The sober beauty of blotted silhouettes, and misty, rolling hills at evening when the clouds lifted over the sunset, did not appeal to her.

She wished that she had stayed in London; she wished that Helen and Mr.Digby were with her; she was even glad that Aunt Julia and the girls were coming.
There was a welcome diversion afforded for her, when Aunt Julia came, by the prompt hostility that declared itself between her and Miss Buckston.
Aunt Julia was not a person to allow a steam-roller to pass over her without protest, and Althea felt that she herself had been cowardly when she saw how Aunt Julia resented, for them both, Miss Buckston's methods.
Miss Buckston had a manner of saying rude things in sincere unconsciousness that they could offend anybody.

She herself did not take offence easily; she was, as she would have said, 'tough.' But Mrs.
Pepperell had all the sensitiveness--for herself and for others--of her race, the British race, highly strung with several centuries of transplantation to an electric climate.

If she was rude it was never unconsciously so.

After her first talk with Miss Buckston, in which the latter, as was her wont, told her a number of unpleasant facts about America and the Americans, Mrs.Pepperell said to her niece, 'What an intolerable woman!' 'She doesn't mean it,' said Althea feebly.
'Perhaps not,' said Aunt Julia; 'but I intend that she shall see what I mean.' Althea's feeling was of mingled discomfort and satisfaction.