What do these mean? no less impressed and "ffected in a different way" in context second paragraph?

Miss Keble, sensing these thoughts, kept the subject going , marveling that so little achieved should seem so much a triumph ., yet understanding that it should be. She would not easily forget the faces of the girls, their voices,too, and how politely they stood back, respecting strangers. All of it was impossible to forget. Miss Cotell again was silent but still no less impressed and then quite suddenly, affected in a different way, an urge to weep restrained. On the homeward train her tears, permitted now, were not of sorrowing or distress but came because her friend understood so much so well, because agreement between them never faltering had been today more than it had ever been before.