Delilah of the Snows by Harold Bindloss

The sunlight beat down fiercely on the shaven grass, and a drowsy hum of bees stole through the stillness of the Sunday afternoon when Grace Coulthurst and Geoffrey Esmond strolled across the lawn at Holtcar Grange. There were at least two acres of it, flanked by dusky firs and relieved on two sides by patches of graduated colour, while on the third side one looked out towards the blue hills across the deep hollow of Willow Dene into which the beech woods rolled down. A low wall, along which great urns of scarlet geraniums were set, cut off the lawn from the edge of the descent, and Grace, seating herself on the broad coping, glanced down into the cool shadow, out of which the sound of running water came up.

"It really looks very enticing on a day like this. Don't you think it is a little hard on the Hoddam people to shut them out of it? " she said.