here was no possibility of taking a walk that day.
We had been
wandering
indeed
in the leafless shrubbery an hour in the morning;
but since dinner (Mrs. Reed
when there was no company
dined early)
the cold winter wind had brought with it clouds so sombre
and a
rain so penetrating
that further out-door exercise was now out of
the question.
I was glad of it: I never liked long walks especially on chilly afternoons: dreadful to me was the coming home in the raw twilight with nipped fingers and toes and a heart saddened by the chidings of Bessie the nurse and humbled by the consciousness of my physical inferiority to Eliza John and Georgiana Reed.