The Luck of the Vails by E.F. Benson

Mr. Francis was by choice an early riser, and next morning, before either of the young men were awake, he had been splashing and gasping in his cold tub, had felt with the keenest enjoyment the genial afterglow produced on his braced and invigorated skin by the application of the rough towel, and was now out on the terrace, pacing briskly along the dry gravel walk on this adorable winter morning, waiting cheerfully for his desired breakfast. Now and then he would break into a nimble trot for fifty paces, or even give a little skip in the air as a child does, from the sheer exhilaration of his pulses. His thoughts, too, must have been as sparkling as the morning itself, as brisk and cheery as his own physical economy, for from time to time he would troll out a bar or two of some lusty song, or stop to chirrup with pursed lips to the stiff, half-frozen birds, and his pleasant, close-shaven face was continually wreathed in smiles.

Here was one at least in whom old age had brought no spell of freezing to laggard blood, no dulling of that zest of life which is so often and so erroneously considered as an attribute of youth only; life was still immensely enjoyable, and all things were delightful to his sympathetic eye.