With all her work and philanthropic schemes, she was never too busy to see to her household.

She might neglect her own personal comfort and overtask her willing helper Anna, but her servants did their duty, and were well fed and well managed; and they worked all the better for the knowledge that their mistress's keen eyes would detect the slightest laxity.

"My mother is a good woman," he said to himself; "she is true and just in all her dealings," and he felt with a sudden pang of remorse as though he had never valued her enough.
"Is Miss Carlyon like her brother in appearance ?" he asked the next minute.
"Not a bit; she would make two of David.

She is a big, red-haired woman, not exactly bad-looking--if she would only set herself off.

But the Carlyons have a family failing, they cling to their old clothes and eschew fashion.