il they reached an iron gate. He paused to look round
before entering.

A churchyard. Here, then, the wretched man whose name he had now to
learn, lay underneath the ground. It was a worthy place. Walled in by
houses; overrun by grass and weeds, the growth of vegetation's death,
not life; choked up with too much burying; fat with repleted appetite. A
worthy place!

The Spirit stood among the graves, and pointed down to one. He advanced
toward it trembling. The Phantom was exactly as it had been, but he
dreaded that he saw new meaning in its solemn shape.

"Before I draw nearer to that stone to which you point," said Scrooge,
"answer me one question. Are these the shadows of the things that will
be, or are they shadows of the things that may be, only?"

Still the Ghost pointed downward to the grave by which it stood.

"Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in,
they must lead," said Scrooge, "But if the courses be departed from, the
ends will change. Say it is thus with what you show me!"

The Spirit was immovable as ever.

Scrooge crept toward it, trembling as he went; and following the finger,
read upon the stone of the neglected grave his own name, EBENEZER
SCROOGE.

"Am _I_ that man who lay upon the bed?" he cried, upon his knees.

The finger pointed from the grave to him, and back again.

"No, Spirit! Oh, no, no!"

The finger still was there.

Holding up his hands in a last prayer to have his fate reversed, he saw
an alteration in the Phantom's hood and dress. It shrunk, collapsed, and
dwindled down into a bedpost.

STAVE FIVE.

THE END OF IT.

Yes! and the bedpost was his own. The bed was his own, and the room was
his own. Best and happiest of all, the time before him was his own, to
make amends in!

He was so fluttered and so glowing with his good intentions, that his
broken voice would scarcely answer to his call. He had been sobbing
violently in his conflict with the Spirit, and his face was wet with
tears.

"They are not torn down," cried Scrooge, folding one of his bed curtains
in his arms, "they are not torn down, rings and all. They are here--I am
here--the shadows of the things that would have been, may be dispelled.
They will be. I know they will!"

He had frisked into the sitting-room, and was now standing there:
perfectly winded.

"There's the saucepan that the gruel was in!" cried Scrooge, starting
off again, and going round the fire-place. "The