The Third Miss St Quentin by Mary Louisa Molesworth

Summer, not spring now. But the same garden and the same people in it -- three of them, that is to say, little chance though there might be at the first glance, of our recognising them.

They were sitting together on the lawn -- the two sisters Madelene and Ermine and their cousin Philip. They were less changed than he perhaps -- Madelene especially, for she had always been tall, and at fourteen had looked older than her years, whereas now at five-and-twenty one could scarcely have believed her to be as much. She had fulfilled the promise of her girlhood for she was an undoubtedly beautiful woman, though to those who knew her but superficially, she might have seemed wanting in animation, for she was quiet almost to coldness, thoughtful and self-controlled, weighing well her words before she spoke and slow in making up her mind to any decision.