Don't take things with such desperate seriousness! Come and try your instrument.

It ought to be a good one, if price-lists mean anything." The next morning was clear and cold.

Assuredly there would be good skating, and the prospect of this enjoyment seemed to engross Denzil's thoughts.

After breakfast he barely glanced at the newspapers, then leaving Lilian to enter upon her domestic rule, set forth for an examination of the localities which offered scope to Polterham skaters.
Such youthful zeal proved his thorough harmony with the English spirit; it promised far more for his success as a politician than if he had spent the morning over blue-books and statistical treatises.
If only the snow were cleared away, the best skating near at hand was on a piece of water near the road to Rickstead.

The origin of this pond or lakelet had caused discussion among local antiquaries; for tradition said that it occupied the site of a meadow which many years ago mysteriously sank, owing perhaps to the unsuspected existence of an ancient mine.