[For Anne & Matthew]

[bennet_beauty]

It did seem almost strange that time enough had passed for their two children to play together so independently. It was only a small time ago that Jane recalled how she worried over Lydia's every movement and how it seemed as though Lydia could take large skips, hops, and steps to do anything she liked and Matthew seemed just as big

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[island_anne]

"I should have suspected that any child of mine and Ariel's would have an unrivalled sense of adventure and curiosity," said Anne, "but now that he's large enough to act upon it, I find it quite unavoidable to notice. It really doesn't seem that long ago that I was the one playing games of imagination. Though perhaps with slightly less...energy."

[bennet_beauty]

"They do seem to be buzzing with it," Jane observed with a nod of her head. Lydia was normally a quieter child, but it seemed that with Matthew, he spurred her on to be far more talkative and louder at that. "Though, they are very dear. Has he been adventurous, then? Finding all sorts of new trouble?"

[island_anne]

"If there's even a whiff of trouble, he seems to find it," said Anne with the sigh of someone who's resigned herself to her fate. "And if there isn't a whiff of trouble, he makes it. Oh, not the terrible sort of course, but it feels like there's not a thing he won't get into, given half a chance."

[bennet_beauty]

"And how old is he, precisely?" Jane did know the rough approximation, but sometimes she forget how old in exact terms that he was and wished to know, in the event that she might be able to offer her own advice. "He does seem to be very spirited."