Mrs. Blencarrow was, however, entirely unaware of this arrow shot into the air. She was still, though approaching forty, as handsome as at any period of her career, with all the additional charms of experience and understanding added to the still unbroken perfection of her features and figure. She was tall and pale, with large gray eyes, singularly clear and lustrous, which met every gaze with a full look, sometimes very imposing, and which always conveyed an impression of pride and reserve in the midst of their full and brave response to every questioning eye. Mrs. Bircham, who was not without discrimination, had indeed made a very fair hit in her description of her neighbour’s look. Sometimes those proud and steadfast eyes would be overbearing--haughty in their putting down of every impertinent glance. She had little colour habitually, but was subject to sudden flushes whenever her mind or feelings were affected, which wonderfully changed the character of her face, and came and went like the wind. She dressed always with a rich sobriety, in black or subdued colours--tones of violet and gray--never quite forgetting her widowhood, her friends thought, though always cheerful, as a woman with a family of children is bound for their sakes to be. She was an excellent woman of business, managing her estate with the aid of a sort of half-steward, half-agent, a young man brought up by her husband and specially commended to her by his dying lips. People said, when they discussed Mrs. Blencarrow’s affairs, as the affairs of women and widows are always discussed, that it would have been better for her to have had a more experienced and better instructed man as steward, who would have taken the work entirely off her hands--for young Brown was not at all a person of education; but her devotion to her husband’s recommendation was such that she would hear of no change. And the young fellow on his side was so completely devoted to the family, so grateful for all that had been done for him, so absolutely trustworthy, that the wisest concluded on the whole that she was doing the best for her son’s interests in keeping Brown, who lived in the house, but in quite an humble way--one of the wisest points in Mrs. Blencarrow’s treatment of him being that she never attempted to bring him out of his own sphere.