"CHAPTER I—The Gift Bestowed\n\n\nEverybody said so.\n\nFar be it from me to assert that what everybody says must be true.\nEverybody is, often, as likely to be wrong as right.  In the general\nexperience, everybody has been wrong so often, and it has taken, in most\ninstances, such a weary while to find out how wrong, that the authority\nis proved to be fallible.  Everybody may sometimes be right; “but\n_that’s_ no rule,” as the ghost of Giles Scroggins says in the ballad.\n\nThe dread word, GHOST, recalls me.\n\nEverybody said he looked like a haunted man.  The extent of my present\nclaim for everybody is, that they were so far right.  He did.\n\nWho could have seen his hollow cheek; his sunken brilliant eye; his\nblack-attired figure, indefinably grim, although well-knit and\nwell-proportioned; his grizzled hair hanging, like tangled sea-weed,\nabout his face,—as if he had been, through his whole life, a lonely mark\nfor the chafing and beating of the great deep of humanity,—but might have\nsaid he looked like a haunted man?\n\nWho could have observed his manner, taciturn, thoughtful, gloomy,\nshadowed by habitual reserve, retiring always and jocund never, with a\ndistraught air of reverting to a bygone place and time, or of listening\nto some old echoes in his mind, but might have said it was the manner of\na haunted man?\n\nWho could have heard his voice, slow-speaking, deep, and grave, with a\nnatural fulness and melody in it which he seemed to set himself against\nand stop, but might have said it was the voice of a haunted man?\n\nWho that had seen him in his inner chamber, part library and part\nlaboratory,—for he was, as the world knew, far and wide, a learned man in\nchemistry, and a teacher on whose lips and hands a crowd of aspiring ears\nand eyes hung daily,—who that had seen him there, upon a winter night,\nalone, surrounded by his drugs and instruments and books; the shadow of\nhis shaded lamp a monstrous beetle on the wall, motionless among a crowd\nof spectral shapes raised there by the flickering of the fire upon the\nquaint objects around him; some of these phantoms (the reflection of\nglass vessels that held liquids), trembling at heart like things that\nknew his power to uncombine them, and to give back their component parts\nto fire and vapour;—who that had seen him then, his work done, and he\npondering in his chair before the rusted grate and red flame, moving his\nthin mouth as if in speech, but silent as the dead, would not have said\nthat the man seemed haunted and the chamber too?\n\nWho might not, by a very easy flight of fancy, have believed that\neverything about him took this haunted tone, and that he lived on haunted\nground?\n\nHis dwelling was so solitary and vault-like,—an old, retired part of an\nancient endowment for students, once a brave edifice, planted in an open\nplace, but now the obsolete whim of forgotten architects;\nsmoke-age-and-weather-darkened, squeezed on every side by the overgrowing\nof the great city, and choked, like an old well, with stones and bricks;\nits small quadrangles, lying down in very pits formed by the streets and\nbuildings, which, in course of time, had been constructed above its heavy\nchimney stalks; its old trees, insulted by the neighbouring smoke, which\ndeigned to droop so low when it was very feeble and the weather very\nmoody; its grass-plots, struggling with the mildewed earth to be grass,\nor to win any show of compromise; its silent pavements, unaccustomed to\nthe tread of feet, and even to the observation of eyes, except when a\nstray face looked down from the upper world, wondering what nook it was;\nits sun-dial in a little bricked-up corner, where no sun had straggled\nfor a hundred years, but where, in compensation for the sun’s neglect,\nthe snow would lie for weeks when it lay nowhere else, and the black east\nwind would spin like a huge humming-top, when in all other places it was\nsilent and still.\n\nHis dwelling, at its heart and core—within doors—at his fireside—was so\nlowering and old, so crazy, yet so strong, with its worn-eaten beams of\nwood in the ceiling, and its sturdy floor shelving downward to the great\noak chimney-piece; so environed and hemmed in by the pressure of the town\nyet so remote in fashion, age, and custom; so quiet, yet so thundering\nwith echoes when a distant voice was raised or a door was shut,—echoes,\nnot confined to the many low passages and empty rooms, but rumbling and\ngrumbling till they were stifled in the heavy air of the forgotten Crypt\nwhere the Norman arches were half-buried in the earth.\n\nYou should have seen him in his dwelling about twilight, in the dead\nwinter time.\n\nWhen the wind was blowing, shrill and shrewd, with the going down of the\nblurred sun.  When it was just so dark, as that the forms of things were\nindistinct and big—but not wholly lost.  When sitters by the fire began\nto see wild faces and figures, mountains and abysses, ambuscades and\narmies, in the coals.  When people in the streets bent down their heads\nand ran before the weather.  When those who were obliged to meet it, were\nstopped at angry corners, stung by wandering snow-flakes alighting on the\nlashes of their eyes,—which fell too sparingly, and were blown away too\nquickly, to leave a trace upon the frozen ground.  When windows of\nprivate houses closed up tight and warm.  When lighted gas began to burst\nforth in the busy and the quiet streets, fast blackening otherwise.  When\nstray pedestrians, shivering along the latter, looked down at the glowing\nfires in kitchens, and sharpened their sharp appetites by sniffing up the\nfragrance of whole miles of dinners.\n\nWhen travellers by land were bitter cold, and looked wearily on gloomy\nlandscapes, rustling and shuddering in the blast.  When mariners at sea,\noutlying upon icy yards, were tossed and swung above the howling ocean\ndreadfully.  When lighthouses, on rocks and headlands, showed solitary\nand watchful; and benighted sea-birds breasted on against their ponderous\nlanterns, and fell dead.  When little readers of story-books, by the\nfirelight, trembled to think of Cassim Baba cut into quarters, hanging in\nthe Robbers’ Cave, or had some small misgivings that the fierce little\nold woman, with the crutch, who used to start out of the box in the\nmerchant Abudah’s bedroom, might, one of these nights, be found upon the\nstairs, in the long, cold, dusky journey up to bed.\n\nWhen, in rustic places, the last glimmering of daylight died away from\nthe ends of avenues; and the trees, arching overhead, were sullen and\nblack.  When, in parks and woods, the high wet fern and sodden moss, and\nbeds of fallen leaves, and trunks of trees, were lost to view, in masses\nof impenetrable shade.  When mists arose from dyke, and fen, and river.\nWhen lights in old halls and in cottage windows, were a cheerful sight.\nWhen the mill stopped, the wheelwright and the blacksmith shut their\nworkshops, the turnpike-gate closed, the plough and harrow were left\nlonely in the fields, the labourer and team went home, and the striking\nof the church clock had a deeper sound than at noon, and the churchyard\nwicket would be swung no more that night.\n\nWhen twilight everywhere released the shadows, prisoned up all day, that\nnow closed in and gathered like mustering swarms of ghosts.  When they\nstood lowering, in corners of rooms, and frowned out from behind\nhalf-opened doors.  When they had full possession of unoccupied\napartments.  When they danced upon the floors, and walls, and ceilings of\ninhabited chambers, while the fire was low, and withdrew like ebbing\nwaters when it sprang into a blaze.  When they fantastically mocked the\nshapes of household objects, making the nurse an ogress, the\nrocking-horse a monster, the wondering child, half-scared and\nhalf-amused, a stranger to itself,—the very tongs upon the hearth, a\nstraddling giant with his arms a-kimbo, evidently smelling the blood of\nEnglishmen, and wanting to grind people’s bones to make his bread.\n\nWhen these shadows brought into the minds of older people, other\nthoughts, and showed them different images.  When they stole from their\nretreats, in the likenesses of forms and faces from the past, from the\ngrave, from the deep, deep gulf, where the things that might have been,\nand never were, are always wandering.\n\nWhen he sat, as already mentioned, gazing at the fire.  When, as it rose\nand fell, the shadows went and came.  When he took no heed of them, with\nhis bodily eyes; but, let them come or let them go, looked fixedly at the\nfire.  You should have seen him, then.\n\nWhen the sounds that had arisen with the shadows, and come out of their\nlurking-places at the twilight summons, seemed to make a deeper stillness\nall about him.  When the wind was rumbling in the chimney, and sometimes\ncrooning, sometimes howling, in the house.  When the old trees outside\nwere so shaken and beaten, that one querulous old rook, unable to sleep,\nprotested now and then, in a feeble, dozy, high-up “Caw!”  When, at\nintervals, the window trembled, the rusty vane upon the turret-top\ncomplained, the clock beneath it recorded that another quarter of an hour\nwas gone, or the fire collapsed and fell in with a rattle.\n\n—When a knock came at his door, in short, as he was sitting so, and\nroused him.\n\n“Who’s that?” said he.  “Come in!”\n\nSurely there had been no figure leaning on the back of his chair; no face\nlooking over it.  It is certain that no gliding footstep touched the\nfloor, as he lifted up his head, with a start, and spoke.  And yet there\nwas no mirror in the room on whose surface his own form could have cast\nits shadow for a moment; and, Something had passed darkly and gone!\n\n“I’m humbly fearful, sir,” said a fresh-coloured busy man, holding the\ndoor open with his foot for the admission of himself and a wooden tray he\ncarried, and letting it go again by very gentle and careful degrees, when\nhe and the tray had got in, lest it should close noisily, “that it’s a\ngood bit past the time to-night.  