hich all the family reechoed.

"God bless us every one!" said Tiny Tim, the last of all. 5

--_A Christmas Carol._

1. A few days before Christmas you should read
Dickens's _A Christmas Carol_. It is one of the
best, if not the best, Christmas story ever
written. How does Dickens make you feel while you
read this selection? How many people are present at
the Cratchits'? To whom does your sympathy go?

2. Select a list of words and phrases that suggest
happiness. How does Dickens make you wish you were
at the Cratchit feast?

3. Appoint a committee of three from your class to
report fully on Dickens's life and writings. Take
brief notes on their report.

THE HOLIDAY SPIRIT

BY EMILE SOUVESTRE

Twelve o'clock.--A knock at my door; a poor
girl comes in and greets me by name. At first I
do not recall her, but she looks at me and smiles. Ah, it is
Paulette! But it is nearly a year since I have seen her,
and Paulette is no longer the same; the other day she was 5
a child; to-day she is almost a young woman.

Paulette is thin, pale, and miserably clad; but she has
always the same open and straightforward look--the same
mouth, smiling at every word as if to plead for sympathy--the
same voice, timid yet caressing. Paulette is not 10
pretty--she is even thought plain; as for me, I think her
charming. Perhaps that is not on her account but on my
own. Paulette is a part of one of my happiest recollections.

It was the evening of a public holiday. Our principal
buildings were lighted with festoons of fire, a thousand
flags floated in the night wind, and the fireworks had just
shot forth their jets of flame in the midst of the _Champ de
Mars_. Suddenly one of those unaccountable panics which 5
seize a multitude falls upon the dense crowd; they cry out,
they rush on headlong; the weaker ones fall and the
frightened crowd tramples them down in its convulsive
struggles. Escaping from the confusion by a miracle, I
was hastening away when the cries of a perishing child 10
arrested me; I went back into that human chaos and
after unheard-of exertions I brought Paulette away at the
peril of my life.

That was two years ago; since then I had seen th