twenty minutes to one
Handsome women rode in the Row with their children mounted on wiry ponies -LRB- always a charming sight -RRB- ; and middle-aged , angular females , wearing the customary riding-hat which reduces beauty to plainness and plainness to caricature , rode melancholy quadrupeds , determined to do that which is done by those who are of consequence in the world . But pleasures born of the passing hour , unlike those of the past or of anticipation , end with the striking of the clock . It seemed to Austin Selwyn that they had been riding only for the space of minutes , when Elise asked him the time . ` It is twenty minutes to one , ' he said . ` I had no idea time had passed so quickly . ' ` Nor I , ' she answered . ` Just one more canter , and then we 'll go . '