Pickersgill made no reply. 'Surely, Mr. Pickersgill,

'Pickersgill! how I hate that name!' said the smuggler, musing. 'I beg your lordship's pardon-if I may require your assistance for my unfortunate companions-'

'Not for yourself, Mr. Pickersgill?' said Mrs. Lascelles.

'Madam, I smuggle no more.' 'For the pleasure I feel in hearing that resolution, Mr. Pickersgill,' said Cecilia, take my hand, and thanks.' 'And mine,' said Mrs. Lascelles, half crying.

'And mine, too,' said Lord B. rising up.

Pickersgill passed the back of his hand across his eyes, turned round and left the cabin.

'I'm so happy!' said Mrs. Lascelles, bursting into tears.

'He's a magnificent fellow,' observed Lord B. 'Come, let us all go on deck.' 'You have not seen my aunt, papa.' True; I'll go in to her, and then follow you.'

The ladies went upon deck. Cecilia entered into conversation with Mr. Stewart, giving him a narrative of what had happened. Mrs. Lascelles sat abaft at the taffrail, with her pretty hand supporting her cheek, looking very much à la Juliette.

'Mrs. Lascelles,' said Pickersgill, 'before we part, allow me to observe, that it is you who have induced me to give up my profession-'

Why me, Mr. Pickersgill?'

'You said that you did not like it.' Mrs. Lascelles felt the force of the compliment. You said, just now, that you hated the name of Pickersgill; why do you call yourself so?"

'It was my smuggling name, Mrs.

'But I've a great curiosity to know it, and a lady's curiosity must be gratified. You must call upon me some day and tell it me. Here is my address.'

Pickersgill received the card with a low bow; and Lord B. coming on deck, Mrs. Lascelles hastened to meet him.

The vessel was now passing the Bridge of the Needles, and the smuggler piloted her on. As soon as they were clear and well inside, the whole party went down into the cabin, Lord B. requesting Pickersgill and Corbett to join him in a parting glass. Mr. Stewart, who had received the account of what had passed from Cecilia, was very attentive to Pickersgill, and took an opportunity of saying, that he was sorry that he had said or done any thing to annoy him. Every one recovered his spirits; and all was good humour and mirth, because Miss Ossulton adhered to her resolution of not quitting the cabin till she could quit the yacht. At ten o'clock the yacht was anchored. Pickersgill took his leave of the honourable company, and went in his boat with his men; and Lord B. was again in possession of his vessel, although he had not a ship's company. Maddox recovered his usual tone; and the cook flourished his knife, swearing that he should like to see the smuggler who would again order him to dress cutlets à l'ombre Chinoise.

The yacht had remained three days at Cowes, when Lord B. received a letter from Pickersgill, stating that the men of his vessel had been captured, and would be condemned, in consequence of their having the gentlemen on board, who were bound to appear against them, to prove that they had sunk the brandy. Lord B. paid all the recognisances, and the men were liberated for want of evidence.

It was about two years after this that Cecilia Ossulton, who was sitting at her work-table in deep mourning for her aunt, was presented with a letter by the butler. It was from her friend Mrs. Lascelles, informing her that she was married again to a Mr. Davenant, and intended to pay her a short visit

on her way to the Continent. Mr. and Mrs. Davenant arrived the next day; and when the latter introduced her husband, she said to Miss Ossulton, 'Look, Cecilia dear, and tell me if you have ever seen Davenant before.'

Cecilia looked earnestly. 'I have, in

deed,' cried she at last, extending her hand with warmth; and happy am I to meet with him again.'

For in Mr. Davenant she recognised her old acquaintance, the captain of the Happy-go-lucky, Jack Pickersgill, the smuggler.

CHARLES

In

CHARLES DICKENS or BOZ was born in 1812. He first before the public, at the age of about 26, in a series of sketches illustrative of the English character, which bear the name of 'Sketches,' by Boz. They were originally written for a newspaper, but from 1836 till 37 they appeared in two volumes as a separate work. 1837 he began The Pickwick Papers, of which it is said 100,000 copies have been sold; they contain some of the most excellent portraits of character anywhere to be met with. These were followed almost immediately by 'Nicholas Nickleby,' and soon afterwards by 'Oliver Twist, in which the author has portrayed the life of a charity boy, who is brought up among housebreakers and pickpockets without his character being corrupted. In 'Oliver Twist,' Dickens has exerted powers of a more varied nature than perhaps

A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

Marley's Ghost.

