Often other women were hopelessly messy, forever nibbling or gadding about, but she wasn't like them at all.

She was much too serious.

Then she would laugh, and modestly defend herself.
It was her misfortune that she had not always been good, having been with a man when only fourteen.

Then too, she had often helped her mother empty a bottle of anisette.

But she had learned a few things from experience.