But Mrs. William has been taken off her\nlegs so often”—\n\n“By the wind?  Ay!  I have heard it rising.”\n\n“—By the wind, sir—that it’s a mercy she got home at all.  Oh dear, yes.\nYes.  It was by the wind, Mr. Redlaw.  By the wind.”\n\nHe had, by this time, put down the tray for dinner, and was employed in\nlighting the lamp, and spreading a cloth on the table.  From this\nemployment he desisted in a hurry, to stir and feed the fire, and then\nresumed it; the lamp he had lighted, and the blaze that rose under his\nhand, so quickly changing the appearance of the room, that it seemed as\nif the mere coming in of his fresh red face and active manner had made\nthe pleasant alteration.\n\n“Mrs. William is of course subject at any time, sir, to be taken off her\nbalance by the elements.  She is not formed superior to _that_.”\n\n“No,” returned Mr. Redlaw good-naturedly, though abruptly.\n\n“No, sir.  Mrs. William may be taken off her balance by Earth; as for\nexample, last Sunday week, when sloppy and greasy, and she going out to\ntea with her newest sister-in-law, and having a pride in herself, and\nwishing to appear perfectly spotless though pedestrian.  Mrs. William may\nbe taken off her balance by Air; as being once over-persuaded by a friend\nto try a swing at Peckham Fair, which acted on her constitution instantly\nlike a steam-boat.  Mrs. William may be taken off her balance by Fire; as\non a false alarm of engines at her mother’s, when she went two miles in\nher nightcap.  Mrs. William may be taken off her balance by Water; as at\nBattersea, when rowed into the piers by her young nephew, Charley Swidger\njunior, aged twelve, which had no idea of boats whatever.  But these are\nelements.  Mrs. William must be taken out of elements for the strength of\n_her_ character to come into play.”\n\nAs he stopped for a reply, the reply was “Yes,” in the same tone as\nbefore.\n\n“Yes, sir.  Oh dear, yes!” said Mr. Swidger, still proceeding with his\npreparations, and checking them off as he made them.  “That’s where it\nis, sir.  That’s what I always say myself, sir.  Such a many of us\nSwidgers!—Pepper.  Why there’s my father, sir, superannuated keeper and\ncustodian of this Institution, eighty-seven year old.  He’s a\nSwidger!—Spoon.”\n\n“True, William,” was the patient and abstracted answer, when he stopped\nagain.\n\n“Yes, sir,” said Mr. Swidger.  “That’s what I always say, sir.  You may\ncall him the trunk of the tree!—Bread.  Then you come to his successor,\nmy unworthy self—Salt—and Mrs. William, Swidgers both.—Knife and fork.\nThen you come to all my brothers and their families, Swidgers, man and\nwoman, boy and girl.  Why, what with cousins, uncles, aunts, and\nrelationships of this, that, and t’other degree, and whatnot degree, and\nmarriages, and lyings-in, the Swidgers—Tumbler—might take hold of hands,\nand make a ring round England!”\n\nReceiving no reply at all here, from the thoughtful man whom he\naddressed, Mr. William approached, him nearer, and made a feint of\naccidentally knocking the table with a decanter, to rouse him.  The\nmoment he succeeded, he went on, as if in great alacrity of acquiescence.\n\n“Yes, sir!  That’s just what I say myself, sir.  Mrs. William and me have\noften said so.  ‘There’s Swidgers enough,’ we say, ‘without _our_\nvoluntary contributions,’—Butter.  In fact, sir, my father is a family in\nhimself—Castors—to take care of; and it happens all for the best that we\nhave no child of our own, though it’s made Mrs. William rather\nquiet-like, too.  Quite ready for the fowl and mashed potatoes, sir?\nMrs. William said she’d dish in ten minutes when I left the Lodge.”\n\n“I am quite ready,” said the other, waking as from a dream, and walking\nslowly to and fro.\n\n“Mrs. William has been at it again, sir!” said the keeper, as he stood\nwarming a plate at the fire, and pleasantly shading his face with it.\nMr. Redlaw stopped in his walking, and an expression of interest appeared\nin him.\n\n“What I always say myself, sir.  She _will_ do it!  There’s a motherly\nfeeling in Mrs. William’s breast that must and will have went.”\n\n“What has she done?”\n\n“Why, sir, not satisfied with being a sort of mother to all the young\ngentlemen that come up from a variety of parts, to attend your courses of\nlectures at this ancient foundation—its surprising how stone-chaney\ncatches the heat this frosty weather, to be sure!”  Here he turned the\nplate, and cooled his fingers.\n\n“Well?” said Mr. Redlaw.\n\n“That’s just what I say myself, sir,” returned Mr. William, speaking over\nhis shoulder, as if in ready and delighted assent.  “That’s exactly where\nit is, sir!  There ain’t one of our students but appears to regard Mrs.\nWilliam in that light.  Every day, right through the course, they puts\ntheir heads into the Lodge, one after another, and have all got something\nto tell her, or something to ask her.  ‘Swidge’ is the appellation by\nwhich they speak of Mrs. William in general, among themselves, I’m told;\nbut that’s what I say, sir.  Better be called ever so far out of your\nname, if it’s done in real liking, than have it made ever so much of, and\nnot cared about!  What’s a name for?  To know a person by.  If Mrs.\nWilliam is known by something better than her name—I allude to Mrs.\nWilliam’s qualities and disposition—never mind her name, though it _is_\nSwidger, by rights.  Let ’em call her Swidge, Widge, Bridge—Lord!  London\nBridge, Blackfriars, Chelsea, Putney, Waterloo, or Hammersmith\nSuspension—if they like.”\n\nThe close of this triumphant oration brought him and the plate to the\ntable, upon which he half laid and half dropped it, with a lively sense\nof its being thoroughly heated, just as the subject of his praises\nentered the room, bearing another tray and a lantern, and followed by a\nvenerable old man with long grey hair.\n\nMrs. William, like Mr. William, was a simple, innocent-looking person, in\nwhose smooth cheeks the cheerful red of her husband’s official waistcoat\nwas very pleasantly repeated.  But whereas Mr. William’s light hair stood\non end all over his head, and seemed to draw his eyes up with it in an\nexcess of bustling readiness for anything, the dark brown hair of Mrs.\nWilliam was carefully smoothed down, and waved away under a trim tidy\ncap, in the most exact and quiet manner imaginable.  Whereas Mr.\nWilliam’s very trousers hitched themselves up at the ankles, as if it\nwere not in their iron-grey nature to rest without looking about them,\nMrs. William’s neatly-flowered skirts—red and white, like her own pretty\nface—were as composed and orderly, as if the very wind that blew so hard\nout of doors could not disturb one of their folds.  Whereas his coat had\nsomething of a fly-away and half-off appearance about the collar and\nbreast, her little bodice was so placid and neat, that there should have\nbeen protection for her, in it, had she needed any, with the roughest\npeople.  Who could have had the heart to make so calm a bosom swell with\ngrief, or throb with fear, or flutter with a thought of shame!  To whom\nwould its repose and peace have not appealed against disturbance, like\nthe innocent slumber of a child!\n\n“Punctual, of course, Milly,” said her husband, relieving her of the\ntray, “or it wouldn’t be you.  Here’s Mrs. William, sir!—He looks\nlonelier than ever to-night,” whispering to his wife, as he was taking\nthe tray, “and ghostlier altogether.”\n\nWithout any show of hurry or noise, or any show of herself even, she was\nso calm and quiet, Milly set the dishes she had brought upon the\ntable,—Mr. William, after much clattering and running about, having only\ngained possession of a butter-boat of gravy, which he stood ready to\nserve.\n\n“What is that the old man has in his arms?” asked Mr. Redlaw, as he sat\ndown to his solitary meal.\n\n“Holly, sir,” replied the quiet voice of Milly.\n\n“That’s what I say myself, sir,” interposed Mr. William, striking in with\nthe butter-boat.  “Berries is so seasonable to the time of year!—Brown\ngravy!”\n\n“Another Christmas come, another year gone!” murmured the Chemist, with a\ngloomy sigh.  “More figures in the lengthening sum of recollection that\nwe work and work at to our torment, till Death idly jumbles all together,\nand rubs all out.  So, Philip!” breaking off, and raising his voice as he\naddressed the old man, standing apart, with his glistening burden in his\narms, from which the quiet Mrs. William took small branches, which she\nnoiselessly trimmed with her scissors, and decorated the room with, while\nher aged father-in-law looked on much interested in the ceremony.\n\n“My duty to you, sir,” returned the old man.  “Should have spoke before,\nsir, but know your ways, Mr. Redlaw—proud to say—and wait till spoke to!\nMerry Christmas, sir, and Happy New Year, and many of ’em.  Have had a\npretty many of ’em myself—ha, ha!—and may take the liberty of wishing\n’em.  I’m eighty-seven!”\n\n“Have you had so many that were merry and happy?” asked the other.\n\n“Ay, sir, ever so many,” returned the old man.\n\n“Is his memory impaired with age?  It is to be expected now,” said Mr.\nRedlaw, turning to the son, and speaking lower.\n\n“Not a morsel of it, sir,” replied Mr. William.  “That’s exactly what I\nsay myself, sir.  There never was such a memory as my father’s.  He’s the\nmost wonderful man in the world.  He don’t know what forgetting means.\nIt’s the very observation I’m always making to Mrs. William, sir, if\nyou’ll believe me!”\n\nMr. Swidger, in his polite desire to seem to acquiesce at all events,\ndelivered this as if there were no iota of contradiction in it, and it\nwere all said in unbounded and unqualified assent.