The 31st of January was a wild, tempestuous day: there was a strong north wind, with a continual storm of snow drifting on the ground and whirling through the air.

My friends would have had me delay my departure, but fearful of prejudicing my employers against me by such want of punctuality at the commencement of my undertaking, I persisted in keeping the appointment.
I will not inflict upon my readers an account of my leaving home on that dark winter morning: the fond farewells, the long, long journey to O---, the solitary waitings in inns for coaches or trains--for there were some railways then--and, finally, the meeting at O--- with Mr.Murray's servant, who had been sent with the phaeton to drive me from thence to Horton Lodge.

I will just state that the heavy snow had thrown such impediments in the way of both horses and steam-engines, that it was dark some hours before I reached my journey's end, and that a most bewildering storm came on at last, which made the few miles' space between O--- and Horton Lodge a long and formidable passage.

I sat resigned, with the cold, sharp snow drifting through my veil and filling my lap, seeing nothing, and wondering how the unfortunate horse and driver could make their way even as well as they did; and indeed it was but a toilsome, creeping style of progression, to say the best of it.

At length we paused; and, at the call of the driver, someone unlatched and rolled back upon their creaking hinges what appeared to be the park gates.