Sophia by Stanley J. Weyman

Tom rubbed his hands in cruel anticipation. "They are coming to the Hall at four o'clock," he said. "And I wouldn't be in their shoes for a mug and a crust. Coke will swinge them," he continued with zest. "He must swinge them, like it or not! It'll be go, bag and baggage, for most of them, and some, I'm told, have been on the land time out of mind!"

He had seated himself on the broad balustrade of the terrace, with his back to the park, and his eyes on the windows of the house. Sophia, on a stone bench not far from him, gazed thoughtfully over the park as if she found refreshment merely in contemplating the far stretch of fern and sward, that, set with huge oak trees, fell away into half-seen dells of bracken and fox-gloves. Recreated by a long night's rest, her youth set off, and her freshness heightened by the dainty Tuscan and chintz sacque she had put on that morning, she was not to be known for the draggled miss who had arrived in so grievous a plight the day before. From time to time she recalled her gaze to fix it dreamily on her left hand; now reviewing the fingers, bent or straight, now laying them palm downwards on the moss-stained coping. She was so employed when the meaning of her brother's last words came tardily home to her and roused her from her reverie.