out, and touched them with its freshest tints, a
stale and shrivelled hand, like that of age, had pinched and twisted
them, and pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat
enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. No change, no
degradation, no perversion of humanity in any grade, through all the
mysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible and
dread.

Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown to him in this way, he
tried to say they were fine children, but the words choked themselves,
rather than be parties to a lie of such enormous magnitude.

'Spirit! are they yours?' Scrooge could say no more.

'They are Man's,' said the Spirit, looking down upon them. 'And they
cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This
girl is Want. Beware of them both, and all of their degree, but most of
all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom,
unless the writing be erased. Deny it!' cried the Spirit, stretching out
his hand towards the city. 'Slander those who tell it ye! Admit it for
your factious purposes, and make it worse! And bide the end!'

'Have they no refuge or resource?' cried Scrooge.

'Are there no prisons?' said the Spirit, turning on him for the last
time with his own words. 'Are there no workhouses?'

The bell struck Twelve.

Scrooge looked about him for the Ghost, and saw it not. As the last
stroke ceased to vibrate, he remembered the prediction of old Jacob
Marley, and, lifting up his eyes, beheld a solemn Phantom, draped and
hooded, coming like a mist along the ground towards him.

STAVE FOUR

THE LAST OF THE SPIRITS

The Phantom slowly, gravely, silently approached. When it came near him,
Scrooge bent down upon his knee; for in the very air through which this
Spirit moved it seemed to scatter gloom and mystery.

It was shrouded in a deep black garment, which concealed its head, its
face, its form, and left nothing of it visible, save one outstretched
hand. But for this, it would have been difficult to detach its figure
from the night, and separate it from the darkness by which it was
surrounded.

He felt that it was tall and stately when it came beside him, and that
its mysterious presence filled him with a solemn dread. He knew no more,
for the Spirit neither spoke nor moved.

'I am in the presence of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come?' said
Scrooge.

The Spirit answered not, but pointed onward w