So, you see, I ask a favour." It was useless to hold out.
"I will go," said he; and it was settled.
An hour later Scarfe, Percy, Jeffreys, and Julius stood at the hall door ready to start.
"Where's Raby, I say ?" cried Percy; "she said she'd come." "I do not wish Raby to go." "Oh, look here, mother, as if we couldn't look after her; eh, Scarfe ?" "It will be no pleasure without Miss Atherton," said Scarfe.
"Can't she come, father ?" said Percy, adroitly appealing to Caesar.
"I really think it would be a pity she should miss the fun." "Huzzah! Raby, where are you?
Look sharp! father says you can come, and we're waiting!" cried Percy.
Raby, who had been watching the party rather wistfully, did not keep them long waiting.
Wellmere was a large lake some five miles long and a mile across.

In times of frost it not unfrequently became partially frozen, but owing to the current of the river which passed through it, it seldom froze so completely as to allow of being traversed on skates.

This, however, was an extraordinary frost, and the feat of the adventurer on New Year's Day had been several times repeated already.
The Wildtree party found the ice in excellent order, and the exhilarating sensation of skimming over the glassy surface banished for the time all the unpleasant impressions of the walk.

It was several years since Jeffreys had worn skates, but he found that five minutes was sufficient to render him at home on the ice.

He eschewed figures, and devoted himself entirely to straightforward skating, which, as it happened, was all that Percy could accomplish--all, indeed, that he aspired too.
It therefore happened naturally that Scarfe and Raby, who cultivated the eccentricities of skating, were left to their own devices, while Jeffreys, accompanied of course by Julius, kept pace with his young hero for the distant shore.