Tom was to spend his Christmas Eve with us, and to make "toast and ale," as was our custom; so, when the gifts were all distributed, he left me, and ran home to dress himself smartly for the occasion. I stood at my desk, still musing, till the evening closed upon the short and wintry afternoon. Lucy came and called me, saying the tea was on the table. "We thought you were fallen asleep," said she. "Mr. Lawton is come." We sat round a large fire in the old wainscoted sitting-room, while Lucy made the tea--and would have made the toast, too; but Tom said he would sooner burn his eyes out than suffer her to do so. The housekeeper came up, and afterward came an old carver and his daughter. We sat till after midnight. The old carver told some anecdotes of people whom my father knew; and Tom told a ghost story, which kept them all in breathless terror, till it turned out, at last, to be a dream. But I was restless, and spoke little. Once, indeed, I answered the old carver sharply. He had patted Lucy on the head, and said he supposed she would be soon getting married, and leaving us old people. I could not endure the thought of her leaving us; though I knew that she would do so, probably, one day. She had never looked to me more interesting than she did that evening. A little child, worn out with playing, had fallen asleep, with its head upon her lap; and, as she was speaking to us, her hand was entangled in its hair. I gazed at her, and caught up every word she spoke; and when she stopped, my restlessness returned. I strove in vain to take part in their mirth. I wanted to be alone. When I sat that night in my little bedroom, I was thinking still of Lucy. I heard her voice still sounding in my ear; and, when I shut my eyes, I pictured her still before me, with her dear kind face, and her little golden locket hung upon her neck. I fell asleep and dreamed of her. I woke, and waited for the daylight, thinking of her still. So we passed all the Christmas holidays. Sometimes it was a happy feeling which possessed me; and sometimes I almost wished that I had never seen her. I was always restless and anxious; I knew not for what. I became a different man to that which I had been before I knew her.