been a match for them and so would Mrs. Fezziwig. As to _her_, she
was worthy to be his partner in every sense of the term. A positive light
appeared to issue from Fezziwig's calves. They shone in every part of the
dance. You couldn't have predicted, at any given time, what would become
of 'em next. And when old Fezziwig and Mrs. Fezziwig had gone all through
the dance,--advance and retire, turn your partner, bow and courtesy,
corkscrew, thread the needle and back again to your place,--Fezziwig
"cut,"--cut so deftly, that he appeared to wink with his legs.

When the clock struck eleven this domestic ball broke up. Mr. and Mrs.
Fezziwig took their stations, one on either side of the door, and, shaking
hands with every person individually as he or she went out, wished him or
her a Merry Christmas. When everybody had retired but the two 'prentices,
they did the same to them; and thus the cheerful voices died away, and the
lads were left to their beds, which were under a counter in the back shop.

* * * * *

THE BROOK.

I.

I come from haunts of coot and hern,
I make a sudden sally,
And sparkle out among the fern,
To bicker down a valley.

II.

By thirty hills I hurry down,
Or slip between the ridges;
By twenty thorps, a little town,
And half a hundred bridges.

III.

I chatter over stony ways,
In little sharps and trebles,
I bubble into eddying bays,
I babble on the pebbles.

IV.

With many a curve my banks I fret
By many a field and fallow,
And many a fairy foreland set
With willow-weed and mallow.

V.

I chatter, chatter, as I flow
To join the brimming river;
For men may come, and men may go,
But I go on forever.

VI.

I wind about and in and out,
With here a blossom sailing,
And here and there a lusty trout,
And here and there a grayling.

VII.

And here and there a foamy flake
Upon me as I travel
With many a silvery water-break
Above the golden gravel.

VIII.

I steal by lawns and grassy plots,
I slide by hazel covers,
I move the sweet forget-me-nots
That grow for happy lovers.

IX.

I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance,
Among my skimming swallows;
I make the netted sunbeam dance
Against my sandy shallows.

X.

I murmur, under moon and stars
In brambly wildernesses,
I linger by my shingly bars,
I loiter round my cresses.

XI.

And out again I curve and flow
To join the