Charlotte assented, but she did not go on with the subject.  She saw only too clearly that it was Edward of whom Ottilie was thinking.  It was not exactly habitual with him, but he allowed himself much more frequently than was at all desirable to stimulate his enjoyment and his power of talking and acting by such indulgence.  If what Charlotte had just said had set Ottilie thinking again about men, and particularly about Edward, she was all the more struck and startled when her aunt began to speak of the impending marriage of the Captain as of a thing quite settled and acknowledged.  This gave a totally different aspect to affairs from what Edward had previously led her to entertain.  It made her watch every expression of Charlotte’s, every hint, every action, every step.  Ottilie had become jealous, sharp-eyed, and suspicious, without knowing it.

Meanwhile, Charlotte with her clear glance looked through the whole circumstances of their situation, and made arrangements which would provide, among other advantages, full employment for Ottilie.  She contracted her household, not parsimoniously, but into narrower dimensions; and, indeed, in one point of view, these moral aberrations might be taken for a not unfortunate accident.  For in the style in which they had been going on, they had fallen imperceptibly into extravagance; and from a want of seasonable reflection, from the rate at which they had been living, and from the variety of schemes into which they had been launching out, their fine fortune, which had been in excellent condition, had been shaken, if not seriously injured.

The improvements which were going on in the park she did not interfere with; she rather sought to advance whatever might form a basis for future operations.  But here, too, she assigned herself a limit.  Her husband on his return should still find abundance to amuse himself with.

In all this work she could not sufficiently value the assistance of the young architect.  In a short time the lake lay stretched out under her eyes, its new shores turfed and planted with the most discriminating and excellent judgment.  The rough work at the new house was all finished.  Everything which was necessary to protect it from the weather she took care to see provided, and there for the present she allowed it to rest in a condition in which what remained to be done could hereafter be readily commenced again.  Thus hour by hour she recovered her spirits and her cheerfulness.  Ottilie only seemed to have done so.  She was only for ever watching, in all that was said and done, for symptoms which might show her whether Edward would be soon returning:  and this one thought was the only one in which she felt any interest.