Quicksands by B.M. Croker — Read

Mrs. Paget-Taylor, whose society had been so urgently recommended by my aunt, was the wife of uncle's agent, Captain Paget-Taylor, a broad-shouldered, long-headed, active man of fifty, a first-rate farmer and a celebrated shot. His consort was a little dark woman endowed with extraordinary animation, tact and capability. Her house was comfortable and well appointed, her cook a treasure, her delightful drawing-room furnished with most inviting sofas and chairs, delicious cushions, stacks of flowers, and softly shaded lamps. This apartment was the council chamber and scene of many important conferences, for Mrs. Paget-Taylor was a power in the neighbourhood. From her kidney-shaped writing table she pulled many strings and was credited with an ample supply of what is known as "interest." Her activities, although of the same genre, were on a different scale to those of Lizzie Puckle. Whilst Lizzie harangued school children, took the chair at meetings, got up rummage sales, and shepherded outlying hamlets, Mrs. Paget-Taylor merely held interviews and confidential conversations. She was known to be exceedingly insidious and persuasive, and I may say at once that she was my aunt's right hand! My relative referred to Mrs. Paget-Taylor on every question and in every crisis -- whether it was the matter of a new kitchen range or a prospective son-in-law; and, as the agent's wife had no family and ample leisure, she was in a position to throw herself heart and soul into other people's affairs.

No one in the whole neighbourhood was so popular as Mrs. Paget-Taylor; she was always agreeable, well dressed, helpful, and sympathetic. Half the girls and the young married women laid their miseries before her, and she might almost be said to have kept a high-class registry office for marriages and situations!