ew and named
them every one. Why was he rejoiced beyond all bounds to see them? Why
did his cold eye glisten, and his heart leap up as they went past? Why
was he filled with gladness when he heard them give each other Merry
Christmas, as they parted at cross-roads and bye-ways, for their several
homes? What was Merry Christmas to Scrooge? Out upon Merry Christmas!
What good had it ever done to him?

"The school is not quite deserted," said the Ghost. "A solitary child,
neglected by his friends, is left there still."

Scrooge said he knew it. And he sobbed.

They left the high-road, by a well remembered lane, and soon approached
a mansion of dull red brick, with a little weathercock-surmounted
cupola, on the roof, and a bell hanging in it. It was a large house, but
one of broken fortunes; for the spacious offices were little used, their
walls were damp and mossy, their windows broken, and their gates
decayed. Fowls clucked and strutted in the stables; and the coach-houses
and sheds were overrun with grass. Nor was it more retentive of its
ancient state within; for entering the dreary hall, and glancing through
the open doors of many rooms, they found them poorly furnished, cold,
and vast. There was an earthy savor in the air, a chilly bareness in the
place, which associated itself somehow with too much getting up by
candle-light, and not too much to eat.

They went, the Ghost and Scrooge, across the hall, to a door at the back
of the house. It opened before them, and disclosed a long, bare,
melancholy room, made barer still by lines of plain deal forms and
desks. At one of these a lonely boy was reading near a feeble fire; and
Scrooge sat down upon a form, and wept to see his poor forgotten self as
he had used to be.

"I wish," Scrooge muttered, putting his hand in his pocket, and looking
about him, after drying his eyes with his cuff: "but it's too late now."

"What is the matter?" asked the Spirit.

"Nothing," said Scrooge. "Nothing. There was a boy singing a Christmas
Carol at my door last night. I should like to have given him something:
that's all."

The Ghost smiled thoughtfully, and waved its hand: saying as it did so,
"Let us see another Christmas!"

Scrooge's former self grew larger at the words, and the room became a
little darker and more dirty. The panels shrunk, the windows cracked;
fragments of plaster fell out of the ceiling, and the naked laths were
shown instead; but how all this was brought a