\n\nThe Chemist pushed his plate away, and, rising from the table, walked\nacross the room to where the old man stood looking at a little sprig of\nholly in his hand.\n\n“It recalls the time when many of those years were old and new, then?” he\nsaid, observing him attentively, and touching him on the shoulder.  “Does\nit?”\n\n“Oh many, many!” said Philip, half awaking from his reverie.  “I’m\neighty-seven!”\n\n“Merry and happy, was it?” asked the Chemist in a low voice.  “Merry and\nhappy, old man?”\n\n“Maybe as high as that, no higher,” said the old man, holding out his\nhand a little way above the level of his knee, and looking\nretrospectively at his questioner, “when I first remember ’em!  Cold,\nsunshiny day it was, out a-walking, when some one—it was my mother as\nsure as you stand there, though I don’t know what her blessed face was\nlike, for she took ill and died that Christmas-time—told me they were\nfood for birds.  The pretty little fellow thought—that’s me, you\nunderstand—that birds’ eyes were so bright, perhaps, because the berries\nthat they lived on in the winter were so bright.  I recollect that.  And\nI’m eighty-seven!”\n\n“Merry and happy!” mused the other, bending his dark eyes upon the\nstooping figure, with a smile of compassion.  “Merry and happy—and\nremember well?”\n\n“Ay, ay, ay!” resumed the old man, catching the last words.  “I remember\n’em well in my school time, year after year, and all the merry-making\nthat used to come along with them.  I was a strong chap then, Mr. Redlaw;\nand, if you’ll believe me, hadn’t my match at football within ten mile.\nWhere’s my son William?  Hadn’t my match at football, William, within ten\nmile!”\n\n“That’s what I always say, father!” returned the son promptly, and with\ngreat respect.  “You ARE a Swidger, if ever there was one of the family!”\n\n“Dear!” said the old man, shaking his head as he again looked at the\nholly.  “His mother—my son William’s my youngest son—and I, have sat\namong ’em all, boys and girls, little children and babies, many a year,\nwhen the berries like these were not shining half so bright all round us,\nas their bright faces.  Many of ’em are gone; she’s gone; and my son\nGeorge (our eldest, who was her pride more than all the rest!) is fallen\nvery low: but I can see them, when I look here, alive and healthy, as\nthey used to be in those days; and I can see him, thank God, in his\ninnocence.  It’s a blessed thing to me, at eighty-seven.”\n\nThe keen look that had been fixed upon him with so much earnestness, had\ngradually sought the ground.\n\n“When my circumstances got to be not so good as formerly, through not\nbeing honestly dealt by, and I first come here to be custodian,” said the\nold man, “—which was upwards of fifty years ago—where’s my son William?\nMore than half a century ago, William!”\n\n“That’s what I say, father,” replied the son, as promptly and dutifully\nas before, “that’s exactly where it is.  Two times ought’s an ought, and\ntwice five ten, and there’s a hundred of ’em.”\n\n“It was quite a pleasure to know that one of our founders—or more\ncorrectly speaking,” said the old man, with a great glory in his subject\nand his knowledge of it, “one of the learned gentlemen that helped endow\nus in Queen Elizabeth’s time, for we were founded afore her day—left in\nhis will, among the other bequests he made us, so much to buy holly, for\ngarnishing the walls and windows, come Christmas.  There was something\nhomely and friendly in it.  Being but strange here, then, and coming at\nChristmas time, we took a liking for his very picter that hangs in what\nused to be, anciently, afore our ten poor gentlemen commuted for an\nannual stipend in money, our great Dinner Hall.—A sedate gentleman in a\npeaked beard, with a ruff round his neck, and a scroll below him, in old\nEnglish letters, ‘Lord! keep my memory green!’  You know all about him,\nMr. Redlaw?”\n\n“I know the portrait hangs there, Philip.”\n\n“Yes, sure, it’s the second on the right, above the panelling.  I was\ngoing to say—he has helped to keep _my_ memory green, I thank him; for\ngoing round the building every year, as I’m a doing now, and freshening\nup the bare rooms with these branches and berries, freshens up my bare\nold brain.  One year brings back another, and that year another, and\nthose others numbers!  At last, it seems to me as if the birth-time of\nour Lord was the birth-time of all I have ever had affection for, or\nmourned for, or delighted in,—and they’re a pretty many, for I’m\neighty-seven!”\n\n“Merry and happy,” murmured Redlaw to himself.\n\nThe room began to darken strangely.\n\n“So you see, sir,” pursued old Philip, whose hale wintry cheek had warmed\ninto a ruddier glow, and whose blue eyes had brightened while he spoke,\n“I have plenty to keep, when I keep this present season.  Now, where’s my\nquiet Mouse?  Chattering’s the sin of my time of life, and there’s half\nthe building to do yet, if the cold don’t freeze us first, or the wind\ndon’t blow us away, or the darkness don’t swallow us up.”\n\nThe quiet Mouse had brought her calm face to his side, and silently taken\nhis arm, before he finished speaking.\n\n“Come away, my dear,” said the old man.  “Mr. Redlaw won’t settle to his\ndinner, otherwise, till it’s cold as the winter.  I hope you’ll excuse me\nrambling on, sir, and I wish you good night, and, once again, a merry—”\n\n“Stay!” said Mr. Redlaw, resuming his place at the table, more, it would\nhave seemed from his manner, to reassure the old keeper, than in any\nremembrance of his own appetite.  “Spare me another moment, Philip.\nWilliam, you were going to tell me something to your excellent wife’s\nhonour.  It will not be disagreeable to her to hear you praise her.  What\nwas it?”\n\n“Why, that’s where it is, you see, sir,” returned Mr. William Swidger,\nlooking towards his wife in considerable embarrassment.  “Mrs. William’s\ngot her eye upon me.”\n\n“But you’re not afraid of Mrs. William’s eye?”\n\n“Why, no, sir,” returned Mr. Swidger, “that’s what I say myself.  It\nwasn’t made to be afraid of.  It wouldn’t have been made so mild, if that\nwas the intention.  But I wouldn’t like to—Milly!—him, you know.  Down in\nthe Buildings.”\n\nMr. William, standing behind the table, and rummaging disconcertedly\namong the objects upon it, directed persuasive glances at Mrs. William,\nand secret jerks of his head and thumb at Mr. Redlaw, as alluring her\ntowards him.\n\n“Him, you know, my love,” said Mr. William.  “Down in the Buildings.\nTell, my dear!  You’re the works of Shakespeare in comparison with\nmyself.  Down in the Buildings, you know, my love.—Student.”\n\n“Student?” repeated Mr. Redlaw, raising his head.\n\n“That’s what I say, sir!” cried Mr. William, in the utmost animation of\nassent.  “If it wasn’t the poor student down in the Buildings, why should\nyou wish to hear it from Mrs. William’s lips?  Mrs. William, my\ndear—Buildings.”\n\n“I didn’t know,” said Milly, with a quiet frankness, free from any haste\nor confusion, “that William had said anything about it, or I wouldn’t\nhave come.  I asked him not to.  It’s a sick young gentleman, sir—and\nvery poor, I am afraid—who is too ill to go home this holiday-time, and\nlives, unknown to any one, in but a common kind of lodging for a\ngentleman, down in Jerusalem Buildings.  That’s all, sir.”\n\n“Why have I never heard of him?” said the Chemist, rising hurriedly.\n“Why has he not made his situation known to me?  Sick!—give me my hat and\ncloak.  Poor!—what house?—what number?”\n\n“Oh, you mustn’t go there, sir,” said Milly, leaving her father-in-law,\nand calmly confronting him with her collected little face and folded\nhands.\n\n“Not go there?”\n\n“Oh dear, no!” said Milly, shaking her head as at a most manifest and\nself-evident impossibility.  “It couldn’t be thought of!”\n\n“What do you mean?  Why not?”\n\n“Why, you see, sir,” said Mr. William Swidger, persuasively and\nconfidentially, “that’s what I say.  Depend upon it, the young gentleman\nwould never have made his situation known to one of his own sex.  Mrs.\nWilliams has got into his confidence, but that’s quite different.  They\nall confide in Mrs. William; they all trust _her_.  A man, sir, couldn’t\nhave got a whisper out of him; but woman, sir, and Mrs. William\ncombined—!”\n\n“There is good sense and delicacy in what you say, William,” returned Mr.\nRedlaw, observant of the gentle and composed face at his shoulder.  And\nlaying his finger on his lip, he secretly put his purse into her hand.\n\n“Oh dear no, sir!” cried Milly, giving it back again.  “Worse and worse!\nCouldn’t be dreamed of!”\n\nSuch a staid matter-of-fact housewife she was, and so unruffled by the\nmomentary haste of this rejection, that, an instant afterwards, she was\ntidily picking up a few leaves which had strayed from between her\nscissors and her apron, when she had arranged the holly.\n\nFinding, when she rose from her stooping posture, that Mr. Redlaw was\nstill regarding her with doubt and astonishment, she quietly\nrepeated—looking about, the while, for any other fragments that might\nhave escaped her observation:\n\n“Oh dear no, sir!  He said that of all the world he would not be known to\nyou, or receive help from you—though he is a student in your class.  I\nhave made no terms of secrecy with you, but I trust to your honour\ncompletely.”\n\n“Why did he say so?”\n\n“Indeed I can’t tell, sir,” said Milly, after thinking a little, “because\nI am not at all clever, you know; and I wanted to be useful to him in\nmaking things neat and comfortable about him, and employed myself that\nway.  But I know he is poor, and lonely, and I think he is somehow\nneglected too.—How dark it is!”\n\nThe room had darkened more and more.  There was a very heavy gloom and\nshadow gathering behind the Chemist’s chair.\n\n“What more about him?” he asked.\n\n“He is engaged to be married when he can afford it,” said Milly, “and is\nstudying, I think, to qualify himself to earn a living.  