"The carriages are ordered for half-past nine. But I'm afraid you haven't clearly before your eyes all the difficulties which are incidental to hunting."
"What do you mean?"
"It looks as like a black frost as anything I ever saw in my life."
"But we should go?"
"The horses won't be there if there is a really hard frost. Nobody would stir. It will be the first question I shall ask the man when he comes to me, and if there have been seven or eight degrees of frost I shan't get up."
"How am I to know?"
"My man shall tell your maid. But everybody will soon know all about it. It will alter everything."
"I think I shall go mad."
"In white satin?"
"No;—in my habit and hat. It will be the hardest thing, after all! I ought to have insisted on going to Holcombe Cross on Friday. The sun is shining now. Surely it cannot freeze."