarked, somewhat amused by his pensive mood.

"I am," he stated, never taking his eyes away from the children. "I will not have their affections toyed with, or their hearts broken by ill-intentioned scoundrels."

Her teasing tone faltered, and she tried to answer him in similar brevity. "Minney is only six years old, and Nanny is not even a month born, but you are already anxious over their husbands?"

"I have no wish to delay preparations until we are caught off guard."

Marianne rose with some difficulty to lay the sleeping babe into the Colonel's arms, confident that contact with his daughter would ease some of the lines forming in his brow. And though it did, he did not venture a smile until she also knelt by the chair to kiss his cheek. Only then was he stirred from his anxious reverie to attend her fully, and let the smile return to his face once more.

"You are still comparing their situation to what mine was," she warned him, "and though you are good to be wary, you forget one very important detail. Our girls have something to their advantage which I was deprived of."

"Sufficient dowries?"

Marianne tried to contain the volume of her laughter so as not to wake her smallest one. "No, my love! I mean a present father who will temper any romantic sensibilities with good sense and proper discipline."

"You make me sound quite the taskmaster," he grumbled, but without any real petulance. It was near impossible to be gruff with his hand occupied in stroking the softest cheek that ever was. He thought Nan looked like she might take after him in looks, and he was struck with a strange combination of pride and pity.

"Far from it," she murmured, smoothing away the remaining creases of worry in his expression with a gentle hand, "You are the kindest and best of fathers."

"I have no wish to spoil them," he said in an unnecessary defence, sighing slightly from the concerns he bore.

"No, we have all seen the effects of a spoiled child." She meant it in reference to their wretched cousin, Harry Dashwood, spawned from the loins of John and Fanny, though the Colonel was dwelling more despondently on a ruined girl of long ago who saw the ill effects of his own overindulgence.

"We have not had any sons, though," she sighed. "We might not know how to raise a son properly if we had one."

The Colonel turned his head upwards to smile fondly at her. "I do not mind having all daughters. Especially if they all grow to be as fine and beautiful as their mother."

"You had better hope they learn to be better and wiser than their mother, or it will be the young men you'll be warning away from them."

He opened his mouth to protest, to tell her it was so unlikely a man would exist to be worthy of any of his daughters that the very thought was preposterous, but just at that moment, Sarah let out a bone-rattling sneeze, frightening Ellen into knocking over her city of blocks, and Mary to squeal in laughter. Faithful Duke, though momentarily startled, barely flinched at the babe's unexpected outburst, and promptly went back to dozing on his paws the moment it was certain there was no real threat to his ladies.

Some time after they had discussed and decided on how they might make provision for each of their girls, as if it was expected that they would likely produce only daughters, another addition to the family was born, this time, a son. Nancy was all of five years and eight months when her brother was born, and was old enough to claim upon his arrival that the small, round-headed creature was hers by right, no matter how Mama or Nurse might protest.

His name thereafter was Boy. That is to say, his parents who were generally reasonable people christened him Peter, but friends and acquaintances took to calling him "the Brandon boy," as if to distinguish him further from the flock of sisters preceding him. Nanny found this quite an acceptable title, and easy for her young lips to pronounce, and her elder sisters were so enchanted with her adoption of his nickname that they adopted it as well. "Boy" hardly knew his proper name for the remainder of his life.

In contrast to the succession of offspring from the Great House, Edward and Elinor, through no fault of their own, had a more sensible amount of children. Having first produced a male child and thereby securing their own claims to the Ferrars lineage, they had a girl three years after, and God, it seemed, was pleased to let that be the completion of their family.

This was, admittedly, something of a relief to Elinor, who although never minding the necessity of economising was not ignorant of the fact that their little cottage would not comfortably support very many occupants. She had more sleepless nights than she liked to admit over the impossibility of affording an addition to the house in the foreseeable future. It was with mixed feelings, then, that she took the news that she was not likely to have any more children after the birth of their daughter. Edward was, as always, most content with his family's situation, no matter the case.

In general, it could be said that all was as it should have been, though Marianne was periodically nettled by fears relating to her eldest daughter's begetting. For a time, she worried that Mary's pale beauty and dark eyes were so like John Willoughby's that it would alert the entire village of their relation, or worse, that Minney would discover some inexcusable difference between herself and her sisters, and be ruined forever in the discovery. Colonel Brandon had nothing to say that would dissolve her fears until Ellen was a little grown with the same dark eyes and fair complexion as her sister, and if that were not enough, Sarah also bore characteristics that were clearly not passed down from her father.

