They are not defenceless, like the shy and the silent.
Nevertheless, it was clear that if Diana welcomed the neighbors with pleasure she often saw them go with relief.

As soon as the house was clear of them, she would stand pensively by the fire, looking down into the blaze like one on whom a dream suddenly descends--then would often call her dog, and go out alone, into the winter twilight.

From these rambles she would return grave--sometimes with reddened eyes.

But at all times, as Mrs.Colwood soon began to realize, there was but a thin line of division between her gayety and some inexplicable sadness, some unspoken grief, which seemed to rise upon her and overshadow her, like a cloud tangled in the woods of spring.

Mrs.Colwood could only suppose that these times of silence and eclipse were connected in some way with her father and her loss of him.