Sons of Fire, Volume III by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

Before the sun had gone down upon the second day after Geoffrey's return, his engagement to Miss Vincent had become known to almost every member of Matcham society who had any right to be posted in the proceedings of the _élite_.

Mrs. Mornington, dropping in at her brother's house after breakfast, and before her daily excursion to the village, was transformed into a statue of surprise on the very threshold of the hall at hearing fiddling in her brother's drawing-room, unmistakably fiddling of a superior order; a fiddle whose grandiose chords rose loud and strong above the rippling notes of a piano -- a quaint old melody of Porpora's, in strongly marked common time -- a fairy-like accompaniment of delicate treble runs, light as a gauzy veil flung over the severe outlines of a bronze statue.