Matthew’s predictions regarding the weather proved to be well-founded. In the course of the week, it turned bitterly cold, with frosts and snow flurries and the promise of worse to come. Mrs. Mac started to grumble both about her joints and the price of coal, and George and Matthew took to wearing sweaters under their jackets even in the house.
The football match due to be played that Sunday was cancelled owing to the pitch being a foot deep in snow, a circumstance met by the once-again-present Watkins with disgust and sour insinuations that the government was somehow to blame, by Matthew with cheery fatalism, and by George with concealed relief.
At least until he realised the weather meant he and Matthew would be stuck for the afternoon in the cramped sitting room with Miss Lewis, Watki
