Benevolence brightened considerably as he expressed interest in her dinner - and she resolved to make the final arrangements and send out the invitations as soon as she got home. Not that the event was entirely out of the blue, but the prospect of Mister Crouches attendance put paid to any further procrastination on her part. The dinner would happen sooner rather than later. If her parents had still lived, or if she had a better general acquaintance with his family it might have been possible to arrange those more intimate social occasions, like dinners or musical evenings but that was not the case. Reserved by nature and not of a flirtatious disposition she found it difficult to express to a gentleman her affections, sharing those most intimate parts of her life, her plants, her garden, her green house, were her language of affection, if not of love.

'You may count on it Mister Crouch' she beamed

---