“Lord, yes,” said Dennis, “but they’re better than nothing. Hefty skates, too. I wonder whose they were?”
Mrs. Stanier put a small saccharine lozenge into her tea.
“The lake has not borne for many years,” she said. “I think we used to have harder winters once than we have now. The last year it bore ... ah, dear me, yes.”
The return of Aunt Hester from her tramp in the snow was a welcome advent. She professed herself vastly refreshed, and had a very pretty colour in her checks.
“Nothing like a frosty air for giving you an appetite,” she said, “and they say that the microbes all get killed in it, though for my part I never believed much in microbes. Everything’s microbes nowadays: if you’ve got a pain in your stomach from eating what you shouldn’t it’s a microbe, if you covet your neighbour’s wife they’ll make it out to be a microbe soon. Give me a good strong cup of tea, Violet dear: I hope it’s been standing. What’s that you’re working at, Margaret? A shawl for cold evenings?”
Mrs. Stanier drew in her breath with a sound of shocked sipping.
“No, Hester, it’s an altar-cloth for Winchester Cathedral,” she said.
“Well, I couldn’t see the pattern, and it looked to me like a shawl. And when’s that wretch Colin coming back? I thought I should find him here.”
“I’ve not heard a word from him,” said Violet. “I’ve been expecting him for some days.”
“Well, I shall have to flirt with Dennis till he comes,” said Aunt Hester.