“By five o’clock the holiday became so intolerable that I said I’d go and get a dinner.  The best dinner the town could provide.  A sumptuous dinner for one.  A dinner with many courses, with wines of the finest brands, with bright lights, with a cheerful fire, with every condition of comfort—­and I’d see if I couldn’t for once extract a little pleasure out of a holiday!

“The handsome dining-room at the club looked bright, but it was empty.  Who dines at this club on Christmas but lonely bachelors?  There was a flutter of surprise when I ordered a dinner, and the few attendants were, no doubt, glad of something to break the monotony of the hours.

“My dinner was well served.  The spacious room looked lonely; but the white, snowy cloths, the rich window hangings, the warm tints of the walls, the sparkle of the fire in the steel grate, gave the room an air of elegance and cheerfulness; and then the table at which I dined was close to the window, and through the partly drawn curtains were visible centres of lonely, cold streets, with bright lights from many a window, it is true, but there was a storm, and snow began whirling through the street.  I let my imagination paint the streets as cold and dreary as it would, just to extract a little pleasure by way of contrast from the brilliant room of which I was apparently sole master.

“I dined well, and recalled in fancy old, youthful Christmases, and pledged mentally many an old friend, and my melancholy was mellowing into a low, sad undertone, when, just as I was raising a glass of wine to my lips, I was startled by a picture at the windowpane.  It was a pale, wild, haggard face, in a great cloud of black hair, pressed against the glass.  As I looked it vanished.  With a strange thrill at my heart, which my lips mocked with a derisive sneer, I finished the wine and set down the glass.  It was, of course, only a beggar-girl that had crept up to the window and stole a glance at the bright scene within; but still the pale face troubled me a little, and threw a fresh shadow on my heart.  I filled my glass once more with wine, and was again about to drink, when the face reappeared at the window.  It was so white, so thin, with eyes so large, wild, and hungry-looking, and the black, unkempt hair, into which the snow had drifted, formed so strange and weird a frame to the picture, that I was fairly startled.  Replacing, untasted, the liquor on the table, I rose and went close to the pane.  The face had vanished, and I could see no object within many feet of the window.  The storm had increased, and the snow was driving in wild gusts through the streets, which were empty, save here and there a hurrying wayfarer.  The whole scene was cold, wild, and desolate, and I could not repress a keen thrill of sympathy for the child, whoever it was, whose only Christmas was to watch, in cold and storm, the rich banquet ungratefully enjoyed by the lonely bachelor.  I resumed my place at the table; but the dinner was finished, and the