delightfully sketched; it is enough to make a bachelor in love with wedlock. The scene is too affecting for the changed and worldly miser; he implores to be removed from the familiar place; he wrestles with the spirit, and awakened by the struggle, finds himself once more in his own room, and in darkness. Again he has a long sleep. Christmas Present comes in the shape of a giant, with a holly-green robe. SCROOGE perceives him seated in his room, with his noble head crowned with holly wreath studded with icicles, reaching to the ceiling. His throne is a wine-cask and his foot-stool a twelfth-cake. In his hand he bears a blazing torch, from which he sprinkles down gladness upon every threshhold he enters. An immense fire glows and crackles in the grate, the walls and ceiling are hung with living green, and all around are heaped up the choice provisions collected to make Christmas glad. The giant leads SCROOGE forth. They pass through streets and lanes, with every house bearing token of rejoicing by its roaring fire or its sprig of holly, till they come to the dwelling of poor BOB CRATCHIT, old SCROOGE'S clerk. And here ensues a picture worthy of WILKIE in his best days: 'Perhaps it was the pleasure the good Spirit had in showing off his power, or else it was his own kind, generous, hearty nature, and his sympathy with all poor men, that led him straight to Scrooge's clerk's; for there he went, and took Scrooge with him, holding to his robe; and on the threshhold of the door the Spirit smiled, and stopped to bless Bob Cratchit's dwelling with the sprinkling of his torch. Think of that! Bob had but fifteen 'Bob' a week himself; he pocketed on Saturdays but fifteen copies of his Christian name; and yet the Ghost of Christmas Present blessed his four-roomed house! 'Then up rose Mrs. Cratchit, Cratchit's wife, dressed out but poorly in a twice-turned gown, but brave in ribands, which are cheap and make a goodly show for sixpence; and she laid the cloth, assisted by Belinda Cratchit, second of her daughters, also brave in ribands; while Master Peter Cratchit plunged a fork into the saucepan of potatoes, and getting the corners of his monstrous shirt-collar (Bob's private property, conferred upon his son and heir in honor of the day) into his mouth, rejoiced to find himself so gallantly attired, and yearned to show his linen in the fashionable Parks. And now two smaller Cratchits, boy and girl, came tearing in, screaming that outside the baker's they had smelt the goose, and known it for their own; and basking in luxurious thoughts of sage-and-onions, these young Cratchits danced about the table, and exalted Master Peter Cratchit to the skies, while he (not proud, although his collars nearly choked him) blew the fire, until the slow potatoes, bubbling up, knocked proudly at the sauce-pan lid to be let out and peeled.