A Christmas Carrol

                        There were more dances, and there were forfeits, and more dances, and there was cake, and there
                        was negus, and there was a great piece of Cold Roast, and there was a great piece of Cold Boiled,
                        and there were mince-pies, and plenty of beer. But the great effect of the evening came after the
                        Roast and Boiled, when the fiddler (an artful dog, mind! The sort of man who knew his business
                        better than you or I could have told it him!) struck up 'Sir Roger de Coverley.' Then old Fezziwig
                        stood out to dance with Mrs. Fezziwig. Top couple, too; with a good stiff piece of work cut out for
                        them; three or four and twenty pair of partners; people who were not to be trifled with; people who
                        would dance, and had no notion of walking.

                        But if they had been twice as many- ah, four times- old Fezziwig would have been a match for
                        them, and so would Mrs. Fezziwig. As to her, she was worthy to be his partner in every sense of
                        the term. If that's not high praise, tell me higher, and I'll use it. A positive light appeared to issue
                        from Fezziwig's calves. They shone in every part of the dance like moons. You couldn't have
                        predicted, at any given time, what would have become of them next. And when old Fezziwig and
                        Mrs. Fezziwig had gone all through the dance; advance and retire, both hands to your partner,
                        bow and curtsey, corkscrew, thread-the-needle, and back again to your place; Fezziwig 'cut'- cut so
                        deftly, that he appeared to wink with his legs, and came upon his feet again without a stagger.

                        When the clock struck eleven, this domestic ball broke up. Mr. and Mrs. Fezziwig took their
                        stations, one on either side of the door, and shaking hands with every person individually as he or
                        she went out, wished him or her a Merry Christmas. When everybody had retired but the two
                        'prentices, they did the same to them; and thus the cheerful voices died away, and the lads were
                        left to their beds; which were under a counter in the back-shop.

                        During the whole of this time, Scrooge had acted like a man out of his wits. His heart and soul were
                        in the scene, and with his former self. He corroborated everything, remembered everything,
                        enjoyed everything, and underwent the strangest agitation. It was not until now, when the bright
                        faces of his former self and Dick were turned from them, that he remembered the Ghost, and
                        became conscious that it was looking full upon him, while the light upon its head burnt very clear.

                        'A small matter,' said the Ghost, 'to make these silly folks so full of gratitude.'

                        'Small!' echoed Scrooge.

                        The Spirit signed to him to listen to the two apprentices, who were pouring out their hearts in
                        praise of Fezziwig: and when he had done so, said, 'Why! Is it not? He has spent but a few pounds
                        of your mortal money: three or four perhaps. Is that so much that he deserves this praise?'

                        'It isn't that,' said Scrooge, heated by the remark, and speaking unconsciously like his former, not
                        his latter, self. 'It isn't that, Spirit. He has the power to render us happy or unhappy; to make our
                        service light or burdensome; a pleasure or a toil. Say that his power lies in words and looks; in
                        things so slight and insignificant that it is impossible to add and count 'em up: what then? The
                        happiness he gives, is quite as great as if it cost a fortune.'

                        He felt the Spirit's glance, and stopped.

                        'What is the matter?' asked the Ghost.

                        'Nothing particular,' said Scrooge.

                        'Something, I think?' the Ghost insisted.

                        'No,' said Scrooge, 'No. I should like to be able to say a word or two to my clerk just now. That's
                        all.'

                        His former self turned down the lamps as he gave utterance to the wish; and Scrooge and the
                        Ghost again stood side by side in the open air.

                        'My time grows short,' observed the Spirit. 'Quick!'

                        This was not addressed to Scrooge, or to any one whom he could see, but it produced an
                        immediate effect. For again Scrooge saw himself. He was older now; a man in the prime of life. His
                        face had not the harsh and rigid lines of later years; but it had begun to wear the signs of care and
                        avarice. There was an eager, greedy, restless motion in the eye, which showed the passion that
                        had taken root, and where the shadow of the growing tree would fall.

                        He was not alone, but sat by the side of a fair young girl in a mourning-dress: in whose eyes there
                        were tears, which sparkled in the light that shone out of the Ghost of Christmas Past.

                        'It matters little,' she said, softly. 'To you, very little. Another idol has displaced me; and if it can
                        cheer and comfort you in time to come, as I would have tried to do, I have no just cause to grieve.'

                        'What Idol has displaced you?' he rejoined.

