"What tidings send our scouts? I pr'ythee, speak."
Henry VI.

{William Shakespeare, "1 Henry VI", V.ii.10}

ABOUT the middle of the following March, the season, by courtesy
called spring, but when winter sometimes reigns de facto, in the
neighbourhood to which Wyllys-Roof belonged, Mr. Wyllys proposed,
one morning, to drive his granddaughter to Longbridge, with the
double object, of making the most of a late fall of snow, and
procuring the mail an hour earlier than usual.

The light cutter slipped through a track in which there was quite
as much mud as snow, and, it seemed, as if most people preferred
staying at home, to moving over roads in that half-and-half
condition: they met no one they knew, excepting Dr. Van Horne.

"I was sure you would be out this morning, Mr. Wyllys," cried the
Doctor, as they met, "your sleigh is always the first and the
last on the road."

"You generally keep me company, I find, doctor. I am going for
the mail. How far have you been, this morning?"

"To Longbridge, sir; but, with this sun, the snow will hardly
carry you there and home again; and yet, I dare say, you will
find something worth having, in the mail, for I saw letters in
your box; and there is a French packet in."