exhibiting a stained and blistered old back, is glad
enough to avoid attention by being stowed away in the corner; while the
pleasant spirits of domesticity that come only at the call of good men,
and good wives, and good sons, and good daughters, but resist the
imperious beckonings of the wealthiest hands, and wing on over their
roofs to lowlier, and scantier, and purer habitations--while the
pleasant spirits of domesticity and kindliness throng invisibly into the
room, and David Dubbs reads stray scraps from his paper to his
daughters, grouped near the fire at his feet, we must softly withdraw
and leave them to the care of coming Christmas dreams.

III.

Christmas morning had opened brightly with David Dubbs. The sun,
preceded down the court by hustling winds that knocked at every
citizen's door and demanded admittance for their oncoming master, had
left at each house a gift of golden cheerfulness. The sky above was so
blithe and blue that it smiled down at even so insignificant a crack as
David Dubbs's court must have appeared to it; and the cold was a jolly
and snappish cold.

The twins and David's Little Scout were as merry as the Christmas chimes
they lingered and listened to, and not the daintiest dinner that Mr.
Cuffy (and that gentleman held the subject somewhat in mind, too, on
Polly's account) could have delivered at their door would have added one
jot of happiness to their abundance. David's poor old back bent under
the stress of poverty that would permit him no indulgences for them--all
the more dear on that day; but, used to loving self-denial, they never
missed what they so little desired, and so far were they from giving it
a thought, that if David had spoken out what he so wilfully turned over
and over in his mind, that would have given them far more pain and
anxiety. Mr. Tripple was early in his shop, presumptively to attend to
some forgotten duties, but, as he did not pay very active attention to
anything but carefully tying up a square box in white paper, and as he
did pay very active attention to what went on up-stairs, at the same
time exhibiting no hurry to get home to dinner, David, who had, towards
noon, gone around the corner with Polly to make some little purchases of
groceries before the stores closed, dropped in on his way back and
invited Mr. Tripple up-stairs. Mr. Tripple at first firmly refused, and
said, "Very much obliged, Dave, but couldn't think of it. Indeed not.
They'd 'spect