golden goblets would have done; and Bob served it out with beaming looks, while the chestnuts on the fire sputtered and crackled noisily. Then Bob proposed:

"A merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us!" Which all the family re-echoed.

"God bless us every one!" said Tiny Tim, the last of all. He sat very close to his father's side, upon his little stool. Bob held his withered little hand in his, as if he loved the child, and wished to keep him by his side, and dreaded that he might be taken from him.

Scrooge raised his head speedily, on hearing his own name. "Mr. Scrooge!" said Bob; "I'll give you Mr. Scrooge, the Founder of the Feast!"

520

525

"The Founder of the Feast indeed!" cried Mrs. Cratchit, reddening. "I wish I had him here. I'd give him a piece of my 530 mind to feast upon, and I hope he'd have a good appetite for it." "My dear," said Bob, "the children! Christmas-day."

"It should be Christmas-day, I am sure," said she, "on which one drinks the health of such an odious, stingy, hard, unfeeling man as Mr. Scrooge. You know he is, Robert! Nobody knowS 535 it better than you do, poor fellow!"

"My dear," was Bob's mild answer, “Christmas-day."

"I'll drink his health Cratchit, "not for his. and a happy New Year! I have no doubt!"

for your sake and the day's," said Mrs. Long life to him! A merry Christmas

He'll be very merry and very happy, 540

The children drank the toast after her. It was the first of their proceedings which had no heartiness in it.

Tiny Tim drank
Scrooge was the

it last of all, but he didn't care twopence for it. Ogre of the family. The mention of his name cast a dark shad- 545 ow on the party, which was not dispelled for full five minutes.

After it had passed away, they were ten times merrier than before, from the mere relief of Scrooge the Baleful being done with.

LITERARY ANALYSIS.-530, 531. a piece of my mind. What is the figure of speech?

540, 541. He'll... doubt! What is the figure of speech?

547-567. In this paragraph select all the words of other than Anglo-Saxon origin.

Bob Cratchit told them how he had a situation in his eye for Master Peter, which would bring in, if obtained, full five and six- 550 pence weekly. The two young Cratchits laughed tremendously at the idea of Peter's being a man of business; and Peter himself looked thoughtfully at the fire from between his collars, as if he were deliberating what particular investments he should favor when he came into the receipt of that bewildering income. 555 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 abed 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 560 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 chestnuts and the jug went round and round; and by-and-by they had a song, about a lost child travelling in the snow, from 565 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 water-proof; their clothes were scanty; and Peter 570 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 sprinklings of the Spirit's torch at parting, Scrooge had his eye upon them, and especially on 575 Tiny Tim, until the last.

It was a great surprise to Scrooge, as this scene vanished, to hear a hearty laugh. It was a much greater surprise to Scrooge to recognize it as his own nephew's, and to find himself in a bright, dry, gleaming room, with the Spirit standing smiling by 580 his side, and looking at that same nephew.

It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things that, while there is infection* in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the

LITERARY ANALYSIS.-568–576. Point out the antithesis in this paragraph. 583. infection. Discriminate between "infection" and contagion. (See Glossary.)

world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good-humor. When Scrooge's nephew laughed, Scrooge's niece by marriage 585 laughed as heartily as he. And their assembled friends, being not a bit behindhand, laughed out lustily.

"He said that Christmas was a humbug, as I live!" cried Scrooge's nephew. "He believed it too!"

"More shame for him, Fred!" said Scrooge's niece, indignant- 590 ly. Bless those women! they never do anything by halves. They are always in earnest.

She was very pretty; exceedingly pretty. With a dimpled, surprised-looking, capital face, a ripe little mouth that seemed made to be kissed—as no doubt it was; all kinds of good little 595 dots about her chin, that melted into one another when she laughed; and the sunniest pair of eyes you ever saw in any little creature's head. Altogether she was what you would have called provoking, but satisfactory, too. Oh, perfectly satisfactory.

"He's a comical old fellow," said Scrooge's nephew, "that's 600 the truth; and not so pleasant as he might be. However, his offences carry their own punishment, and I have nothing to say against him. Who suffers by his ill whims? Himself, always. Here he takes it into his head to dislike us, and he won't come and dine with us. What's the consequence? He don't lose 605 much of a dinner."

