Effie Strange is the bright young thing of the acquaintance: adored, exhausting, and always precisely one enthusiasm ahead of her income. Her debts are kept fresh, like flowers; her creditors are numerous and, mysteriously, fond of her; and her attentions to the Colonel, whose will remains so interestingly unsettled, are remarked upon by everyone except the Colonel.
She burns brightly in company — the moth and the flame, the drawing-rooms say, without ever agreeing which she is — and she has never once been dull, which in Cairnholm covers a multitude of sins, and has had to.