She knew that if Mrs. Wingfield were pleased with her, Jack would be delighted and ask her to marry him the next time they met, if he did not force a meeting with her for the purpose; but if his mother did not approve of her, and called her heartless because her dress was white instead of black, and flippant because she had appeared several days at a sporting meeting within a couple of months of her husband’s death, he would be greatly downcast, but he would ask her to marry him all the same. But she had set forth to face the ordeal by visit as firmly as she would have gone to meet the ordeal by fire or the ordeal by water, had she lived in the days of such tests of faith. She knew that, whatever should happen her faith in him would not be shaken and his faith in her would remain unmoved. But she had made up her mind to find favour in the sight of his mother, and she now felt that she had succeeded in doing so. If she had failed, she would have been miserable, but she would have promised to marry him all the same. The sense of exultation which was hers was due to her knowledge of the fact that she had found favour in the eyes of the mother of the man whom she loved, not to her feeling that she would, as the wife of Jack Wingfield, occupy a splendid position in the county--such a position as her poor mother had never dreamt of her filling. Beyond a doubt, she found it quite delightful to think of owning that beautiful park through which she had been allowed as a great privilege to stray while the house was empty. Every part of the grounds was a delight to her--the deep glen with its well-wooded sides sloping down to the little stream that twinkled among its ferns and mosses and primroses--the irregular meadow where stood the tawny haystacks like islands in the midst of a sea of brilliant green--the spacious avenues of elm and oak that made her feel when walking in their shadow, that she was going through the nave of a cathedral--she loved everything about the place, and it would be the greatest joy to her to live all her life there--with love; without love she would as soon spend the rest of her life in one of the cottages on her father’s farm. She felt exultant only in the thought that he was to be her companion when she went to that place. She had all her life been looking forward to a life of love; and it had been puzzling to her when she found that year after year went by without bringing her any closer to love. She was not conscious of being fastidious in her association with men; but the fact remained the same: she never had the smallest feeling of love for any of the men who had told her that they loved her--and she never had a lack of such men about her.