She was timid and shy, and a little awkward.

Her child-like openness of speech and humour seemed obscured.

She had less to say than usual, and at the same time there was a suggestion of restless unease about her.

Hester Osborn, after a few minutes, began to have an odd feeling that the woman's eyes held a question or a desire in them.
She had brought some superb roses from the Manor gardens, and she moved about arranging them for Hester in vases.
"It is beautiful to come back to the country," she said.

"When I get into the carriage at the station and drive through the sweet air, I always feel as if I were beginning to live again, and as if in London I had not been quite alive.