For it's of no use, you can't help it, it's in the bells, or the wind, or the time, or something, you must feel jolly at Christmas, whether you will or no, and though you may set up your back and resist, and all that sort of thing, it's of no avail, so you may just as well yield with a good grace, and in making others enjoy themselves, enjoy yourself too. Selfishness! Bah, it's madness, folly: why, the real--the true enjoyment of life is making other people happy, but Sandy Brown thought that making himself the receptacle for more beer than was good for him was being happy; and Sandy Brown was wrong. And perhaps you'll say, too, that you don't believe in ghosts, goblins, and spirits? Hold your tongue, for they're out by the thousand this Christmas-time, putting noble and bright inspirations into people's hearts, showing us the sufferings of the poor, and teaching us of the good that there is room to do in this wicked world of ours. But there, fie! fie! fie! to call it this wicked world--this great, wondrous, glorious, beautiful world, if we did not mar its beauty. But there, it's Christmas-time, when we all think of the coming year, and hopefully gird up our loins for the new struggle. Sandy Brown had left his wife and child at home, while he went out to enjoy himself after his fashion, which was to drink till he grew so quarrelsome that the landlord turned him out, when he would go home, beat his wife, and then lay upon the bed and swear. Ah, he was a nice man, was Sandy, just the fellow to have had in a glass case to show as a specimen of a free-born Briton--of the man who never would be a slave--to anything but his own vile passions. It was very bleak at Sandy's cottage that night, for the coals were done, and there was no wood. Little Polly could not sleep for the cold, and her mother eat shivering over the fire trying to warm the little thing, who cried piteously, as did its mother. There were no preparations for spending a happy Christmas there, but poor Mrs Brown, pale, young, and of the trusting heart, sat watching and waiting till her lord and master should choose to return. "There," said Sandy, blundering through the swing-gate and standing in the churchyard. "Who'sh afraid? Where'sh yer ghosh--eh?" "Hallo!" said a voice at his elbow, while it seemed that a cold, icy, chilling breath swept over his cheek. "Where'sh yer ghosh?" cried Sandy, startled and half sober already. "Don't make such a noise, man, we're all here," said the voice, "come along." "Eh?" cried Sandy, now quite sober and all of a shiver, for a cold breath seemed to have gone right through him, and he looked behind him on each side and then in front, but there was nothing visible but the glittering snow--covered graves and tombstones sparkling in the brilliant moonlight. "Bah!" cried Sandy, "I don't believe--"