on't
be grieved!"

Bob was very cheerful with them, and spoke pleasantly to all the
family. He looked at the work upon the table, and praised the industry
and speed of Mrs. Cratchit and the girls. They would be done long
before Sunday he said.

"Sunday! You went to-day then, Robert?" said his wife.

"Yes, my dear," returned Bob. "I wish you could have gone. It would
have done you good to see how green a place it is. But you'll see it
often. I promised him that I would walk there on a Sunday. My little,
little child!" cried Bob. "My little child!"

He broke down all at once. He couldn't help it. If he could have
helped it, he and his child would have been farther apart perhaps than
they were.

He left the room, and went up stairs into the room above, which was
lighted cheerfully, and hung with Christmas. There was a chair set
close beside the child, and there were signs of some one having been
there, lately. Poor Bob sat down in it, and when he had thought a
little and composed himself, he kissed the little face. He was
reconciled to what had happened, and went down again quite happy.

They drew about the fire, and talked; the girls and mother working
still. Bob told them of the extraordinary kindness of Mr. Scrooge's
nephew, whom he had scarcely seen but once, and who, meeting him in
the street that day, and

[Illustration: Original manuscript of Page 57.]

seeing that he looked a little--"just a little down you know" said
Bob, enquired what had happened to distress him. "On which," said Bob,
"for he is the pleasantest-spoken gentleman you ever heard, I told
him. 'I am heartily sorry for it, Mr. Cratchit,' he said, 'and
heartily sorry for your good wife.' By the bye, how he ever knew
_that_, I don't know."

"Knew what, my dear?"

"Why, that you were a good wife," replied Bob.

"Everybody knows that!" said Peter.

"Very well observed, my boy!" cried Bob. "I hope they do. 'Heartily
sorry,' he said, 'for your good wife. If I can be of service to you in
any way,' he said, giving me his card, 'that's where I live. Pray come
to me.' Now, it wasn't," cried Bob, "for the sake of anything he might
be able to do for us, so much as for his kind way, that this was quite
delightful. It really seemed as if he had known our Tiny Tim, and felt
with us."

"I'm sure he's a good soul!" said Mrs. Cratchit.

"You would be surer of it, my dear," returned Bob, "if you saw and
spoke to him. I shouldn't be at all surprised,