] I am thinking it was her dreaming of being married by the end of a few weeks courtship - her tickets being her calling card?

I'm absolutely certain that you are correct, and the footnote in my copy of the Penguin Classic edition agrees with both of us! However, I couldn't find 'ticket' defined as 'calling card' in my usual contemporary source: The 1782 Bailey's Dictionary. Bailey does say that the word Ticket comes from the French, etiquette: eTIQUETte, though.

Who knew?

Anyway, what I'm really writing about is an amusing discovery I just made. In Bailey's, the word listed below TICKET happens to be: TO TICKLE. I wondered how this normally humourless tome would define such an amusing word, but I was unprepared to read the following:

To TICKLE: An action better known than described.

Talk about taking the coward's way out!