Distance was as nothing to them--sometimes a boat helped them, and they went over wintry Windermere to climb the picturesque heights above Bowness.

Sometimes they took ponies, and a groom, and left their steeds to perform the wilder part of the way on foot.

In this wise John Hammond saw all that was to be seen within a day's journey of Grasmere, except the top of Helvellyn.
Maulevrier had shirked the expedition, had always put off Mary and Mr.
Hammond when they proposed it.

The season was not advanced enough--the rugged pathway by the Tongue Ghyll would be as slippery as glass--no pony could get up there in such weather.
'We have not had any frost to speak of for the last fortnight,' pleaded Mary, who was particularly anxious to do the honours of Helvellyn, as the real lion of the neighbourhood.
'What a simpleton you are, Molly!' cried Maulevrier.

'Do you suppose because there is no frost in your grandmother's garden--and if you were to ask Staples about his peaches he would tell you a very different story--that there's a tropical atmosphere on Dolly Waggon Pike?
Why, I'd wager the ice on Grisdale Tarn is thick enough for skating.