Nan Pringle is the Colonel's poor relation by the late Mrs Cruikshank's line, and has made of that thin connexion a whole profession. She keeps his house, his accounts, and his engagements; she pours at his table and is thanked for it annually. Her allowance is described by the Colonel as generous, and by nobody else as anything at all.
She is quiet in company, punctual in everything, and misses nothing — a quality the household praises without ever quite enjoying. Her future is much discussed at Cairnholm dinner-tables, generally while she is in the room: there is an understanding, of the arranged and advantageous kind, of which she is the subject and was not the author. She pours the tea and says that she is very fortunate.