She had made Edith's friends her own. She was devoted to Edith, fonder
of the children than anyone except their grandmother, and strangely,
considering she was a visitor who gave trouble, she was adored by the
servants and by everyone in the house, with the single exception
of Archie.
She was carrying on a kind of half-religious flirtation with the Rev.
Byrne Fraser, who was gradually succeeding in making her very high
church. Sometimes she rose early and left the house mysteriously. She
went to Mass. There was a dreamy expression in her eyes when she came
back. A slight perfume of incense, instead of the lavender water that
she formerly affected, was now observable about her.
She went to see the 'London Group' and the 'New English' with young
Coniston, who explained to her all he had learnt from Aylmer, a little
wrong; while she assured him that she knew nothing about pictures, but
she knew what she liked.
She bought book-bindings from Miss Coniston, and showed her how to cook
macaroni and how to make cheap but unpalatable soup for her brother. And
she went to all the war concerts and bazaars got up by Valdez, to
meetings for the Serbians arranged by Mrs Mitchell and to Lady Conroy's
Knitting Society for the Refugees.
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