The Laughing Cavalier by Emma Orczy

He only caught sight of the jongejuffrouw later on in the morning when she came out of the molens and stepped into the sledge which stood waiting for her at the door.

The thaw had not been sufficiently heavy, nor had it lasted a sufficient number of hours to make a deep impression on the thick covering of snow which still lay over the roads. The best and quickest mode of travelling--at any rate for the next few hours--would still be by sledge, the intervening half-dozen leagues that lay between Houdekerk and Rotterdam could be easily covered in the day provided an early start was made and no long halts allowed for meals.