                        'A golden one.'

                        'This is the even-handed dealing of the world!' he said. 'There is nothing on which it is so hard as
                        poverty; and there is nothing it professes to condemn with such severity as the pursuit of wealth!'

                        'You fear the world too much,' she answered, gently. 'All your other hopes have merged into the
                        hope of being beyond the chance of its sordid reproach. I have seen your nobler aspirations fall
                        off one by one, until the master-passion, Gain, engrosses you. Have I not?'
                       'What then?' he retorted. 'Even if I have grown so much wiser, what then? I am not changed
                        towards you.'

                        She shook her head.

                        'Am I?'

                        'Our contract is an old one. It was made when we were both poor and content to be so, until, in
                        good season, we could improve our worldly fortune by our patient industry. You are changed.
                        When it was made, you were another man.'

                        'I was a boy,' he said impatiently.

                        'Your own feeling tells you that you were not what you are,' she returned. 'I am. That which
                        promised happiness when we were one in heart, is fraught with misery now that we are two. How
                        often and how keenly I have thought of this, I will not say. It is enough that I have thought of it,
                        and can release you.'

                        'Have I ever sought release?'

                        'In words, no. Never.'

                        'In what, then?'

                        'In a changed nature; in an altered spirit; in another atmosphere of life; another Hope as its great
                        end. In everything that made my love of any worth or value in your sight. If this had never been
                        between us,' said the girl, looking mildly, but with steadiness, upon him; 'tell me, would you seek
                        me out and try to win me now? Ah, no!'

                        He seemed to yield to the justice of this supposition, in spite of himself. But he said with a
                        struggle, 'You think not.'

                        'I would gladly think otherwise if I could,' she answered, 'Heaven knows! When I have learned a
                        Truth like this, I know how strong and irresistible it must be. But if you were free to-day, to-
                        morrow, yesterday, can even I believe that you would choose a dowerless girl- you who, in your
                        very confidence with her, weigh everything by Gain: or, choosing her, if for a moment you were
                        false enough to your one guiding principle to do so, do I not know that your repentance and
                        regret would surely follow? I do; and I release you. With a full heart, for the love of him you once
                        were.'

                        He was about to speak; but with her head turned from him, she resumed.

                        'You may- the memory of what is past half makes me hope you will- have pain in this. A very, very
                        brief time, and you will dismiss the recollection of it, gladly, as an unprofitable dream, from which it
                        happened well that you awoke. May you be happy in the life you have chosen!'

                        She left him, and they parted.

                        'Spirit!' said Scrooge, 'show me no more! Conduct me home. Why do you delight to torture me?'

                        'One shadow more!' exclaimed the Ghost.

                        'No more!' cried Scrooge. 'No more. I don't wish to see it. Show me no more!'

                        But the relentless Ghost pinioned him in both his arms, and forced him to observe what happened
                        next.

                        They were in another scene and place; a room, not very large or handsome, but full of comfort.
                        Near to the winter fire sat a beautiful young girl, so like that last that Scrooge believed it was the
                        same, until he saw her, now a comely matron, sitting opposite her daughter. The noise in this room
                        was perfectly tumultuous, for there were more children there, than Scrooge in his agitated state of
                        mind could count; and, unlike the celebrated herd in the poem, they were not forty children
                        conducting themselves like one, but every child was conducting itself like forty. The
                        consequences were uproarious beyond belief; but no one seemed to care; on the contrary, the
                        mother and daughter laughed heartily, and enjoyed it very much; and the latter, soon beginning to
                        mingle in the sports, got pillaged by the young brigands most ruthlessly. What would I not have
                        given to be one of them! Though I never could have been so rude, no, no! I wouldn't for the
                        wealth of all the world have crushed that braided hair, and torn it down; and for the precious little
                        shoe, I wouldn't have plucked it off, God bless my soul! to save my life. As to measuring her waist
                        in sport, as they did, bold young brood, I couldn't have done it; I should have expected my arm to
                        have grown round it for a punishment, and never come straight again. And yet I should have
                        dearly liked, I own, to have touched her lips; to have questioned her, that she might have opened
                        them; to have looked upon the lashes of her downcast eyes, and never raised a blush; to have let
                        loose waves of hair, an inch of which would be a keepsake beyond price: in short, I should have
                        liked, I do confess, to have had the lightest licence of a child, and yet to have 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 his 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 ecstasy! 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

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