So it came to pass that I dozed over the metempsychosis
of my fire-world, and commenced the novel.

Give me crisp winter days for writing, and the long snowy nights for dreamy
slumber.

O antique humorist, quaint-mouthed Sancho Panza! with you, I say,
"Blessings on the man who invented sleep!" Sleep, pleasant sleep!--that
little airy nothing on the eyelids!--that little spell of thought which
comes from no place and goes nowhere!--which comes upon us silently and
splendidly, like a falling star, and trails its golden fancies on our
waking hours. Sleep for the young--fresh, dewy sleep! Sleep for the sick!
Sleep for the weary and disconsolate--sweet dreams and sweet forgetfulness
for _them_! Smooth the white hairs of the old; place thy invisible fingers
on their lips; close their eyes gently, gently. Sleep, and let them pass
into nothingness!

In a dreamy mood, half awake and half asleep, I filled sheet after sheet
with my curious back-handed chirography. The white feathery snow came down
cygnet-soft, and I wrote. I heard the wind ditties in the chimney, the
merry wrangling of sleigh-bells, the sonorous clash of fire-bells, and the
manuscript grew under my pen, as if by magic. I came to love the nurslings
of my fancy as no one else will. I liked the cold, cynical features of Mr.
Flint, with his undertaker's aspect; the child-spirit, Bell; Daisy Snarle's
eyes; the heart-broken old sailor; the pale book-keeper; Tim, the office
boy; Mr. Hardwill, the great publisher; Joe Wilkes, and all of them!

Mrs. Muggins occasionally looked in on me.

Mrs. Muggins' regard for me was increasing. She never left the coal-scuttle
on the stairs for my benefit, as she used to; she was eternally hearing my
bell ring when it didn't, and answering it so promptly when it did, that I
began to think that she lived night and day just outside my door.

Pleasant Mrs. Muggins!

I tried not to feel elated at these little widowy attentions; but _los
hombres son mortales_.

She handed me my coffee with a motherly tenderness that was perfectly
touching. She looked at me with the eyes of Solicitude, and spoke with the
lips of culminating Respect; and once, in a burst of confidence, she told
me that she had six orphan sons, who were "sealurs."

_My_ respect increased for Mrs. Muggins. My novel might run through only
one edition, but she,--she had six editions of herself afloat! And I
thought that, after all, a woman like her who had produced a half