at 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
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 around 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 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 when he thought that such
another 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 i