Adela Cathcart

Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. IT was the afternoon of Christmas Eve, sinking towards the night. All day long the wintry light had been diluted with fog, and now the Vanguard of the darkness coming to aid the mist, the dying day was well-nigh smothered between them. When I looked through the window, it was into a vague and dim solidification of space, a mysterious region in which awful things might be going on, and out of which anything might come; but out of which nothing came in the mean time, ex cept small sparkles of snow, or rather ice, which, as we swept rapidly onwards, and the darkness deepened, struck faster and faster against the weather-windows. For we, that is, myself and a fellow-passenger, of whom I knew nothing yet but the waistcoat and neckcloth, having caught a glimpse of them as he searched for an obstinate railway-ticket, were in a railway carriage, darting along, at an all but frightful rate, northwards from London.