t once
and tell us you will come, also when we may expect you. All the news
when we meet.

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 w