g 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.'

'Let not that man be trusted' who can read this affecting picture of
parental love for a poor little cripple-boy, without feeling the
tear-drops swelling to his eyes. But let us return and take one more
excursion with the former Spirit. Observe the faithfulness and the range
of the writer's imagination:

'And now, without a word of warning from the Ghost, they stood
upon a bleak and desert moor, where monstrous masses of rude stone
were cast about, as though it were the burial-place of giants; and
water spread itself wheresoever it listed--or would have done so,
but for the frost that held it prisoner; and nothing-grew but moss
and furze, and coarse, rank grass. Down in the west the setting
sun had left a streak of fiery red, which glared upon the
desolation for an instant, like a sullen eye, and frowning lower,
lower, lower yet, was lost in the thick gloom of darkest night.

''What place is this?' asked Scrooge.

''A place where Miners live, who labor in the bowels of the
earth,' returned the Spirit. 'But they know me. See!'

'A light shone from the window of a hut, and swiftly they advanced
toward it. Passing through the wall of mud and stone, they found a
cheerful company assembled round a glowing fire. An old, old man
and woman, with their children and their children's children, and
another generation beyond that, all decked out gaily in their
holiday attire. The old man, in a voice that seldom rose above the
howling of the wind upon the barren waste, was singing them a
Christmas song; it had been a very old song when he was a boy; and
from time to time they all joined in the chorus. So surely as they
raised their voices, the old man got quite blithe and loud; and so
surely as they stopped, his vigor sank again.

'The Spirit did not tarry here, but bade Scrooge hold his robe,
and passing on above the moor, sped whither? Not to sea? To sea.
To Scrooge's horror, looking back, he saw the last of the land, a
frightful range of rocks, behind them; and his ears were deafened
by the thun