I have seen, a\nlong time, that he has studied hard and denied himself much.—How very\ndark it is!”\n\n“It’s turned colder, too,” said the old man, rubbing his hands.  “There’s\na chill and dismal feeling in the room.  Where’s my son William?\nWilliam, my boy, turn the lamp, and rouse the fire!”\n\nMilly’s voice resumed, like quiet music very softly played:\n\n“He muttered in his broken sleep yesterday afternoon, after talking to\nme” (this was to herself) “about some one dead, and some great wrong done\nthat could never be forgotten; but whether to him or to another person, I\ndon’t know.  Not _by_ him, I am sure.”\n\n“And, in short, Mrs. William, you see—which she wouldn’t say herself, Mr.\nRedlaw, if she was to stop here till the new year after this next one—”\nsaid Mr. William, coming up to him to speak in his ear, “has done him\nworlds of good!  Bless you, worlds of good!  All at home just the same as\never—my father made as snug and comfortable—not a crumb of litter to be\nfound in the house, if you were to offer fifty pound ready money for\nit—Mrs. William apparently never out of the way—yet Mrs. William\nbackwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, up and down, up and down,\na mother to him!”\n\nThe room turned darker and colder, and the gloom and shadow gathering\nbehind the chair was heavier.\n\n“Not content with this, sir, Mrs. William goes and finds, this very\nnight, when she was coming home (why it’s not above a couple of hours\nago), a creature more like a young wild beast than a young child,\nshivering upon a door-step.  What does Mrs. William do, but brings it\nhome to dry it, and feed it, and keep it till our old Bounty of food and\nflannel is given away, on Christmas morning!  If it ever felt a fire\nbefore, it’s as much as ever it did; for it’s sitting in the old Lodge\nchimney, staring at ours as if its ravenous eyes would never shut again.\nIt’s sitting there, at least,” said Mr. William, correcting himself, on\nreflection, “unless it’s bolted!”\n\n“Heaven keep her happy!” said the Chemist aloud, “and you too, Philip!\nand you, William!  I must consider what to do in this.  I may desire to\nsee this student, I’ll not detain you any longer now.  Good-night!”\n\n“I thank’ee, sir, I thank’ee!” said the old man, “for Mouse, and for my\nson William, and for myself.  Where’s my son William?  William, you take\nthe lantern and go on first, through them long dark passages, as you did\nlast year and the year afore.  Ha ha!  _I_ remember—though I’m\neighty-seven!  ‘Lord, keep my memory green!’  It’s a very good prayer,\nMr. Redlaw, that of the learned gentleman in the peaked beard, with a\nruff round his neck—hangs up, second on the right above the panelling, in\nwhat used to be, afore our ten poor gentlemen commuted, our great Dinner\nHall.  ‘Lord, keep my memory green!’  It’s very good and pious, sir.\nAmen!  Amen!”\n\nAs they passed out and shut the heavy door, which, however carefully\nwithheld, fired a long train of thundering reverberations when it shut at\nlast, the room turned darker.\n\nAs he fell a musing in his chair alone, the healthy holly withered on the\nwall, and dropped—dead branches.\n\nAs the gloom and shadow thickened behind him, in that place where it had\nbeen gathering so darkly, it took, by slow degrees,—or out of it there\ncame, by some unreal, unsubstantial process—not to be traced by any human\nsense,—an awful likeness of himself!\n\nGhastly and cold, colourless in its leaden face and hands, but with his\nfeatures, and his bright eyes, and his grizzled hair, and dressed in the\ngloomy shadow of his dress, it came into his terrible appearance of\nexistence, motionless, without a sound.  As _he_ leaned his arm upon the\nelbow of his chair, ruminating before the fire, _it_ leaned upon the\nchair-back, close above him, with its appalling copy of his face looking\nwhere his face looked, and bearing the expression his face bore.\n\nThis, then, was the Something that had passed and gone already.  This was\nthe dread companion of the haunted man!\n\nIt took, for some moments, no more apparent heed of him, than he of it.\nThe Christmas Waits were playing somewhere in the distance, and, through\nhis thoughtfulness, he seemed to listen to the music.  It seemed to\nlisten too.\n\nAt length he spoke; without moving or lifting up his face.\n\n“Here again!” he said.\n\n“Here again,” replied the Phantom.\n\n“I see you in the fire,” said the haunted man; “I hear you in music, in\nthe wind, in the dead stillness of the night.”\n\nThe Phantom moved its head, assenting.\n\n“Why do you come, to haunt me thus?”\n\n“I come as I am called,” replied the Ghost.\n\n“No.  Unbidden,” exclaimed the Chemist.\n\n“Unbidden be it,” said the Spectre.  “It is enough.  I am here.”\n\nHitherto the light of the fire had shone on the two faces—if the dread\nlineaments behind the chair might be called a face—both addressed towards\nit, as at first, and neither looking at the other.  But, now, the haunted\nman turned, suddenly, and stared upon the Ghost.  The Ghost, as sudden in\nits motion, passed to before the chair, and stared on him.\n\nThe living man, and the animated image of himself dead, might so have\nlooked, the one upon the other.  An awful survey, in a lonely and remote\npart of an empty old pile of building, on a winter night, with the loud\nwind going by upon its journey of mystery—whence or whither, no man\nknowing since the world began—and the stars, in unimaginable millions,\nglittering through it, from eternal space, where the world’s bulk is as a\ngrain, and its hoary age is infancy.\n\n“Look upon me!” said the Spectre.  “I am he, neglected in my youth, and\nmiserably poor, who strove and suffered, and still strove and suffered,\nuntil I hewed out knowledge from the mine where it was buried, and made\nrugged steps thereof, for my worn feet to rest and rise on.”\n\n“I _am_ that man,” returned the Chemist.\n\n“No mother’s self-denying love,” pursued the Phantom, “no father’s\ncounsel, aided _me_.  A stranger came into my father’s place when I was\nbut a child, and I was easily an alien from my mother’s heart.  My\nparents, at the best, were of that sort whose care soon ends, and whose\nduty is soon done; who cast their offspring loose, early, as birds do\ntheirs; and, if they do well, claim the merit; and, if ill, the pity.”\n\nIt paused, and seemed to tempt and goad him with its look, and with the\nmanner of its speech, and with its smile.\n\n“I am he,” pursued the Phantom, “who, in this struggle upward, found a\nfriend.  I made him—won him—bound him to me!  We worked together, side by\nside.  All the love and confidence that in my earlier youth had had no\noutlet, and found no expression, I bestowed on him.”\n\n“Not all,” said Redlaw, hoarsely.\n\n“No, not all,” returned the Phantom.  “I had a sister.”\n\nThe haunted man, with his head resting on his hands, replied “I had!”\nThe Phantom, with an evil smile, drew closer to the chair, and resting\nits chin upon its folded hands, its folded hands upon the back, and\nlooking down into his face with searching eyes, that seemed instinct with\nfire, went on:\n\n“Such glimpses of the light of home as I had ever known, had streamed\nfrom her.  How young she was, how fair, how loving!  I took her to the\nfirst poor roof that I was master of, and made it rich.  She came into\nthe darkness of my life, and made it bright.—She is before me!”\n\n“I saw her, in the fire, but now.  I hear her in music, in the wind, in\nthe dead stillness of the night,” returned the haunted man.\n\n“_Did_ he love her?” said the Phantom, echoing his contemplative tone.\n“I think he did, once.  I am sure he did.  Better had she loved him\nless—less secretly, less dearly, from the shallower depths of a more\ndivided heart!”\n\n“Let me forget it!” said the Chemist, with an angry motion of his hand.\n“Let me blot it from my memory!”\n\nThe Spectre, without stirring, and with its unwinking, cruel eyes still\nfixed upon his face, went on:\n\n“A dream, like hers, stole upon my own life.”\n\n“It did,” said Redlaw.\n\n“A love, as like hers,” pursued the Phantom, “as my inferior nature might\ncherish, arose in my own heart.  I was too poor to bind its object to my\nfortune then, by any thread of promise or entreaty.  I loved her far too\nwell, to seek to do it.  But, more than ever I had striven in my life, I\nstrove to climb!  Only an inch gained, brought me something nearer to the\nheight.  I toiled up!  In the late pauses of my labour at that time,—my\nsister (sweet companion!) still sharing with me the expiring embers and\nthe cooling hearth,—when day was breaking, what pictures of the future\ndid I see!”\n\n“I saw them, in the fire, but now,” he murmured.  “They come back to me\nin music, in the wind, in the dead stillness of the night, in the\nrevolving years.”\n\n“—Pictures of my own domestic life, in aftertime, with her who was the\ninspiration of my toil.  Pictures of my sister, made the wife of my dear\nfriend, on equal terms—for he had some inheritance, we none—pictures of\nour sobered age and mellowed happiness, and of the golden links,\nextending back so far, that should bind us, and our children, in a\nradiant garland,” said the Phantom.\n\n“Pictures,” said the haunted man, “that were delusions.  Why is it my\ndoom to remember them too well!”\n\n“Delusions,” echoed the Phantom in its changeless voice, and glaring on\nhim with its changeless eyes.  “For my friend (in whose breast my\nconfidence was locked as in my own), passing between me and the centre of\nthe system of my hopes and struggles, won her to himself, and shattered\nmy frail universe.  My sister, doubly dear, doubly devoted, doubly\ncheerful in my home, lived on to see me famous, and my old ambition so\nrewarded when its spring was broken, and then—”\n\n“Then died,” he interposed.  “Died, gentle as ever; happy; and with no\nconcern but for her brother.  Peace!”