Marley was dead; to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it: and Scrooge's name was good upon 'Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a doornail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the country's done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did. How could it be otherwise? Scrooge and he were partners for I don't know how many years. Scrooge was his sole executor, his sole admini

DICKENS.

in any other of his works. His next publication was 'Master Humphrey's Clock,' which contains "The Old Curiosity Shop' and 'Barnaby Rudge. In 1843 Dickens made a voyage to America, and described his impressions of the manners and customs of the Yankees' in his 'American Note-Book.' Besides his larger works, Dickens has written a series of Christmas tales, of which the first, entitled 'The Christmas Carol' is undoubtedly the best; the remaining stories are "The Chimes, The Cricket on the Hearth,' "The Battle of Life,' and 'The Haunted Man.' 'Martin Chuzzlewit,' Dombey and Son,' 'David Copperfield,' 'Bleak House,' the highly interesting 'Household Words' and 'Little Dorrit, bear witness to the transcendent genius of the author who died, after a short illness, 8th June 1870.

strator, his sole friend and sole mourner. And even Scrooge was not so dreadfully cut up by the sad event, but that he was an excellent man of business on the very day of the funeral, and solemnised it with an undoubted bargain.

The mention of Marley's funeral brings me back to the point I started from. There is no doubt that Marley was dead. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate. If we were not perfectly convinced that Hamlet's father died before the play began, there would be nothing more remarkable in his taking a stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon his own ramparts, than there would be in any other middle-aged gentleman rashly turning out after dark in a breezy spot -say Saint Paul's Churchyard for instance-literally to astonish his son's weak mind.

Scrooge never painted out Old Marley's name. There it stood, years afterwards, above the warehouse door: Scrooge and Marley. The firm was known as Scrooge and Marley. Some

times people new to the business called Scrooge Scrooge, and sometimes Marley, but he answered to both names: it was all the same to him.

Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin. He carried his own low temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the dog-days; and didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas.

External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth could warm, nor wintry weather chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty. Foul weather didn't know where to have him. The heaviest rain, and snow, and hail, and sleet, could boast of the advantage over him in only one respect. They often 'came down' handsomely,(1) and Scrooge never did.

Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with gladsome looks, 'My dear Scrooge, how are you? when will you come to see me?' No beggars implored him to bestow a trifle, no children asked him what it was o'clock, no man or woman ever once in all his life inquired the way to such and such a place, of Scrooge. Even the blindmen's dogs appeared to know him; and when they saw him coming on, would tug their owners into doorways and up courts, and then would wag their tails as though they said, 'no eye at all is better than an evil eye, dark masters!'

But what did Scrooge care? It was the very thing he liked. To edge his

(1) A pun on 'to come down with, or to pay money.

way along the crowded paths of life, warning all human sympathy to keep its distance, was what the knowing ones call 'nuts' to Scrooge.

Once upon a time-of all the good days in the year, on Christmas Eveold Scrooge sat busy in his countinghouse. It was cold, bleak, biting weather: foggy withal: and he could hear the people in the court outside go wheezing up and down, beating their hands upon their breasts, and stamping their feet upon the pavement-stones to warm them. The city clocks had only just gone three, but it was quite dark already: it had not been light all day: and candles were flaring in the windows of the neighbouring offices, like ruddy smears upon the palpable brown air. The fog came pouring in at every chink and keyhole, and was so dense without, that although the court was of the narrowest, the houses opposite were mere phantoms. To see the dingy cloud come drooping down, obscuring everything, one might have thought that Nature lived hard by, and was brewing on a large scale.

The door of Scrooge's counting-house was open that he might keep his eye upon his clerk, who in a dismal little cell beyond, a sort of tank, was copying letters. Scrooge had a very small fire, but the clerk's fire was so very much smaller that it looked like one coal. But he couldn't replenish it, for Scrooge kept the coal-box in his own room; and so surely as the clerk came in with the shovel, the master predicted that it would be necessary for them to part. Wherefore the clerk put on his white comforter, and tried to warm himself at the candle; in which effort, not being a man of a strong imagination, he failed.

'A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!' cried a cheerful voice. It was the voice of Scrooge's nephew, who came upon him so quickly that this was the first intimation he had of his approach.

'Bah!' said Scrooge, 'Humbug!' He had so heated himself with rapid walking in the fog and frost, this nephew of Scrooge's, that he was all in a glow;

his face was ruddy and handsome; his eyes sparkled, and his breath smoked again.

"Christmas a humbug, uncle!' said Scrooge's nephew. 'You don't mean that, I am sure.'

'I do,' said Scrooge. 'Merry Christmas! what right have you to be merry? what reason have you to be merry? You're poor enough.'

'Come, then,' returned the nephew gaily. 'What right have you to be dismal? what reason have you to be morose? You're rich enough.'

Scrooge having no better answer ready on the spur of the moment, said, 'Bah!' again; and followed it up with 'Humbug.'

