The Great Shadow by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

It was not very long before Cousin Edie was queen of West Inch, and we / all her devoted subjects from my father down. She had money and to / spare, though none of us knew how much. When my mother said that four / shillings the week would cover all that she would cost, she fixed on / seven shillings and sixpence of her own free will. The south room, / which was the sunniest and had the honeysuckle round the window, was for / her; and it was a marvel to see the things that she brought from Berwick / to put into it. Twice a week she would drive over, and the cart would / not do for her, for she hired a gig from Angus Whitehead, whose farm lay / over the hill. And it was seldom that she went without bringing / something back for one or other of us. It was a wooden pipe for my / father, or a Shetland plaid for my mother, or a book for me, or a brass / collar for Rob the collie. There was never a woman more free-handed.

But the best thing that she gave us was just her own presence. To me it / changed the whole country-side, and the sun was brighter and the braes / greener and the air sweeter from the day she came. Our lives were / common no longer now that we spent them with such a one as she, and the / old dull grey house was another place in my eyes since she had set her / foot across the door-mat. It was not her face, though that was winsome / enough, nor her form, though I never saw the lass that could match her; / but it was her spirit, her queer mocking ways, her fresh new fashion of / talk, her proud whisk of the dress and toss of the head, which made one / feel like the ground beneath her feet, and then the quick challenge in / her eye, and the kindly word that brought one up to her level again.