\n\nThe Phantom watched him silently.\n\n“Remembered!” said the haunted man, after a pause.  “Yes.  So well\nremembered, that even now, when years have passed, and nothing is more\nidle or more visionary to me than the boyish love so long outlived, I\nthink of it with sympathy, as if it were a younger brother’s or a son’s.\nSometimes I even wonder when her heart first inclined to him, and how it\nhad been affected towards me.—Not lightly, once, I think.—But that is\nnothing.  Early unhappiness, a wound from a hand I loved and trusted, and\na loss that nothing can replace, outlive such fancies.”\n\n“Thus,” said the Phantom, “I bear within me a Sorrow and a Wrong.  Thus I\nprey upon myself.  Thus, memory is my curse; and, if I could forget my\nsorrow and my wrong, I would!”\n\n“Mocker!” said the Chemist, leaping up, and making, with a wrathful hand,\nat the throat of his other self.  “Why have I always that taunt in my\nears?”\n\n“Forbear!” exclaimed the Spectre in an awful voice.  “Lay a hand on Me,\nand die!”\n\nHe stopped midway, as if its words had paralysed him, and stood looking\non it.  It had glided from him; it had its arm raised high in warning;\nand a smile passed over its unearthly features, as it reared its dark\nfigure in triumph.\n\n“If I could forget my sorrow and wrong, I would,” the Ghost repeated.\n“If I could forget my sorrow and my wrong, I would!”\n\n“Evil spirit of myself,” returned the haunted man, in a low, trembling\ntone, “my life is darkened by that incessant whisper.”\n\n“It is an echo,” said the Phantom.\n\n“If it be an echo of my thoughts—as now, indeed, I know it is,” rejoined\nthe haunted man, “why should I, therefore, be tormented?  It is not a\nselfish thought.  I suffer it to range beyond myself.  All men and women\nhave their sorrows,—most of them their wrongs; ingratitude, and sordid\njealousy, and interest, besetting all degrees of life.  Who would not\nforget their sorrows and their wrongs?”\n\n“Who would not, truly, and be happier and better for it?” said the\nPhantom.\n\n“These revolutions of years, which we commemorate,” proceeded Redlaw,\n“what do _they_ recall!  Are there any minds in which they do not\nre-awaken some sorrow, or some trouble?  What is the remembrance of the\nold man who was here to-night?  A tissue of sorrow and trouble.”\n\n“But common natures,” said the Phantom, with its evil smile upon its\nglassy face, “unenlightened minds and ordinary spirits, do not feel or\nreason on these things like men of higher cultivation and profounder\nthought.”\n\n“Tempter,” answered Redlaw, “whose hollow look and voice I dread more\nthan words can express, and from whom some dim foreshadowing of greater\nfear is stealing over me while I speak, I hear again an echo of my own\nmind.”\n\n“Receive it as a proof that I am powerful,” returned the Ghost.  “Hear\nwhat I offer!  Forget the sorrow, wrong, and trouble you have known!”\n\n“Forget them!” he repeated.\n\n“I have the power to cancel their remembrance—to leave but very faint,\nconfused traces of them, that will die out soon,” returned the Spectre.\n“Say!  Is it done?”\n\n“Stay!” cried the haunted man, arresting by a terrified gesture the\nuplifted hand.  “I tremble with distrust and doubt of you; and the dim\nfear you cast upon me deepens into a nameless horror I can hardly bear.—I\nwould not deprive myself of any kindly recollection, or any sympathy that\nis good for me, or others.  What shall I lose, if I assent to this?  What\nelse will pass from my remembrance?”\n\n“No knowledge; no result of study; nothing but the intertwisted chain of\nfeelings and associations, each in its turn dependent on, and nourished\nby, the banished recollections.  Those will go.”\n\n“Are they so many?” said the haunted man, reflecting in alarm.\n\n“They have been wont to show themselves in the fire, in music, in the\nwind, in the dead stillness of the night, in the revolving years,”\nreturned the Phantom scornfully.\n\n“In nothing else?”\n\nThe Phantom held its peace.\n\nBut having stood before him, silent, for a little while, it moved towards\nthe fire; then stopped.\n\n“Decide!” it said, “before the opportunity is lost!”\n\n“A moment!  I call Heaven to witness,” said the agitated man, “that I\nhave never been a hater of any kind,—never morose, indifferent, or hard,\nto anything around me.  If, living here alone, I have made too much of\nall that was and might have been, and too little of what is, the evil, I\nbelieve, has fallen on me, and not on others.  But, if there were poison\nin my body, should I not, possessed of antidotes and knowledge how to use\nthem, use them?  If there be poison in my mind, and through this fearful\nshadow I can cast it out, shall I not cast it out?”\n\n“Say,” said the Spectre, “is it done?”\n\n“A moment longer!” he answered hurriedly.  “_I would forget it if I\ncould_!  Have _I_ thought that, alone, or has it been the thought of\nthousands upon thousands, generation after generation?  All human memory\nis fraught with sorrow and trouble.  My memory is as the memory of other\nmen, but other men have not this choice.  Yes, I close the bargain.  Yes!\nI WILL forget my sorrow, wrong, and trouble!”\n\n“Say,” said the Spectre, “is it done?”\n\n“It is!”\n\n“IT IS.  And take this with you, man whom I here renounce!  The gift that\nI have given, you shall give again, go where you will.  Without\nrecovering yourself the power that you have yielded up, you shall\nhenceforth destroy its like in all whom you approach.  Your wisdom has\ndiscovered that the memory of sorrow, wrong, and trouble is the lot of\nall mankind, and that mankind would be the happier, in its other\nmemories, without it.  Go!  Be its benefactor!  Freed from such\nremembrance, from this hour, carry involuntarily the blessing of such\nfreedom with you.  Its diffusion is inseparable and inalienable from you.\nGo!  Be happy in the good you have won, and in the good you do!”\n\nThe Phantom, which had held its bloodless hand above him while it spoke,\nas if in some unholy invocation, or some ban; and which had gradually\nadvanced its eyes so close to his, that he could see how they did not\nparticipate in the terrible smile upon its face, but were a fixed,\nunalterable, steady horror melted before him and was gone.\n\nAs he stood rooted to the spot, possessed by fear and wonder, and\nimagining he heard repeated in melancholy echoes, dying away fainter and\nfainter, the words, “Destroy its like in all whom you approach!” a shrill\ncry reached his ears.  It came, not from the passages beyond the door,\nbut from another part of the old building, and sounded like the cry of\nsome one in the dark who had lost the way.\n\nHe looked confusedly upon his hands and limbs, as if to be assured of his\nidentity, and then shouted in reply, loudly and wildly; for there was a\nstrangeness and terror upon him, as if he too were lost.\n\nThe cry responding, and being nearer, he caught up the lamp, and raised a\nheavy curtain in the wall, by which he was accustomed to pass into and\nout of the theatre where he lectured,—which adjoined his room.\nAssociated with youth and animation, and a high amphitheatre of faces\nwhich his entrance charmed to interest in a moment, it was a ghostly\nplace when all this life was faded out of it, and stared upon him like an\nemblem of Death.\n\n“Halloa!” he cried.  “Halloa!  This way!  Come to the light!”  When, as\nhe held the curtain with one hand, and with the other raised the lamp and\ntried to pierce the gloom that filled the place, something rushed past\nhim into the room like a wild-cat, and crouched down in a corner.\n\n“What is it?” he said, hastily.\n\nHe might have asked “What is it?” even had he seen it well, as presently\nhe did when he stood looking at it gathered up in its corner.\n\nA bundle of tatters, held together by a hand, in size and form almost an\ninfant’s, but in its greedy, desperate little clutch, a bad old man’s.  A\nface rounded and smoothed by some half-dozen years, but pinched and\ntwisted by the experiences of a life.  Bright eyes, but not youthful.\nNaked feet, beautiful in their childish delicacy,—ugly in the blood and\ndirt that cracked upon them.  A baby savage, a young monster, a child who\nhad never been a child, a creature who might live to take the outward\nform of man, but who, within, would live and perish a mere beast.\n\nUsed, already, to be worried and hunted like a beast, the boy crouched\ndown as he was looked at, and looked back again, and interposed his arm\nto ward off the expected blow.\n\n“I’ll bite,” he said, “if you hit me!”\n\nThe time had been, and not many minutes since, when such a sight as this\nwould have wrung the Chemist’s heart.  He looked upon it now, coldly; but\nwith a heavy effort to remember something—he did not know what—he asked\nthe boy what he did there, and whence he came.\n\n“Where’s the woman?” he replied.  “I want to find the woman.”\n\n“Who?”\n\n“The woman.  Her that brought me here, and set me by the large fire.  She\nwas so long gone, that I went to look for her, and lost myself.  I don’t\nwant you.  I want the woman.”\n\nHe made a spring, so suddenly, to get away, that the dull sound of his\nnaked feet upon the floor was near the curtain, when Redlaw caught him by\nhis rags.\n\n“Come! you let me go!” muttered the boy, struggling, and clenching his\nteeth.  “I’ve done nothing to you.  Let me go, will you, to the woman!”\n\n“That is not the way.  There is a nearer one,” said Redlaw, detaining\nhim, in the same blank effort to remember some association that ought, of\nright, to bear upon this monstrous object.  “What is your name?”\n\n“Got none.”\n\n“Where do you live?\n\n“Live!  What’s that?”\n\nThe boy shook his hair from his eyes to look at him for a moment, and\nthen, twisting round his legs and wrestling with him, broke again into\nhis repetition of “You let me go, will you?  I want to find the woman.”