led 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 wine had no further relish.
I was haunted by the vision at the window, and began, with an
unreasonable irritation at the interruption, to repeat with fresh warmth
my detestation of holidays. One couldn't even dine alone on a holiday
with any sort of comfort, I declared. On holidays one was tormented by
too much pleasure on one side, and too much misery on the other. And
then, I said, hunting for justification of my dislike of the day, 'How
many other people are, like me, made miserable by seeing the fullness of
enjoyment others possess!'

"Oh, yes, I know," sarcastically replied the bachelor to a comment of
mine; "of course, all magnanimous, generous, and noble-souled people
delight in seeing other people made happy, and are quite content to
accept this vicarious felicity. But I, you see, and this dear little
girl----"

"Dear little girl?"

"Oh, I forgot," said Bachelor Bluff, blushing a little, in spite of a
desperate effort not to do so. "I didn't tell you. Well, it was so
absurd! I kept thinking, thinking of the pale, haggard, lonely little
girl on the cold and desolate side of the window-pane, and the over-fed,
discontented, lonely old bachelor on the splendid side of the
window-pane, and I didn't get much happier thinking about it, I can
assure you. I drank glass after glass of the wine--not that I enjoyed
its flavour any more, but mechanically, as it were, and with a sort of
hope thereby to drown unpleasant reminders. I tried to attribute my
annoyance in the matter to holidays, and so denounc