"Indeed, I think he loses a very good dinner," interrupted Scrooge's niece. Everybody else said the same, and they must be allowed to have been competent judges, because they had just had dinner; and, with the dessert* upon the table, were clus- 610 tered round the fire, by lamplight.

"Well, I am very glad to hear it," said Scrooge's nephew, "because I haven't any great faith in these young housekeepers. What do you say, Topper?"

Topper clearly had his eye on one of Scrooge's niece's sisters, 615 for he answered that a bachelor was a wretched outcast, who had no right to express an opinion on the subject. Whereat Scrooge's

LITERARY ANALYSIS.-593-599. She... satisfactory. The deftness of the description (which is in Dickens's best manner) will be observed by the pupil.

610. dessert. Derivation?

niece's sister-the plump one with the lace tucker, not the one with the roses-blushed.

After tea they had some music. For they were a musical fam- 620 ily, and knew what they were about when they sang a glee or catch, I can assure you-especially Topper, who could growl away in the bass* like a good one, and never swell the large veins in his forehead, or get red in the face over it.

But they didn't devote the whole evening to music. After a 625 while they played at forfeits; for it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child himself. There was first a game at blindman's-buff though. And I no more believe Topper was really blinded than I believe he had eyes in his boots. Because the 630 way in which he went after that plump sister in the lace tucker was an outrage on the credulity of human nature. Knocking down the fire-irons, tumbling over the chairs, bumping up against the piano, smothering himself among the curtains-wherever she went, there went he! He always knew where the plump sister 635 was. He wouldn't catch anybody else. If you had fallen up against him, as some of them did, and stood there, he would have made a feint of endeavoring to seize you, which would have been an affront to your understanding, and would instantly have sidled off in the direction of the plump sister.

"Here is a new game," said Scrooge. "One half-hour, Spirit, only one!"

640

It was a game called Yes and No, where Scrooge's nephew had to think of something, and the rest must find out what; he only answering to their questions yes or no, as the case was. 645 The fire of questioning to which he was exposed elicited from him that he was thinking of an animal, a live animal, rather a disagreeable animal, a savage animal, an animal that growled and grunted sometimes, and talked sometimes, and lived in London, and walked about the streets, and wasn't made a show of, 650 and wasn't led by anybody, and didn't live in a menagerie, and was never killed in a market, and was not a horse, or an ass, or a cow, or a bull, or a tiger, or a dog, or a pig, or a cat, or a bear.

LITERARY ANALYSIS.-625-640. The master's hand is seen in this capital description.

At every new question put to him, this nephew burst into a fresh roar of laughter, and was so inexpressibly tickled that he was 655 obliged to get up off the sofa and stamp. At last the plump sister cried out,

"I have found it out! I know what it is, Fred! I know what it is!"

"What is it?" cried Fred.

"It's your uncle Scro-o-o-o-oge!" Which it certainly was.

Admiration was the universal sentiment, though some objected that the reply to "Is it a bear?" ought to have been "Yes."

660

Uncle Scrooge had imperceptibly become so gay and light of 665 heart that he would have drunk to the unconscious company in an inaudible speech. But the whole scene passed off in the breath of the last word spoken by his nephew; and he and the Spirit were again upon their travels.

Much they saw, and far they went, and many homes they vis- 670 ited, but always with a happy end. The Spirit stood beside sick-beds, and they were cheerful; on foreign lands, and they were close at home; by struggling men, and they were patient in their greater hope; by poverty, and it was rich. In almshouse, hospital, and jail, in misery's every refuge where vain 675 man, in his little brief authority, had not made fast the door and barred the Spirit out, he left his blessing and taught Scrooge his precepts. Suddenly, as they stood together in an open place, the bell struck twelve.

Scrooge looked about him for the Ghost, and saw it no more. 680 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.

LITERARY ANALYSIS.-667. inaudible speech. What is the figure of speech? 670. Much, etc. Remark on the order of words.

671-674. The Spirit... rich. Remark on the construction of the sentence. 674-678. In .. precepts. What kind of sentence rhetorically?

...