nto Clarissa's happy dream like a night-mare, and sends all the dear
shades she has been conjuring to her side back into their uncertain
home.

The maid pokes the fire energetically, and arranges something upon the
dressing-table with much unnecessary vigor.

Clarissa, slowly bringing herself back from the world in which Hester,
however admirable in every respect, bears no part, sighs drowsily, and
sits up in her bed.

"Really that hour?" she says. "Quite too disgracefully late! A happy
Christmas, Hester!"

"Thank you, miss. The same to you, and very many of them!"

"Is it a cold morning?" asks Clarissa, with a little shiver. She
pushes back the soft waving masses of her brown hair from her
forehead, and gazes at Hester entreatingly, as though to implore her
to say it is warm as a day in June.

But Hester is adamant.

"Terrible cold, miss," she says, with a sort of gusto. "_That_ frosty
it would petrify you where you stand."

"Then I won't stand," declares Clarissa, promptly sinking back
once more into her downy couch. "I decline to be petrified,
Hester,"--tucking the clothes well round her. "Call me again next
week."

"The master is up this hour, miss," says the maid, reprovingly; "and
see how beautifully your fire is burning."

"I can't see anything but the water over there. _Is_ that ice in my
bath?"

"Yes, miss. Will you let me throw a little hot water into it to melt
it for you? Do, miss. I'm sure them miserable cold oblations is bitter
bad for you." Perhaps she means ablutions. Nobody knows. And Clarissa,
though consumed with a desire to know, dares not ask. Hester is
standing a few yards from her, looking the very personfication of all
pathos, and is plainly an-angered of the frozen bath.

"Well, then, Hester, yes; a little--a _very_ little--hot water, just
for once," says Clarissa, unable to resist the woman's pleading, and
her own fear of the "bitter chill" that awaits her on the other side
of the blankets. "My courage has flown; indeed, I don't see how I can
get up at all,"--willfully, snuggling down even more closely into the
warm sheets.

"Oh, now get up, miss, do," implores her maid. "It is getting real
late, and the master has been up asking for you twice already."

"Is papa dressed, then?"

"An hour ago, miss. He was standing on the doorsteps, feeding the
sparrows and robins, when I came up."

"Dear papa!" says Clarissa, tenderly, beneath her breath; and then she
springs out of bed,