hat was quite in
keeping with his occupation as driver of the "Flying Dutchman."

There was there, also, a tall, slim, good-looking youth, who seemed to
be on very intimate terms with Bob Marrot. He was well-known as one of
the most rising men at the Clatterby works, who bade fair to become an
overseer ere long. Bob called him Tomtit, but the men of the line
styled him Mister Dorkin. He had brought with him an extremely
wrinkled, dried-up old woman, who appeared to have suffered much, and to
have been dragged out of the lowest depths of poverty. To judge from
appearances she had been placed in a position of great comfort. Such
was in truth the case, and the fine young fellow who had dragged her out
and up was that same Mister Dorkin, who may be said to have been all but
stone-blind that evening, because, from first to last, he saw but one
individual there, and that individual was Gertie. He was almost deaf
too, because he heard only one voice--and that voice was Gertie's.

And Nanny Stocks was there, with "the baby," but _not_ the baby Marrot!
_That_ baby--now a stout well-grown lad--was seated beside his mother,
paying her all sorts of delicate attentions, such as picking up her
handkerchief when she dropped it, pushing her bonnet on her head when,
in her agitation, it fell back on her neck, and beating her firmly on
the back when she choked, as she frequently did that evening from sheer
delight. No doubt in this last operation he felt that he was paying off
old scores, for many a severe beating on the back had Mrs Marrot given
him in the stormy days of his babyhood.

The baby of whom Nanny Stocks was now the guardian was baby Gurwood, and
a strong resemblance it bore to the old baby in the matters of health,
strength, fatness, and self-will. Miss Stocks was one of those human
evergreens which years appear to make no impression on at all. From her
shoe-latchet to her topmost hair-pin she was unalterably the same as she
had been in days gone by. She treated the new baby, too, as she had
treated the old--choked it with sweetmeats and kisses, and acted the
part of buffer to its feet and fists.

It would take a volume to give the full details of all that was said and
done, and played and sung, on that Christmas-eve. We can only touch on
these things. The brass band of the volunteers surpassed itself. The
songs--volunteered or called for--were as good as songs usually are on
festive occasions, a few of them