cle has happened."

"He is past relenting," said her husband. "He is dead."

She was a mild and patient creature if her face spoke truth; but she was
thankful in her soul to hear it, and she said so, with clasped hands.
She prayed forgiveness the next moment, and was sorry; but the first was
the emotion of her heart.

"What the half-drunken woman whom I told you of last night, said to me,
when I tried to see him and obtain a week's delay; and what I thought
was a mere excuse to avoid me; turns out to have been quite true. He was
not only very ill, but dying, then."

"To whom will our debt be transferred?"

"I don't know. But before that time we shall be ready with the money;
and even though we were not, it would be bad fortune indeed to find so
merciless a creditor in his successor. We may sleep to-night with light
hearts, Caroline!"

Yes. Soften it as they would, their hearts were lighter. The children's
faces, hushed, and clustered round to hear what they so little
understood, were brighter; and it was a happier house for this man's
death; The only emotion that the Ghost could show him, caused by the
event, was one of pleasure.

"Let me see some tenderness connected with a death," said Scrooge; "or
that dark chamber, Spirit, which we left just now, will be for ever
present to me."

The Ghost conducted him through several streets familiar to his feet;
and as they went along, Scrooge looked here and there to find himself,
but nowhere was he to be seen. They entered poor Bob Cratchit's house;
the dwelling he had visited before; and found the mother and the
children seated round the fire.

Quiet. Very quiet. The noisy little Cratchits were as still as statues
in one corner, and sat looking up at Peter, who had a book before him.
The mother and her daughter were engaged in sewing. But surely they were
very quiet!

"'And He took a child, and set him in the midst of them.'"

Where had Scrooge heard those words? He had not, dreamed them. The boy
must have read them out, as he and the Spirit crossed the threshold. Why
did he not go on?

The mother laid her work upon the table, and put her hand up to her
face.

"The colour hurts my eyes," she said.

The colour? Ah, poor Tiny Tim!

"They're better now again," said Cratchit's wife. "It makes them weak by
candlelight; and I wouldn't show weak eyes to your father when he comes
home, for the world. It must be near his time."

"Past it rather," Peter answered, s