Mrs. Dorling was a very shrewd and cunning lady, who was double faced as well. She pretended to be very caring and thoughtful toward the narrator's family but her real intentions were revealed when she was confronted by narrator years later. She expected narrator's family to be killed during the war so that she could take over all their belongings, indeed she was very materialistic however she didn't have a very good sense of taking care of things and decors of house.Although she wanted to be those things with her but never took care of them as much as narrator's mother used to take, which was very evident by the fact stated in the story about the condition of the things.