Though the danger of being singled out as having a questionable place in the Brandon line was never truly pressing, Mary did come to be known as a remarkable beauty, even more so than any of her sisters, and there were, at times, something in her look, and especially her profile, marks of expression that were neither Marianne's nor Colonel Brandon's, but belonging to the man they hoped she would never know as her progenitor.

Willoughby never came to them again. At least, they were not accosted by him at any time that the Colonel or Marianne was aware of. This could have been a testimony to the Colonel's overprotective ways, or perhaps it was merely the wisdom of Willoughby biding his time that saw so many years without his intrusion. The fact that they could never be entirely certain that he would let them alone for good did continue to plague Marianne, though as the years wore on, she grew less and less fearful.

Aunt Margaret was a favourite among the children, being grown enough to mind them in place of Marianne or the governess, but not so grown that she'd forgotten the best games and amusements for spirited young people.

Mary Brandon outgrew such frivolities almost before her aunt, preferring conversation on tangible matters to anything make-believe could inspire. She was as interested in her father's books and business as she was in her mother's running of the household, and considered it her God-given duty to uphold the honour and respectability of their family unit. It was Minney with her calculating judgements who harboured the most misgivings against Mr. Richard Abbott throughout his courtship of her Aunt Margaret, and it was Minney who was the most enthused about their marriage once he had proven himself a worthy officer and gentleman. Though she was but six years of age during her aunt's courtship, her opinions on such matters were clearly stated and unfaltering in duration.

As she grew, the Colonel gradually amended his standards of a match for her, convinced by the time she was eleven that the man she would marry must not only be upright, kindly, and well-mannered, but also possessing of an impressive title.

"Our Miss Brandon must have a lord," he decided, and Mary never said anything to the contrary. In fact, if her father had not required such virtues to be present in her pursuers, she would have insisted upon them herself.

Before Miss Brandon had come of age, or a lord could be found for her to care whether or not she ever came out, the Brandon Boy had made his appearance, and Mary took it upon herself to instruct him in all matters pertaining to the responsibilities of the estate as well as the particulars of proper gentlemanly behaviour. She and Nan were often rivals for Boy's attention, as the one was relentless in what she deemed necessary character growth, and the other would not participate in anything at all unless her Boy could be spared to join in.

Their brother was a good-natured lad who was as fond of his doting sisters as they were of him, though perhaps a little less aggressive in demeanour than Mary might have hoped for the Brandon heir. Still, he was by no means a disappointment, and once they'd all grown used to having a brother, all the Miss Brandons—and their parents as well—settled into their lives with as much joy and purpose as one ought to expect of a thriving family of seven.

There was an occasion or two past her coming out in which Mary was approached by a tall and handsome gentleman of about her mother's years, who attempted to make an introduction of himself. Being wary of strangers in general, and insulted by his lack of decorum in not waiting for a proper introduction by way of a mutual friend or acquaintance, Mary had none of it, refusing to even acknowledge his existence except to ask her Aunt Margaret what sort of ill-mannered rogue might behave so presumptuously. Upon receiving a full description of the gentleman in question, Aunt Margaret grew uncharacteristically serious.

"That sounds like Mr. Willoughby," she said, "He was very fond of your mother once."

"Why should he take an interest in me?" Mary questioned. "It must have been very long ago that he was fond of Mama."

"Perhaps he has not got over her, still. I was younger than you when it all came about, but there was a time when it seemed... well," she faltered, not wanting to give her niece the wrong impression if her memory was faulty, "What I do know of the matter is that he broke your mother's heart, and your father married her to mend it."

Mary raised an eyebrow disbelievingly, "That sounds like one of your contrived romances. How could Mama have her heart broken by a man she did not marry?"

"Who broke Mama!?" The cry of concern came from Boy, who paused in his swordplay with a crooked stick to defend his mother from the unknown evil.

Mary ruffled his hair affectionately, "A bad man who we won't speak of anymore," she insisted, urging him back to the open lawn to continue his exercise. "We shall do all in our power to avoid his introduction and be spared the burden of an acquaintance."

Boy glowered treacherously, brandishing his stick with extra force at the invisible threat, "I'll fight him if he comes! Don't let him hurt you, either, Minney!" he beseeched, eyes wide and full of worry.

"I'm sure your father would take care of him before it came to that," their aunt remarked. "You know he would never let anyone hurt your mama, or your sisters."

The Brandon Boy nodded vigorously, absolutely confident in his father's ability to keep every member of their household safe and well.

Mary, too, let the incident pass, staying true to her word in avoiding Mr. Willoughby, and no more thinking of him than the wasps in the garden. She did not think him worthy of more curiosity than that. Whatever had transpired in the past had no affect on her, present or future. She was a Brandon, after all, and as such she would live and prosper.