And now on this Christmas Day there came the opportunity Denzil had been
waiting for. The weather was cold and bright, the landscape was blotted out
with snow; and the lake in Chilton Park offered a sound surface for the
exercise of that novel amusement of skating, an accomplishment which Lord
Fareham had acquired while in the Low Countries, and in which he had
been Denzil's instructor during the late severe weather. Angela, at her
brother-in-law's entreaty, had also adventured herself upon a pair of
skates, and had speedily found delight in the swift motion, which seemed
to her like the flight of a bird skimming the steely surface of the frozen
lake, and incomparable in enjoyment.
"It is even more delightful than a gallop on Zephyr," she told her sister,
who stood on the bank with a cluster of gay company, watching the skaters.
"I doubt not that; since there is even more danger of getting your neck
broken upon runaway skates than on a runaway horse," answered Hyacinth.
After an hour on the lake, in which Denzil had distinguished himself by his
mastery of the new exercise, being always at hand to support his mistress
at the slightest indication of peril, she consented to the removal of her
skates, at Papillon's earnest entreaty, who wanted her aunt to walk with
her before dinner.
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