First he asked himself, whether, under any circumstances, he would have wished to marry a widow, and especially a widow by whom he had already been jilted.

Yes; he thought that he could have forgiven her even that, if his own heart had not changed; but he did not forget to tell himself again how lucky it was for him that his heart was changed.

What countess in the world, let her have what park she might, and any imaginable number of thousands a year, could be so sweet, so nice, so good, so fitting for him as his own Florence Burton?
Then he endeavored to reflect what happened when a commoner married the widow of a peer.

She was still called, he believed, by her own title, unless she should choose to abandon it.

Any such arrangement was now out of the question; but he thought that he would prefer that she should have been called Mrs.Clavering, if such a state of things had come about.