At first, the woman seems defined by a winter spent among famous people: she moves in spring with a self-possessed, almost polished grace. But the speaker quickly complicates that impression. She still does her own housework, and she keeps an older, inherited knowledge, spreading white wash over rhododendrons in bright sun.
The white coating looks like leftover snow, offering small glimpses of a mountain covered in ice. That image gives the poem a calm, admiring mood. The speaker seems to respect someone who can move through a refined social world without losing her connection to humble daily work and ancestral practice. Her dignity comes from holding both sides of her life together rather than choosing between them.