I've read two books by Margaret Oliphaunt, and really enjoyed both! One is The Beleaguered City, about a town overrun by ghosts, which is melancholy and funny and fascinatingly not at all what I expected. The other is Miss Marjoribanks, which sounds more similar to this and is a total delight (aside from some period-typical classism). The titular Miss Marjoribanks returns home with the avowed pious intent of being a comfort to her poor father (who's not particularly in need of comfort) and the actual intent of becoming the social leader of the town, a campaign she sets about with all the verve and calculation of a gifted general launching a war. This comparison is very much in the book, and it's fascinating and enormously fun; it's very funny, but nonetheless the tactics of choosing wallpaper for best effect are taken very seriously. (And here again, the romance exists but as something of an afterthought, real enough but part of and secondary to her real goals.)