It was a noisy set of people who left Miss Pix's house. That little lady stood in the doorway, and sent off each with such a merry blessing that it lasted long after the doors of the other houses were closed. Even the forlorn Mrs. Starkey seemed to go back almost as happy as when she had issued forth in the evening with her newly found nephew. The sudden gleam of hope which his unlooked-for coming had let in upon a toilsome and thankless life--for we know more about her position in Mr. Manlius's household than we have been at liberty to disclose--had, indeed, gone out in darkness; but the Christmas merriment, and the kindness which for one evening had flowed around her, had so fertilized one little spot in her life, that, however dreary her pilgrimage, nothing could destroy the bright oasis. It gave hope of others, too, no less verdant; and with this hope uppermost in her confused brain the lonely widow entered the land of Christmas dreams. Let us hope, too, that the pachydermatous Mr. Manlius felt the puncture of her disappointment, and that Miss Pix's genial warmth had made him cast off a little the cloak of selfishness in which he had wrapped himself; for what else could have made him say to his echoing wife that night, "Caroline, suppose we let Eunice take the children to the panorama to-morrow. It's a quarter more; but she was rather disappointed about that young fellow"? The learned Doctor Chocker, who had, in all his days, never found a place to compare with his crowded study for satisfaction to his soul, for the first time now, as he entered it, admitted to himself that Miss Pix's arbor-like parlor and Mrs. Blake's simple room had something that his lacked; and in the frozen little bedroom where he nightly shivered, in rigid obedience to some fancied laws of health, the old man was aware of some kindly influence thawing away the chill frost-work which he had suffered to sheathe his heart. Nor did Mr. Le Clear toast his slippered feet before his cheery fire without an uncomfortable misgiving that his philosophy hardly compassed the sphere of life. Christmas-eve in the court was over. Strange things had happened; and, for one night at least, the Five Sisters had acted as one family. Little Miss Pix, reviewing the evening, as she dropped off to sleep, could not help rubbing her hands together, and emitting little chuckles. Such a delightful evening as she had had! and meaning to surprise others, she had herself been taken into a better surprise still; and here, recollecting the happy union of the lone, but not lonely, Mrs. Blake with a child of her old age, as it were, Miss Pix must laugh aloud just as the midnight clock was sounding. Bless her neighborly soul, she has ushered in Christmas-day with her laugh of good-will toward men. The whole hymn of the angels is in her heart; and with it let her sleep till the glorious sunshine awakes her. ICE AND ESQUIMAUX. CHAPTER II. THE ICE IN ITS GLORY.