Your sincere friend,

Tom Temple.

P.S.—­I might say that most of the guests will arrive on Christmas Eve.

“Just the very thing,” I exclaimed.  “I had been wondering what to do and where to go this Christmas time, and this invitation comes in splendidly.”

Tom Temple lived in Yorkshire, at a fine old country house some distance from the metropolis of that county, and was a really good fellow.  As for his mother and sisters, I knew but little about them, but I judged from the letters his mother wrote him when at school, that she must be a true, kind-hearted, motherly woman.

I accordingly turned to my desk, wrote to Tom, telling him to expect me on the 24th inst., and then, without finishing my breakfast, endeavoured to go on with my work.  It was very difficult, however.  My thoughts were ever running away to Yorkshire, and on the pleasant time I hoped to spend.  Between the lines on my paper I was ever seeing the old baronial hall that was Tom Temple’s home, and the people who had been invited to spend the festive season there.  Presently I began to chide myself for my foolishness.  Why should the thoughts of a Christmas holiday so unfit me, a staid old bachelor of thirty, for my usual work?  Nevertheless it did, so I put on my overcoat, and went away in the direction of Hyde Park in order, if possible, to dispel my fancies.  I did dispel them, and shortly afterwards returned to my lodgings, and did a good morning’s work.

Nothing of importance happened between the 18th and the 24th, and early in the afternoon of the latter date I found my way to St. Pancras Station, and booked for the station nearest Tom Temple’s home.  Although it was Christmas Eve, I found an empty first-class carriage, and soon comfortably ensconced myself therein.  I don’t know why, but we English people generally try to get an empty carriage, and feel annoyed when some one comes in to share our possession.  I, like the rest of my countrymen are apt to do in such a case, began to hope I might retain the entire use of the carriage, at least to Leeds, when the door opened, and a porter brought a number of wraps and shawls, evidently the property of a lady.

“Bother it!” I mentally exclaimed, “and so I suppose I am to have some fidgety old women for my travelling companions.”

The reader will imagine from this that I was not a lady’s man.  At any rate, such was the case.  I had lived my thirty years without ever being in love; indeed, I had from principle avoided the society of ladies, that is, when they were of the flirtable or marriageable kind.

No sooner had the porter laid the articles mentioned on a corner seat, the one farthest away from me, than their owner entered, and my irritation vanished.  It was a young lady under the ordinary size, and, from what I could see of her, possessed of more than ordinary beauty.  Her skin was dark and clear, her eyes very dark, her mouth pleasant yet decided, her chin square and determined.  This latter feature would in the eyes of many destroy her pretensions to beauty, but I, who liked persons with a will of their own, admired the firm resoluteness the feature indicated.