She looked after the chattering and lazy maids who so easily managed to get lost in the nearby groves.
In the kitchen, too, she made her authority felt like a regular house-mistress, but the minute that she heard her husband's voice she shrank into a respectful and timorous silence.

Upon sitting down at table, the China would look at him with devoted submission, her great, round eyes fixed on him, like an owl's.

Desnoyers felt that in this mute admiration was mingled great astonishment at the energy with which the ranchman, already over seventy, was continuing to bring new occupants to live on his demesne.
The two daughters, Luisa and Elena, accepted with enthusiasm the new arrival who came to enliven the monotonous conversations in the dining room, so often cut short by their father's wrathful outbursts.

Besides, he was from Paris.

"Paris!" sighed Elena, the younger one, rolling her eyes.