Her manners were quite undemonstrative; they seemed to be neither fastidious nor the reverse, and it would have been hard to predicate from them in what station of life she had been brought up.

She certainly adapted herself well to whatever society she happened to be with; neither patricians nor plebeians found any thing to criticise; but, whether this were the result of tact, or owing merely to the adoption of a negative standard, no one could say.

In language she was uniformly correct, without seeming at all scholastic; she occasionally used the idioms and dialectic peculiarities of those around her, though never with the air of being heedlessly betrayed into them.
On the whole, therefore, the boarding-house keeper remained a problem or a commonplace, according to the fancy of the observer.

In any case, she had grown to be a necessity, if not a popular element, in the village society.

It was in her large, rambling rooms that all the grand parties and social celebrations took place.