She had the reputation, which nothing in her manner contradicted, of being the most practical of people.

Ordering meals, directing servants, paying bills, and so contriving that every clock ticked more or less accurately in time, and a number of vases were always full of fresh flowers was supposed to be a natural endowment of hers, and, indeed, Mrs.Hilbery often observed that it was poetry the wrong side out.

From a very early age, too, she had to exert herself in another capacity; she had to counsel and help and generally sustain her mother.

Mrs.Hilbery would have been perfectly well able to sustain herself if the world had been what the world is not.

She was beautifully adapted for life in another planet.