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"You loved him very much," she said.

Mr. Bennet's expression softened. "I did. He could be a dreadful nuisance, and I should have been desolate without him."

"I am glad he was my father."

"So am I, Lizzy."

It was the first time he had used that familiar name. Elizabeth looked up, surprised, and he pretended to return his attention to the book.

Several weeks later she brought him a different concern.

"Uncle, may I ask for a German dictionary?"

"I should be interested to know why you suppose I possess the means to procure such a treasure."

"Because you have so many books already that one more cannot be a very serious matter."

"An alarming argument. If followed to its natural conclusion, it will leave us all bankrupt. Why do you need one?"

"I am forgetting words. Mama taught me so many, and now when I read, I sometimes cannot remember precisely what they mean."

Mr. Bennet set aside his pen. "Have you forgotten how to speak the language?"

"No. But I have forgotten what she sounded like when she corrected me." Elizabeth lowered her eyes. "I do not wish to forget anything else."

He was silent for a moment. Then he asked her to bring the German books she had inherited. Together they examined the texts, discovering a volume of fairy tales, a small book of hymns, and a collection of poems with notes in Minna's hand. Mr. Bennet could not understand most of the words, but he recognized a careful education in the marginal corrections.

"Your mother was a learned woman," he observed.

"She was cleverer than Papa at cards," Elizabeth informed him. "He said she could remember every card and every foolish remark he made."

"That must have been an extraordinary burden." Mr. Bennet smiled. "We shall see what can be done."

He wrote to a bookseller in London. A dictionary arrived before Christmas, along with a slim German grammar and a letter from a correspondent willing to recommend a language master who occasionally visited Hertfordshire. The lessons were not frequent, but they were enough to provide conversation and correct the errors Elizabeth began acquiring through reading alone.

Mrs. Bennet protested at the expense.

"I cannot imagine why the child must learn German," she complained as Mr. Bennet inspected the books. "French is useful, and Italian has its admirers, but German! Who will care whether she can speak to a Prussian?"

"Possibly the Prussian," Mr. Bennet answered.

"You delight in being ridiculous."

"And you in preventing us from becoming too learned. Between us, my dear, we provide an excellent education."

Elizabeth carried her books upstairs, carefully concealing her pleasure. She was learning that gratitude need not always be announced, especially when the announcement might produce another argument.

The German master whom Mr. Bennet engaged was Herr Adler, a courteous gentleman of middle years who spent much of his time instructing merchants' sons in London. He had expected to find a provincial girl who knew a few phrases by rote. Instead he discovered that Elizabeth could speak of her breakfast, her sorrow, and the unreasonable conduct of her cousins with equal fluency, though her spelling sometimes lagged behind her speech.

"You have been taught in a curious fashion, Fräulein," he observed during their second lesson. "Some of your expressions are old-fashioned, and your pronunciation has the care of a household that values ceremony. But the language is yours. You do not assemble it as an English pupil would."

"Mama spoke it to me from the time I could answer her," Elizabeth explained. "Perhaps she was very old-fashioned. Papa said she could make a request for more butter sound like a royal proclamation."

Herr Adler smiled. "She certainly spoke elegantly, if you learned these turns of phrase from her. Do not be ashamed of them. Only remember that a farmer and a court official might choose different words to describe the same weather."

Elizabeth immediately wished to know both sets of words. Mr. Bennet, listening from the doorway, remarked that the weather seemed unlikely to survive such an assault upon its character. He asked Herr Adler to recommend books containing ordinary conversations as well as poems, for he was determined that Elizabeth should be able to use the language rather than merely admire it.

Mary, who had been listening from the passage, asked timidly whether she might join one lesson. Elizabeth expected the request to be followed by an improving lecture about diligence. Instead Mary confessed that the sound of the hymns interested her and she would like to understand the words before attempting the music.