She lived at home.

She did it very well, too.

Any one coming to the house in Cheyne Walk felt that here was an orderly place, shapely, controlled--a place where life had been trained to show to the best advantage, and, though composed of different elements, made to appear harmonious and with a character of its own.

Perhaps it was the chief triumph of Katharine's art that Mrs.Hilbery's character predominated.

She and Mr.Hilbery appeared to be a rich background for her mother's more striking qualities.
Silence being, thus, both natural to her and imposed upon her, the only other remark that her mother's friends were in the habit of making about it was that it was neither a stupid silence nor an indifferent silence.
But to what quality it owed its character, since character of some sort it had, no one troubled themselves to inquire.