As Mary closed the door rather noisily, Sarah Greene's sensibilities shrank from such a robustly common-sensible point of view being applied to her romantic project. The idea of new life in Lynton house coinciding with so much vigorous new life in Lynton gardens was compensation to her for her own death. It struck the right balance; more, it pleased her always fastidious sense of the fitness of things, that she, an old woman, should die before the turn of the year when sap springs in the bough, and that her grandnephew should be born in her house at the time when apple trees blossom and lambs play in the field. This pastoral conception sustained a rude shock when Mary translated it into terms of dust and domestics. Mary is a genuinely good capable girl, she told herself, not imaginative, perhaps, but with courage and intelligence, and most of the qualities that Roger needs in a wife. Even so, it was difficult to see Mary at Lynton, ordering the household, planning new effects for the misty herbaceous border, lavishly stocking the formal beds, attentive to the diurnal duties towards flowers and trees and shrubs. Sarah Greene thought of her other young relations: Lavinia, mondaine, vivid, with a delicate certainty of touch that enabled her to cover her essential sophistication with a delightful veneer of country simplicity. Lavinia in green linen stooping over the rose beds in the sunlight was perfect; Lavinia in scarlet silk stepping out of the French window to the moonlit terrace was perfect; her clothes for a country weekend were admirable. But Lavinia waking day after day to the sound of steady rain, was unimaginable. She would find herself without interests and without resources. Mrs. Greene decided quite firmly that Lavinia would not do for Lynton. Helen and Geoffrey were not more promising candidates. Geoffrey's manifest uneasiness in tweeds, his distaste for country pursuits no less than Helen's restlessness and impatience, rendered them ineligible. Helen really paints well, thought Mrs. Greene. It's a pity she so seldom finishes anything, and that when she does, she just tosses it aside and begins at once on something new. A vision of Helen frenziedly digging up week-old bulbs to see if they had sprouted crossed Mrs. Greene's mind and she smiled. Only Hugh and Jessica remained. But Jessica, the youngest Mrs. Greene, with her small creamy face, her cool incisiveness to the world and her passionate gentleness to Hugh could never belong to Lynton. She was too slight and too brittle. At moments she seemed as vibrant as spun glass, at moments she dimmed into a moony vagueness. There was no stability about her; she would never move with Lynton through the steady roll of the seasons, taking note of the almost imperceptible signs that herald growth and decay.