l never
forget. We all got something; and Patty and I, at any rate, believed
that the things came from the stores of Old Father Christmas. We were
not undeceived even by his gratefully accepting a bundle of old clothes
which had been hastily put together to form his present.

"We were all very happy; even Kitty, I think, though she kept her
sleeves rolled up, and seemed rather to grudge enjoying herself (a weak
point in some energetic characters). She went back to her oven before
the lights were out and the angel on the top of the tree taken down. She
locked up her present (a little work-box) at once. She often showed it
off afterward, but it was kept in the same bit of tissue paper till she
died. Our presents certainly did not last so long!

"The old man died about a week afterward, so we never made his
acquaintance as a common personage. When he was buried, his little dog
came to us. I suppose he remembered the hospitality he had received.
Patty adopted him, and he was very faithful. Puss always looked on him
with favour. I hoped during our rambles together in the following summer
that he would lead us at last to the cave where Christmas-trees are
dressed. But he never did.

"Our parents often spoke of his late master as 'old Reuben,' but
children are not easily disabused of a favourite fancy, and in Patty's
thoughts and in mine the old man was long gratefully remembered as Old
Father Christmas."

XX

A CHRISTMAS CAROL

CHARLES DICKENS

MASTER Peter, and the two ubiquitous young Cratchits went to fetch the
goose, with which they soon returned in high procession.

Such a bustle ensued that you might have thought a goose the rarest of
all birds; a feathered phenomenon, to which a black swan was a matter of
course--and in truth it was something very like it in that house. Mrs.
Cratchit made the gravy (ready beforehand in a little saucepan) hissing
hot; Master Peter mashed the potatoes with incredible vigour; Miss
Belinda sweetened up the apple-sauce; Martha dusted the hot plates; Bob
took Tiny Tim beside him in a tiny corner at the table; the two young
Cratchits set chairs for everybody, not forgetting themselves, and
mounting guard upon their posts, crammed spoons into their mouths, lest
they should shriek for goose before their turn came to be helped. At
last the dishes were set on, and grace was said. It was succeeded by a
breathless pause, as Mrs. Cratchit, looking slowly all along the
carving-knif