That he could do so, and yet be in Springhaven by five, seemed almost impossible; for only ten years ago the journey took two days.

But the war seemed to make everything go quicker, and it was no use to wonder at anything.

Only if everything else went quicker, why should dinner (the most important of them all) come slower?
And as yet there was nobody to answer this; though perhaps there is no one to ask it now.
All things began very beautifully.

The young ladies slipped in unobserved, and the elder blessings of mankind came after, escorting themselves with dignity.

Then the heroes who had fought, and the gallants who had not had the luck yet, but were eager for it, came pleasantly clanking in, well girt to demolish ox and sheep, like Ajax, in lack of loftier carnage.