SOPHY OF KRAVONIA
says has its place here; it fits in with and explains Lady Meg's excited and mystical exclamation to Mr. Pindar at Morpingham, "They may speak through her!" Apparently "they" had spoken—to what effect we cannot even conjecture, unless an explanation be found in a letter of the Kravonian period in which Sophy says to Julia: "You remember that saying of Mantis's when we were in London—the one about how she saw something hanging in the air over my head—something bright." That is all she says and—"something bright" leaves the matter very vague. A sword—a crown—the nimbus of a saint: imagination might play untrammelled. Still some prophecy was made; Lady Meg built on it, and Sophy (for all her apparent indifference) remembered it, and in after-days thought it worthy of recall. That is as far as we can go; and with that passing glimpse, Sophy Grouch (of course the mention of the wafer-like mark puts her identity beyond question) passes out of sight for the time; indeed, as Sophy Grouch, in the position in which we have seen her and in the name under which we have known her, she passes out of sight forever.
