ve had the lightest license of a child, and yet
been man enough to know its value.

But now a knocking at the door was heard, and such a rush immediately
ensued that she with laughing face and plundered dress was borne
towards it the centre of a flushed and boisterous group, just in time
to greet the father, who, came home attended by a man laden with
Christmas toys and presents. Then the shouting and the struggling, and
the onslaught that was made on the defenceless porter! The scaling
him, with chairs for ladders, to dive into his pockets, despoil him of
brown-paper parcels, hold on tight by his cravat, hug him round the
neck, pommel his back, and kick his legs in irrepressible affection!
The shouts of wonder and delight with which the development of every
package was received! The terrible announcement that the baby had been
taken in the act of putting a doll's frying-pan into his mouth, and
was more than suspected of having swallowed a fictitious turkey, glued
on a wooden platter! The immense relief of finding this a false alarm!
The joy, and gratitude, and ecstacy! They are all indescribable alike.
It is enough that by degrees the children and their emotions got out
of the parlour and by one stair at a time, up to the top of the house;
where they went to bed, and so subsided.

And now Scrooge looked on more attentively than ever, when the master
of the house, having his daughter leaning fondly on him, sat down with
her and her mother at his own fireside; and when he thought that such
another

[Illustration: Original manuscript of Page 29.]

creature, quite as graceful and as full of promise, might have called
him father, and been a spring-time in the haggard winter of his life,
his sight grew very dim indeed.

"Belle," said the husband, turning to his wife with a smile, "I saw an
old friend of yours this afternoon."

"Who was it?"

"Guess!"

"How can I? Tut, don't I know," she added in the same breath, laughing
as he laughed. "Mr. Scrooge."

"Mr. Scrooge it was. I passed his office window; and as it was not
shut up, and he had a candle inside, I could scarcely help seeing him.
His partner lies upon the point of death, I hear; and there he sat
alone. Quite alone in the world, I do believe."

"Spirit!" said Scrooge in a broken voice, "remove me from this place."

"I told you these were shadows of the things that have been," said the
Ghost. "That they are what they are, do not blame me!"

"Remove me!"