Jemima hadn’t thought to have any concerns about the house – not until now, at any rate, because the more he said the more he seemed to be talking his way around something, but what was wrong with the house she could not discern. It was small, then? No, average, he had said, but whatever was wrong with that? Cramped? She would manage. She was hardly in a position to be expecting the world from them. Besides, the Greengrasses were relatively similar in standing as a family as the Farleys, as far as she knew; she had no reason to suppose there would be any drastic changes for better or worse in that respect.

“Oh, thank you, but I’m sorry you’re going to all the trouble – I’m sure I’ll be very comfortable.” She supposed there hadn’t been enough time in this engagement to buy a house of their own; or that Mr. Greengrass was too fond a brother or a son to abandon the rest of his family before his sisters were all quite settled in marriages themselves. And comfortable was really all one could expect, so Jemima would take that. Indeed, she ought to be pleased if he didn’t resent her fiercely enough to stuff her up somewhere in a dusty old attic, out of sight.

Unless these third floor rooms were actually an attic – but he’d mentioned the view, so she would rather be romantic about the possibilities until proven wrong. And, well, Jemima would try her best to be romantic about Mr. Greengrass too. “And it is very kind of you to invite your cousins to stay.” Miss Greer had said as much, that they had taken them in after the death of their parents. Generous, kind, dutiful; if Jemima erased all memory of the coatroom incident, Mr. Greengrass had plenty of qualities. (Not necessarily the ones she had looked for in potential suitors before, but – qualities all the same.)

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