\n\nThe Chemist led him to the door.  “This way,” he said, looking at him\nstill confusedly, but with repugnance and avoidance, growing out of his\ncoldness.  “I’ll take you to her.”\n\nThe sharp eyes in the child’s head, wandering round the room, lighted on\nthe table where the remnants of the dinner were.\n\n“Give me some of that!” he said, covetously.\n\n“Has she not fed you?”\n\n“I shall be hungry again to-morrow, sha’n’t I?  Ain’t I hungry every\nday?”\n\nFinding himself released, he bounded at the table like some small animal\nof prey, and hugging to his breast bread and meat, and his own rags, all\ntogether, said:\n\n“There!  Now take me to the woman!”\n\nAs the Chemist, with a new-born dislike to touch him, sternly motioned\nhim to follow, and was going out of the door, he trembled and stopped.\n\n“The gift that I have given, you shall give again, go where you will!”\n\nThe Phantom’s words were blowing in the wind, and the wind blew chill\nupon him.\n\n“I’ll not go there, to-night,” he murmured faintly.  “I’ll go nowhere\nto-night.  Boy! straight down this long-arched passage, and past the\ngreat dark door into the yard,—you see the fire shining on the window\nthere.”\n\n“The woman’s fire?” inquired the boy.\n\nHe nodded, and the naked feet had sprung away.  He came back with his\nlamp, locked his door hastily, and sat down in his chair, covering his\nface like one who was frightened at himself.\n\nFor now he was, indeed, alone.  Alone, alone.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II—The Gift Diffused\n\n\nA small man sat in a small parlour, partitioned off from a small shop by\na small screen, pasted all over with small scraps of newspapers.  In\ncompany with the small man, was almost any amount of small children you\nmay please to name—at least it seemed so; they made, in that very limited\nsphere of action, such an imposing effect, in point of numbers.\n\nOf these small fry, two had, by some strong machinery, been got into bed\nin a corner, where they might have reposed snugly enough in the sleep of\ninnocence, but for a constitutional propensity to keep awake, and also to\nscuffle in and out of bed.  The immediate occasion of these predatory\ndashes at the waking world, was the construction of an oyster-shell wall\nin a corner, by two other youths of tender age; on which fortification\nthe two in bed made harassing descents (like those accursed Picts and\nScots who beleaguer the early historical studies of most young Britons),\nand then withdrew to their own territory.\n\nIn addition to the stir attendant on these inroads, and the retorts of\nthe invaded, who pursued hotly, and made lunges at the bed-clothes under\nwhich the marauders took refuge, another little boy, in another little\nbed, contributed his mite of confusion to the family stock, by casting\nhis boots upon the waters; in other words, by launching these and several\nsmall objects, inoffensive in themselves, though of a hard substance\nconsidered as missiles, at the disturbers of his repose,—who were not\nslow to return these compliments.\n\nBesides which, another little boy—the biggest there, but still little—was\ntottering to and fro, bent on one side, and considerably affected in his\nknees by the weight of a large baby, which he was supposed by a fiction\nthat obtains sometimes in sanguine families, to be hushing to sleep.  But\noh! the inexhaustible regions of contemplation and watchfulness into\nwhich this baby’s eyes were then only beginning to compose themselves to\nstare, over his unconscious shoulder!\n\nIt was a very Moloch of a baby, on whose insatiate altar the whole\nexistence of this particular young brother was offered up a daily\nsacrifice.  Its personality may be said to have consisted in its never\nbeing quiet, in any one place, for five consecutive minutes, and never\ngoing to sleep when required.  “Tetterby’s baby” was as well known in the\nneighbourhood as the postman or the pot-boy.  It roved from door-step to\ndoor-step, in the arms of little Johnny Tetterby, and lagged heavily at\nthe rear of troops of juveniles who followed the Tumblers or the Monkey,\nand came up, all on one side, a little too late for everything that was\nattractive, from Monday morning until Saturday night.  Wherever childhood\ncongregated to play, there was little Moloch making Johnny fag and toil.\nWherever Johnny desired to stay, little Moloch became fractious, and\nwould not remain.  Whenever Johnny wanted to go out, Moloch was asleep,\nand must be watched.  Whenever Johnny wanted to stay at home, Moloch was\nawake, and must be taken out.  Yet Johnny was verily persuaded that it\nwas a faultless baby, without its peer in the realm of England, and was\nquite content to catch meek glimpses of things in general from behind its\nskirts, or over its limp flapping bonnet, and to go staggering about with\nit like a very little porter with a very large parcel, which was not\ndirected to anybody, and could never be delivered anywhere.\n\nThe small man who sat in the small parlour, making fruitless attempts to\nread his newspaper peaceably in the midst of this disturbance, was the\nfather of the family, and the chief of the firm described in the\ninscription over the little shop front, by the name and title of A.\nTETTERBY AND CO., NEWSMEN.  Indeed, strictly speaking, he was the only\npersonage answering to that designation, as Co. was a mere poetical\nabstraction, altogether baseless and impersonal.\n\nTetterby’s was the corner shop in Jerusalem Buildings.  There was a good\nshow of literature in the window, chiefly consisting of\npicture-newspapers out of date, and serial pirates, and footpads.\nWalking-sticks, likewise, and marbles, were included in the stock in\ntrade.  It had once extended into the light confectionery line; but it\nwould seem that those elegancies of life were not in demand about\nJerusalem Buildings, for nothing connected with that branch of commerce\nremained in the window, except a sort of small glass lantern containing a\nlanguishing mass of bull’s-eyes, which had melted in the summer and\ncongealed in the winter until all hope of ever getting them out, or of\neating them without eating the lantern too, was gone for ever.\nTetterby’s had tried its hand at several things.  It had once made a\nfeeble little dart at the toy business; for, in another lantern, there\nwas a heap of minute wax dolls, all sticking together upside down, in the\ndirest confusion, with their feet on one another’s heads, and a\nprecipitate of broken arms and legs at the bottom.  It had made a move in\nthe millinery direction, which a few dry, wiry bonnet-shapes remained in\na corner of the window to attest.  It had fancied that a living might lie\nhidden in the tobacco trade, and had stuck up a representation of a\nnative of each of the three integral portions of the British Empire, in\nthe act of consuming that fragrant weed; with a poetic legend attached,\nimporting that united in one cause they sat and joked, one chewed\ntobacco, one took snuff, one smoked: but nothing seemed to have come of\nit—except flies.  Time had been when it had put a forlorn trust in\nimitative jewellery, for in one pane of glass there was a card of cheap\nseals, and another of pencil-cases, and a mysterious black amulet of\ninscrutable intention, labelled ninepence.  But, to that hour, Jerusalem\nBuildings had bought none of them.  In short, Tetterby’s had tried so\nhard to get a livelihood out of Jerusalem Buildings in one way or other,\nand appeared to have done so indifferently in all, that the best position\nin the firm was too evidently Co.’s; Co., as a bodiless creation, being\nuntroubled with the vulgar inconveniences of hunger and thirst, being\nchargeable neither to the poor’s-rates nor the assessed taxes, and having\nno young family to provide for.\n\nTetterby himself, however, in his little parlour, as already mentioned,\nhaving the presence of a young family impressed upon his mind in a manner\ntoo clamorous to be disregarded, or to comport with the quiet perusal of\na newspaper, laid down his paper, wheeled, in his distraction, a few\ntimes round the parlour, like an undecided carrier-pigeon, made an\nineffectual rush at one or two flying little figures in bed-gowns that\nskimmed past him, and then, bearing suddenly down upon the only\nunoffending member of the family, boxed the ears of little Moloch’s\nnurse.\n\n“You bad boy!” said Mr. Tetterby, “haven’t you any feeling for your poor\nfather after the fatigues and anxieties of a hard winter’s day, since\nfive o’clock in the morning, but must you wither his rest, and corrode\nhis latest intelligence, with _your_ wicious tricks?  Isn’t it enough,\nsir, that your brother ’Dolphus is toiling and moiling in the fog and\ncold, and you rolling in the lap of luxury with a—with a baby, and\neverything you can wish for,” said Mr. Tetterby, heaping this up as a\ngreat climax of blessings, “but must you make a wilderness of home, and\nmaniacs of your parents?  Must you, Johnny?  Hey?”  At each\ninterrogation, Mr. Tetterby made a feint of boxing his ears again, but\nthought better of it, and held his hand.\n\n“Oh, father!” whimpered Johnny, “when I wasn’t doing anything, I’m sure,\nbut taking such care of Sally, and getting her to sleep.  Oh, father!”\n\n“I wish my little woman would come home!” said Mr. Tetterby, relenting\nand repenting, “I only wish my little woman would come home!  I ain’t fit\nto deal with ’em.  They make my head go round, and get the better of me.\nOh, Johnny!  Isn’t it enough that your dear mother has provided you with\nthat sweet sister?” indicating Moloch; “isn’t it enough that you were\nseven boys before without a ray of gal, and that your dear mother went\nthrough what she _did_ go through, on purpose that you might all of you\nhave a little sister, but must you so behave yourself as to make my head\nswim?”