David, doubly disappointed, turned and passed out, and his old eyes must
have been extremely sensitive to the wind, for they ran with something
very like tears that he wiped away with his glove as he muttered,--

"So, no Christmas, after all. Poor girls! Poor girls!" Mr. Griffin was
not long behind his faithful old clerk. He extinguished the lights with
great care, and then, with the key in his hand, felt his way to the
door, banged it after him, and locked it with the satisfaction of a
miser over a casket of treasures. His journey home led him to the
opposite end of the court from that which David had passed through, and
he therefore did not overtake him.

And if he had, would this hard, business-encrusted heart have been less
cold than the bitter winds that assailed it? Would the sight which made
David Dubbs forget the fierceness of night have penetrated the chilly
place where it rested and warmed it in pitying activity? Would the
tender impulses, which the unsifted morals of barter extinguish, as they
extinguish much of the nobility in man, have enkindled anew and
brightened this misery? Not if dollars would have done it; nay, not if
even a word would have done it, would Emanuel Griffin have relaxed from
the demeanor which purely business habits imposed upon him. He felt it
due to his position in business society to maintain rigidly its maxims,
the chief of which, "Do unto others as they would do unto you, if they
could," he practised to the letter.

II.

Poor David Dubbs! Oh, the long time it seemed since boon companions had
smitten him on the back and cried, "Bravo, Dave Dubbs! Bravo, old
fellow!" to his little songs, or encouraged him by such exclamations as
"Dave Dubbs can't be beat at a ballad!" Oh, the long, long time ago! But
to proceed. As David Dubbs met the ambushed winds that leaped upon him
at the corner of the court, he also met the person to whom he had waved
his hand from the store-door. If you had looked for the stature of a man
you would have been doubly mistaken,--first in sex, next in size. It was
neither a man nor a woman. There, in a blustery doorway, shaking with
cold, but ever on the alert, crouched a little girl. She wore a knitted
hood, and out of it fell overflowing curls; but her poor, attenuated
little body was ill-assorted with plenty of any kind, and the wealth of
curls mocked the poverty of her clothes. A patched shawl affected to
protect her poor little shoulders, and a calico dre