'Don't be cross, uncle,' said the nephew. 'What else can I be,' returned the uncle, 'when I live in such a world of fools as this? Merry Christmas! Out upon merry Christmas! What's Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, and not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books and having every item in 'em through a round dozen of months presented dead against you? If I could work my will,' said Scrooge, indignantly, 'every idiot who goes about with "Merry Christmas," on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!'

'Uncle!' pleaded the nephew. 'Nephew returned the uncle, sternly, 'keep Christmas in your own way, and let me keep it in mine.'

'Keep it repeated Scrooge's nephew. 'But you don't keep it.'

'Let me leave it alone, then,' said Scrooge. Much good may it do you! Much good it has ever done you!"

'There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say,' returned the nephew: 'Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round-apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from

that-as a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!'

The clerk in the tank involuntarily applauded: becoming immediately sensible of the impropriety, he poked the fire, and extinguished the last frail spark for ever.

'Let me hear another sound from you,' said Scrooge, and you'll keep your Christmas by losing your situation. You're quite a powerful speaker, Sir,' he added, turning to his nephew. 'I wonder you don't go into Parliament.' 'Don't be angry, uncle. Come! Dine with us to-morrow.'

Scrooge said that he would see him (1) yes, indeed he did. He went the whole length of the expression, and said that he would see him in that extremity first.

'But why?' cried Scrooge's nephew. 'Why?'

'Why did you get married?' said Scrooge.

'Because I fell in love.'

'Because you fell in love!' growled Scrooge, as if that were the only one thing in the world more ridiculous than a merry Christmas. 'Good afternoon!"

'Nay, uncle, but you never came to see me before that happened. Why give it as a reason for not coming now?'

'Good afternoon,' said Scrooge.

'I want nothing from you; I ask nothing of you; why cannot we be friends?'

'Good afternoon,' said Scrooge.

'I am sorry, with all my heart, to find you so resolute. We have never had any quarrel, to which I have been

(1) D-d first.

a party. But I have made the trial in homage to Christmas, and I'll keep my Christmas humour to the last. So A Merry Christmas, uncle!'

'Good afternoon!' said Scrooge. 'And A Happy New Year!' 'Good afternoon!' said Scrooge. His nephew left the room without an angry word, notwithstanding. He stopped at the outer door to bestow the greetings of the season on the clerk, who, cold as he was, was warmer than Scrooge; for he returned them cordially. 'There's another fellow,' muttered Scrooge, who overheard him: 'my clerk, with fifteen shillings a-week, and a wife and family, talking about a merry Christmas. I'll retire to Bedlam.'

This lunatic, in letting Scrooge's nephew out, had let two other people in. They were portly gentlemen, pleasant to behold, and now stood, with their hats off, in Scrooge's office. They had books and papers in their hands, and bowed to him.

'Scrooge and Marley's, I believe,' said one of the gentlemen, referring to his list. 'Have I the pleasure of addressing Mr. Scrooge, or Mr. Marley?'

'Mr. Marley has been dead these seven years,' Scrooge replied. 'He died seven years ago, this very night.'

'We have no doubt his liberality is well represented by his surviving partner,' said the gentleman, presenting his credentials.

It certainly was; for they had been two kindred spirits. At the ominous word 'liberality,' Scrooge frowned, and shook his head, and handed the credentials back.

'At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge,' said the gentleman, taking up a pen, it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, Sir.'

'Are there no prisons?' asked Scrooge. 'Plenty of prisons,' said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.

'And the Union workhouses?' demanded Scrooge. 'Are they still in operation?'

"They are. Still,' returned the gentleman, 'I wish I could say they were not.' 'The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?' said Scrooge. 'Both very busy, Sir.'

at

to

'Oh! I was afraid, from what you said first, that something had occurred stop them in their useful course,' said Scrooge. 'I'm very glad to hear it.' "Under the impression that they scarcely furnish Christian cheer of mind or body to the multitude,' returned the gentleman, 'a few of us are endeavouring to raise a fund to buy the Poor some meat and drink, and means of warmth. We choose this time, because it is a time, of all others, when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices. What shall I put you down for?" 'Nothing! Scrooge replied.

'You wish to be anonymous?"

'I wish to be left alone,' said Scrooge. 'Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don't make merry myself at Christmas, and I can't afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned: they cost enough: and those who are badly off must go there.'

'Many can't go there; and many would rather die."

'If they would rather die,' said Scrooge, 'they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population. Besides-excuse

me-I don't know that.'

'But you might know it,' observed the gentleman.

'It's not my business,' Scrooge returned. 'It's enough for a man to understand his own business, and not to interfere with other people's. Mine occupies me constantly. Good afternoon, gentlemen!'

Seeing clearly that it would be use less to pursue their point, the gentlemen withdrew. Scrooge resumed his labours with an improved opinion of himself, and in a more facetious temper than was usual with him.

Meanwhile the fog and darkness thickened so, that people ran about