\n\nSoftening more and more, as his own tender feelings and those of his\ninjured son were worked on, Mr. Tetterby concluded by embracing him, and\nimmediately breaking away to catch one of the real delinquents.  A\nreasonably good start occurring, he succeeded, after a short but smart\nrun, and some rather severe cross-country work under and over the\nbedsteads, and in and out among the intricacies of the chairs, in\ncapturing this infant, whom he condignly punished, and bore to bed.  This\nexample had a powerful, and apparently, mesmeric influence on him of the\nboots, who instantly fell into a deep sleep, though he had been, but a\nmoment before, broad awake, and in the highest possible feather.  Nor was\nit lost upon the two young architects, who retired to bed, in an\nadjoining closet, with great privacy and speed.  The comrade of the\nIntercepted One also shrinking into his nest with similar discretion, Mr.\nTetterby, when he paused for breath, found himself unexpectedly in a\nscene of peace.\n\n“My little woman herself,” said Mr. Tetterby, wiping his flushed face,\n“could hardly have done it better!  I only wish my little woman had had\nit to do, I do indeed!”\n\nMr. Tetterby sought upon his screen for a passage appropriate to be\nimpressed upon his children’s minds on the occasion, and read the\nfollowing.\n\n“‘It is an undoubted fact that all remarkable men have had remarkable\nmothers, and have respected them in after life as their best friends.’\nThink of your own remarkable mother, my boys,” said Mr. Tetterby, “and\nknow her value while she is still among you!”\n\nHe sat down again in his chair by the fire, and composed himself,\ncross-legged, over his newspaper.\n\n“Let anybody, I don’t care who it is, get out of bed again,” said\nTetterby, as a general proclamation, delivered in a very soft-hearted\nmanner, “and astonishment will be the portion of that respected\ncontemporary!”—which expression Mr. Tetterby selected from his screen.\n“Johnny, my child, take care of your only sister, Sally; for she’s the\nbrightest gem that ever sparkled on your early brow.”\n\nJohnny sat down on a little stool, and devotedly crushed himself beneath\nthe weight of Moloch.\n\n“Ah, what a gift that baby is to you, Johnny!” said his father, “and how\nthankful you ought to be!  ‘It is not generally known, Johnny,’” he was\nnow referring to the screen again, “‘but it is a fact ascertained, by\naccurate calculations, that the following immense percentage of babies\nnever attain to two years old; that is to say—’”\n\n“Oh, don’t, father, please!” cried Johnny.  “I can’t bear it, when I\nthink of Sally.”\n\nMr. Tetterby desisting, Johnny, with a profound sense of his trust, wiped\nhis eyes, and hushed his sister.\n\n“Your brother ’Dolphus,” said his father, poking the fire, “is late\nto-night, Johnny, and will come home like a lump of ice.  What’s got your\nprecious mother?”\n\n“Here’s mother, and ’Dolphus too, father!” exclaimed Johnny, “I think.”\n\n“You’re right!” returned his father, listening.  “Yes, that’s the\nfootstep of my little woman.”\n\nThe process of induction, by which Mr. Tetterby had come to the\nconclusion that his wife was a little woman, was his own secret.  She\nwould have made two editions of himself, very easily.  Considered as an\nindividual, she was rather remarkable for being robust and portly; but\nconsidered with reference to her husband, her dimensions became\nmagnificent.  Nor did they assume a less imposing proportion, when\nstudied with reference to the size of her seven sons, who were but\ndiminutive.  In the case of Sally, however, Mrs. Tetterby had asserted\nherself, at last; as nobody knew better than the victim Johnny, who\nweighed and measured that exacting idol every hour in the day.\n\nMrs. Tetterby, who had been marketing, and carried a basket, threw back\nher bonnet and shawl, and sitting down, fatigued, commanded Johnny to\nbring his sweet charge to her straightway, for a kiss.  Johnny having\ncomplied, and gone back to his stool, and again crushed himself, Master\nAdolphus Tetterby, who had by this time unwound his torso out of a\nprismatic comforter, apparently interminable, requested the same favour.\nJohnny having again complied, and again gone back to his stool, and again\ncrushed himself, Mr. Tetterby, struck by a sudden thought, preferred the\nsame claim on his own parental part.  The satisfaction of this third\ndesire completely exhausted the sacrifice, who had hardly breath enough\nleft to get back to his stool, crush himself again, and pant at his\nrelations.\n\n“Whatever you do, Johnny,” said Mrs. Tetterby, shaking her head, “take\ncare of her, or never look your mother in the face again.”\n\n“Nor your brother,” said Adolphus.\n\n“Nor your father, Johnny,” added Mr. Tetterby.\n\nJohnny, much affected by this conditional renunciation of him, looked\ndown at Moloch’s eyes to see that they were all right, so far, and\nskilfully patted her back (which was uppermost), and rocked her with his\nfoot.\n\n“Are you wet, ’Dolphus, my boy?” said his father.  “Come and take my\nchair, and dry yourself.”\n\n“No, father, thank’ee,” said Adolphus, smoothing himself down with his\nhands.  “I an’t very wet, I don’t think.  Does my face shine much,\nfather?”\n\n“Well, it _does_ look waxy, my boy,” returned Mr. Tetterby.\n\n“It’s the weather, father,” said Adolphus, polishing his cheeks on the\nworn sleeve of his jacket.  “What with rain, and sleet, and wind, and\nsnow, and fog, my face gets quite brought out into a rash sometimes.  And\nshines, it does—oh, don’t it, though!”\n\nMaster Adolphus was also in the newspaper line of life, being employed,\nby a more thriving firm than his father and Co., to vend newspapers at a\nrailway station, where his chubby little person, like a\nshabbily-disguised Cupid, and his shrill little voice (he was not much\nmore than ten years old), were as well known as the hoarse panting of the\nlocomotives, running in and out.  His juvenility might have been at some\nloss for a harmless outlet, in this early application to traffic, but for\na fortunate discovery he made of a means of entertaining himself, and of\ndividing the long day into stages of interest, without neglecting\nbusiness.  This ingenious invention, remarkable, like many great\ndiscoveries, for its simplicity, consisted in varying the first vowel in\nthe word “paper,” and substituting, in its stead, at different periods of\nthe day, all the other vowels in grammatical succession.  Thus, before\ndaylight in the winter-time, he went to and fro, in his little oilskin\ncap and cape, and his big comforter, piercing the heavy air with his cry\nof “Morn-ing Pa-per!” which, about an hour before noon, changed to\n“Morn-ing Pepper!” which, at about two, changed to “Morn-ing Pip-per!”\nwhich in a couple of hours changed to “Morn-ing Pop-per!” and so declined\nwith the sun into “Eve-ning Pup-per!” to the great relief and comfort of\nthis young gentleman’s spirits.\n\nMrs. Tetterby, his lady-mother, who had been sitting with her bonnet and\nshawl thrown back, as aforesaid, thoughtfully turning her wedding-ring\nround and round upon her finger, now rose, and divesting herself of her\nout-of-door attire, began to lay the cloth for supper.\n\n“Ah, dear me, dear me, dear me!” said Mrs. Tetterby.  “That’s the way the\nworld goes!”\n\n“Which is the way the world goes, my dear?” asked Mr. Tetterby, looking\nround.\n\n“Oh, nothing,” said Mrs. Tetterby.\n\nMr. Tetterby elevated his eyebrows, folded his newspaper afresh, and\ncarried his eyes up it, and down it, and across it, but was wandering in\nhis attention, and not reading it.\n\nMrs. Tetterby, at the same time, laid the cloth, but rather as if she\nwere punishing the table than preparing the family supper; hitting it\nunnecessarily hard with the knives and forks, slapping it with the\nplates, dinting it with the salt-cellar, and coming heavily down upon it\nwith the loaf.\n\n“Ah, dear me, dear me, dear me!” said Mrs. Tetterby.  “That’s the way the\nworld goes!”\n\n“My duck,” returned her husband, looking round again, “you said that\nbefore.  Which is the way the world goes?”\n\n“Oh, nothing!” said Mrs. Tetterby.\n\n“Sophia!” remonstrated her husband, “you said _that_ before, too.”\n\n“Well, I’ll say it again if you like,” returned Mrs. Tetterby.  “Oh\nnothing—there!  And again if you like, oh nothing—there!  And again if\nyou like, oh nothing—now then!”\n\nMr. Tetterby brought his eye to bear upon the partner of his bosom, and\nsaid, in mild astonishment:\n\n“My little woman, what has put you out?”\n\n“I’m sure _I_ don’t know,” she retorted.  “Don’t ask me.  Who said I was\nput out at all?  _I_ never did.”\n\nMr. Tetterby gave up the perusal of his newspaper as a bad job, and,\ntaking a slow walk across the room, with his hands behind him, and his\nshoulders raised—his gait according perfectly with the resignation of his\nmanner—addressed himself to his two eldest offspring.\n\n“Your supper will be ready in a minute, ’Dolphus,” said Mr. Tetterby.\n“Your mother has been out in the wet, to the cook’s shop, to buy it.  It\nwas very good of your mother so to do.  _You_ shall get some supper too,\nvery soon, Johnny.  Your mother’s pleased with you, my man, for being so\nattentive to your precious sister.”\n\nMrs. Tetterby, without any remark, but with a decided subsidence of her\nanimosity towards the table, finished her preparations, and took, from\nher ample basket, a substantial slab of hot pease pudding wrapped in\npaper, and a basin covered with a saucer, which, on being uncovered, sent\nforth an odour so agreeable, that the three pair of eyes in the two beds\nopened wide and fixed themselves upon the banquet.  Mr. Tetterby, without\nregarding this tacit invitation to be seated, stood repeating slowly,\n“Yes, yes, your supper will be ready in a minute, ’Dolphus—your mother\nwent out in the wet, to the cook’s shop, to buy it.  