Winston of the Prairie by Harold Bindloss

There was warmth and brightness in the cedar-boarded general room of Silverdale Grange, and most of the company gathered there basked in it contentedly after their drive through the bitter night. Those who came from the homesteads lying farthest out had risked frost-nipped hands and feet, for when Colonel Barrington held a levee at the Grange nobody felt equal to refusing his invitation. Neither scorching heat nor utter cold might excuse compliance with the wishes of the founder of Silverdale, and it was not until Dane, the big middle-aged bachelor, had spoken very plainly, that he consented to receive his guests in time of biting frost dressed otherwise than as they would have appeared in England.

Dane was the one man in the settlement who dare remonstrate with its ruler, but it was a painful astonishment to the latter when he said in answer to one invitation, "I have never been frost-bitten, sir, and I stand the cold well, but one or two of the lads are weak in the chest, and this climate was never intended for bare-shouldered women. Hence, if I come, I shall dress myself to suit it."