Patty looked at her matter-of-fact lover, raising her head high, preparing the sharpest speeches. She sat very upright, all the tears over, ready, quite ready, to give him his answer. But then there suddenly came over Patty a vision of the winter which was coming, the winter that would be just like the last--the monotonous, dreadful days, the long, lingering, mortal nights, with Aunt Patience for her sole companion. And her thoughts leapt on before to the ’andsome ’ouse; for being, as Roger said, of his kind, and understanding by nature what he meant, her imagination represented to her in a flash as of sunshine, that shining, brilliant, high-coloured house--with all the last improvements and the newest fashions, plate-glass windows, shining fresh paint which it would be a delight to keep like a new pin, everything new, clean, delightful; carpets and curtains of her own choosing, costing a great deal of money, and of which she could say to every guest, “It’s the best that money could buy,” or “I gave so much a yard for it,” or “Every window stands me in fifty pounds there as you see it.” All this appeared to Patty in a flash of roseate colour. And the pair of spanking horses at the door, and a crowd of cricketing men, yes, and cricketing ladies; and meetings in her own grounds, and great luncheon parties, and quantities of other young couples thinking of nothing but their fun and their pleasure, the wives dressing against each other, the young men competing in their batting and bowling, and in their horses and turn-outs, but all in the easiest, noisiest, friendly way, and all surrounding herself, Patty, with admiration and homage as the richest among them. Oh, what a contrast to grey old Greyshott, with its empty, echoing rooms and its dark solitude, and the pictures of dead people, as Roger said, and not a lively sight or sound, nothing but Jerningham and the other servants and Aunt Patience. To think of all that, and Roger added to it,--Roger, who sat looking at her so kindly, with his handsome good-humoured face, not hurrying her in her decision, looking as if he knew beforehand that she could not resist him and his offer of everything she liked best in the world. All this came to Patty in a moment, as she sat with her sharp speeches all arrested on her lips. The pause she made was not long, but it was long enough to show him that she had begun to think, and we all know that the woman who deliberates is lost; and it was in the nature of the practical-minded lover, who was not given to the sentimental, as it was also in Patty’s nature, to carry things by a _coup de main_. He sprang up from the seat he had taken opposite to her, and suddenly, before she was aware, gave Patty a hearty kiss which seemed to sound through all the silent house.