Did this mean that she was about to marry again?
What else could it point to?
"Therefore Charles must have a household of his own.

That is obvious.
Now, I don't approve of bachelor establishments.

Do you ?" "Really, Mrs.Westmacott, I have never thought of the matter." "Oh, you little sly puss! Was there ever a girl who never thought of the matter?
I think that a young man of six-and-twenty ought to be married." Clara felt very uncomfortable.

The awful thought had come upon her that this ambassadress had come to her as a proxy with a proposal of marriage.

But how could that be?
She had not spoken more than three or four times with her nephew, and knew nothing more of him than he had told her on the evening before.