Explore "Hollyhock, a Spirit of Mischief" by L.T. Meade on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Miss Delacour was an elderly woman with somewhat coarse gray hair. She was not old, but elderly. She had a very broad figure, plump and well-proportioned. Miss Delacour thought little about so trivial a thing as fashion, or mere dress in any shape or form. She was fond of saying that she was as the Almighty made her, and that clothes were nothing but a snare of the flesh.
Agnes Delacour was exceedingly well off, but she lived in a very small house in Chelsea, and gave of her abundance to those whom she called 'the Lord's poor. ' Her charities were many and wide-spread, and on that account she was highly esteemed by numbers of people, either very poor or struggling, in that upper class which needs help so much, and gets it so little. To these people Agnes Delacour gave freely, saving many young people from utter ruin by her timely aid, and drawing down on her devoted head the blessings of their fathers and mothers, who spoke of her as one of the Lord's saints. Nevertheless those who knew Miss Delacour really well did _not_ love her. She was too cold, too masterful, for their taste, and these folks would rather live in great difficulties than accept her bounty.