The most that she could expect would be
four or five days of his company, and she knew that she must be
upon her mettle. She must do more now than she had ever attempted
before. She must scruple at nothing that might bind him. She would
be in the house of her uncle and that uncle a duke, and she thought
that those facts might help to quell him. And she would be there
without her mother, who was so often a heavy incubus on her
shoulders. She thought of it all, and made her plans carefully and
even painfully. She would be at any rate two days in the house
before his arrival. During that time she would curry favour with
her uncle by all her arts, and would if possible reconcile herself
to her aunt. She thought once of taking her aunt into her full
confidence and balanced the matter much in her mind. The Duchess,
she knew, was afraid of her,--or rather afraid of the relationship,
and would of course be pleased to have all fears set at rest by
such an alliance. But her aunt was a woman who had never suffered
hardships, whose own marriage had been easily arranged, and whose
two daughters had been pleasantly married before they were twenty
years old. She had had no experience of feminine difficulties, and
would have no mercy for such labours as those to which her less
fortunate niece was driven. It would have been a great thing to
have the cordial co-operation of her aunt; but she could not
venture to ask for it.
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