But she was downright afraid of her niece. Afraid of her moral
strength which dominated everything and everybody; ill at ease with the
straightforward way she had of speaking her mind on occasions, and
following up her speech with action. Never an untruth had she known to
pass the girl's lips, not once had she heard her say one belittling
thing about a living soul, and only twice had she seen the sweetness
and gentleness swept with anger.

Cruelty to anything small or weak could transform the girl into a flame
of wrath, and her weakest spot was her overpowering sympathy with
anyone in distress, without any inquiries into the direct cause of the
adversity, which spot caused her to be considerably taken in by many of
those who had discerned it.

An almost abnormal moral strength, allied to great gentleness and pity,
combined to make a character extraordinary in one so young, and which
her aunt summed up and summarily dismissed from her mind in the trite
sentence that "she certainly did not take after her parents."

She was considered slow by the youths, and perplexing and therefore to
be avoided by the girls of her own age, and dull or frightfully
conceited by the men who had fluttered round her almost exotic beauty
until they had come up against the icy barrier of her supreme
indifference.

To those who knew her intimately, such as the fisherfolk and the
farmers, and the tramps with whom she would sit and converse by the
wayside and share her lunch, she was the most lovable, cheery soul in
the world, which, of course, meant the county of Devon.