icular
investments he should favour when he came into the receipt of that
bewildering income. Martha, who was a poor apprentice at a milliner's,
then told them what kind of work she had to do, and how many hours she
worked at a stretch, and how she meant to lie a-bed to-morrow morning
for a good long rest; to-morrow being a holiday she passed at home.
Also how she had seen a countess and a lord some days before, and how
the lord "was much about as tall as Peter;" at which Peter pulled up
his collars so high that you couldn't have seen his head if you had
been there. All this time the chesnuts and the jug went round and
round; and bye and bye they had a song, about a lost child travelling
in the snow, from Tiny Tim; who had a plaintive little voice, and sang
it very well indeed.

There was nothing of high mark in this. They were not a handsome
family; they were not well dressed; their shoes were far from being
waterproof; their clothes were scanty; and Peter might have known, and
very likely did, the inside of a pawnbroker's. But they were happy,
grateful, pleased with one another, and contented with the time; and
when they faded, and looked happier yet in the bright

[Illustration: Original manuscript of Page 40.]

sprinklings of the Spirit's torch at parting, Scrooge had his eye upon
them, and especially on Tiny Tim, until the last.

By this time it was getting dark, and snowing pretty heavily; and as
Scrooge and the Spirit went along the streets, the brightness of the
roaring fires in kitchens, parlours, and all sorts of rooms, was
wonderful. Here, the flickering of the blaze showed preparations for a
cosy dinner, with hot plates baking through and through before the
fire, and deep red curtains, ready to be drawn, to shut out cold and
darkness. There, all the children of the house were running out into
the snow to meet their married sisters, brothers, cousins, uncles,
aunts, and be the first to greet them. Here, again, were shadows on
the window-blind of guests assembling; and there a group of handsome
girls, all hooded and fur-booted, and all chattering at once, tripped
lightly off to some near neighbour's house; where, wo upon the single
man who saw them enter--artful witches: well they knew it--in a glow!

But if you had judged from the numbers of people on their way to
friendly gatherings, you might have thought that no one was at home to
give them welcome when they got there, instead of every house
expectin