It was very good of\nyour mother so to do”—until Mrs. Tetterby, who had been exhibiting sundry\ntokens of contrition behind him, caught him round the neck, and wept.\n\n“Oh, Dolphus!” said Mrs. Tetterby, “how could I go and behave so?”\n\nThis reconciliation affected Adolphus the younger and Johnny to that\ndegree, that they both, as with one accord, raised a dismal cry, which\nhad the effect of immediately shutting up the round eyes in the beds, and\nutterly routing the two remaining little Tetterbys, just then stealing in\nfrom the adjoining closet to see what was going on in the eating way.\n\n“I am sure, ’Dolphus,” sobbed Mrs. Tetterby, “coming home, I had no more\nidea than a child unborn—”\n\nMr. Tetterby seemed to dislike this figure of speech, and observed, “Say\nthan the baby, my dear.”\n\n“—Had no more idea than the baby,” said Mrs. Tetterby.—“Johnny, don’t\nlook at me, but look at her, or she’ll fall out of your lap and be\nkilled, and then you’ll die in agonies of a broken heart, and serve you\nright.—No more idea I hadn’t than that darling, of being cross when I\ncame home; but somehow, ’Dolphus—”  Mrs. Tetterby paused, and again\nturned her wedding-ring round and round upon her finger.\n\n“I see!” said Mr. Tetterby.  “I understand!  My little woman was put out.\nHard times, and hard weather, and hard work, make it trying now and then.\nI see, bless your soul!  No wonder!  Dolf, my man,” continued Mr.\nTetterby, exploring the basin with a fork, “here’s your mother been and\nbought, at the cook’s shop, besides pease pudding, a whole knuckle of a\nlovely roast leg of pork, with lots of crackling left upon it, and with\nseasoning gravy and mustard quite unlimited.  Hand in your plate, my boy,\nand begin while it’s simmering.”\n\nMaster Adolphus, needing no second summons, received his portion with\neyes rendered moist by appetite, and withdrawing to his particular stool,\nfell upon his supper tooth and nail.  Johnny was not forgotten, but\nreceived his rations on bread, lest he should, in a flush of gravy,\ntrickle any on the baby.  He was required, for similar reasons, to keep\nhis pudding, when not on active service, in his pocket.\n\nThere might have been more pork on the knucklebone,—which knucklebone the\ncarver at the cook’s shop had assuredly not forgotten in carving for\nprevious customers—but there was no stint of seasoning, and that is an\naccessory dreamily suggesting pork, and pleasantly cheating the sense of\ntaste.  The pease pudding, too, the gravy and mustard, like the Eastern\nrose in respect of the nightingale, if they were not absolutely pork, had\nlived near it; so, upon the whole, there was the flavour of a\nmiddle-sized pig.  It was irresistible to the Tetterbys in bed, who,\nthough professing to slumber peacefully, crawled out when unseen by their\nparents, and silently appealed to their brothers for any gastronomic\ntoken of fraternal affection.  They, not hard of heart, presenting scraps\nin return, it resulted that a party of light skirmishers in nightgowns\nwere careering about the parlour all through supper, which harassed Mr.\nTetterby exceedingly, and once or twice imposed upon him the necessity of\na charge, before which these guerilla troops retired in all directions\nand in great confusion.\n\nMrs. Tetterby did not enjoy her supper.  There seemed to be something on\nMrs. Tetterby’s mind.  At one time she laughed without reason, and at\nanother time she cried without reason, and at last she laughed and cried\ntogether in a manner so very unreasonable that her husband was\nconfounded.\n\n“My little woman,” said Mr. Tetterby, “if the world goes that way, it\nappears to go the wrong way, and to choke you.”\n\n“Give me a drop of water,” said Mrs. Tetterby, struggling with herself,\n“and don’t speak to me for the present, or take any notice of me.  Don’t\ndo it!”\n\nMr. Tetterby having administered the water, turned suddenly on the\nunlucky Johnny (who was full of sympathy), and demanded why he was\nwallowing there, in gluttony and idleness, instead of coming forward with\nthe baby, that the sight of her might revive his mother.  Johnny\nimmediately approached, borne down by its weight; but Mrs. Tetterby\nholding out her hand to signify that she was not in a condition to bear\nthat trying appeal to her feelings, he was interdicted from advancing\nanother inch, on pain of perpetual hatred from all his dearest\nconnections; and accordingly retired to his stool again, and crushed\nhimself as before.\n\nAfter a pause, Mrs. Tetterby said she was better now, and began to laugh.\n\n“My little woman,” said her husband, dubiously, “are you quite sure\nyou’re better?  Or are you, Sophia, about to break out in a fresh\ndirection?”\n\n“No, ’Dolphus, no,” replied his wife.  “I’m quite myself.”  With that,\nsettling her hair, and pressing the palms of her hands upon her eyes, she\nlaughed again.\n\n“What a wicked fool I was, to think so for a moment!” said Mrs. Tetterby.\n“Come nearer, ’Dolphus, and let me ease my mind, and tell you what I\nmean.  Let me tell you all about it.”\n\nMr. Tetterby bringing his chair closer, Mrs. Tetterby laughed again, gave\nhim a hug, and wiped her eyes.\n\n“You know, Dolphus, my dear,” said Mrs. Tetterby, “that when I was\nsingle, I might have given myself away in several directions.  At one\ntime, four after me at once; two of them were sons of Mars.”\n\n“We’re all sons of Ma’s, my dear,” said Mr. Tetterby, “jointly with\nPa’s.”\n\n“I don’t mean that,” replied his wife, “I mean soldiers—serjeants.”\n\n“Oh!” said Mr. Tetterby.\n\n“Well, ’Dolphus, I’m sure I never think of such things now, to regret\nthem; and I’m sure I’ve got as good a husband, and would do as much to\nprove that I was fond of him, as—”\n\n“As any little woman in the world,” said Mr. Tetterby.  “Very good.\n_Very_ good.”\n\nIf Mr. Tetterby had been ten feet high, he could not have expressed a\ngentler consideration for Mrs. Tetterby’s fairy-like stature; and if Mrs.\nTetterby had been two feet high, she could not have felt it more\nappropriately her due.\n\n“But you see, ’Dolphus,” said Mrs. Tetterby, “this being Christmas-time,\nwhen all people who can, make holiday, and when all people who have got\nmoney, like to spend some, I did, somehow, get a little out of sorts when\nI was in the streets just now.  There were so many things to be sold—such\ndelicious things to eat, such fine things to look at, such delightful\nthings to have—and there was so much calculating and calculating\nnecessary, before I durst lay out a sixpence for the commonest thing; and\nthe basket was so large, and wanted so much in it; and my stock of money\nwas so small, and would go such a little way;—you hate me, don’t you,\n’Dolphus?”\n\n“Not quite,” said Mr. Tetterby, “as yet.”\n\n“Well!  I’ll tell you the whole truth,” pursued his wife, penitently,\n“and then perhaps you will.  I felt all this, so much, when I was\ntrudging about in the cold, and when I saw a lot of other calculating\nfaces and large baskets trudging about, too, that I began to think\nwhether I mightn’t have done better, and been happier, if—I—hadn’t—” the\nwedding-ring went round again, and Mrs. Tetterby shook her downcast head\nas she turned it.\n\n“I see,” said her husband quietly; “if you hadn’t married at all, or if\nyou had married somebody else?”\n\n“Yes,” sobbed Mrs. Tetterby.  “That’s really what I thought.  Do you hate\nme now, ’Dolphus?”\n\n“Why no,” said Mr. Tetterby.  “I don’t find that I do, as yet.”\n\nMrs. Tetterby gave him a thankful kiss, and went on.\n\n“I begin to hope you won’t, now, ’Dolphus, though I’m afraid I haven’t\ntold you the worst.  I can’t think what came over me.  I don’t know\nwhether I was ill, or mad, or what I was, but I couldn’t call up anything\nthat seemed to bind us to each other, or to reconcile me to my fortune.\nAll the pleasures and enjoyments we had ever had—_they_ seemed so poor\nand insignificant, I hated them.  I could have trodden on them.  And I\ncould think of nothing else, except our being poor, and the number of\nmouths there were at home.”\n\n“Well, well, my dear,” said Mr. Tetterby, shaking her hand encouragingly,\n“that’s truth, after all.  We _are_ poor, and there _are_ a number of\nmouths at home here.”\n\n“Ah! but, Dolf, Dolf!” cried his wife, laying her hands upon his neck,\n“my good, kind, patient fellow, when I had been at home a very little\nwhile—how different!  Oh, Dolf, dear, how different it was!  I felt as if\nthere was a rush of recollection on me, all at once, that softened my\nhard heart, and filled it up till it was bursting.  All our struggles for\na livelihood, all our cares and wants since we have been married, all the\ntimes of sickness, all the hours of watching, we have ever had, by one\nanother, or by the children, seemed to speak to me, and say that they had\nmade us one, and that I never might have been, or could have been, or\nwould have been, any other than the wife and mother I am.  Then, the\ncheap enjoyments that I could have trodden on so cruelly, got to be so\nprecious to me—Oh so priceless, and dear!—that I couldn’t bear to think\nhow much I had wronged them; and I said, and say again a hundred times,\nhow could I ever behave so, ’Dolphus, how could I ever have the heart to\ndo it!”\n\nThe good woman, quite carried away by her honest tenderness and remorse,\nwas weeping with all her heart, when she started up with a scream, and\nran behind her husband.  Her cry was so terrified, that the children\nstarted from their sleep and from their beds, and clung about her.  Nor\ndid her gaze belie her voice, as she pointed to a pale man in a black\ncloak who had come into the room.\n\n“Look at that man!  Look there!  What does he want?”\n\n“My dear,” returned her husband, “I’ll ask him if you’ll let me go.\nWhat’s the matter!  How you shake!”\n\n“I saw him in the street, when I was out just now.  He looked at me, and\nstood near me.  I am afraid of him.”\n\n“Afraid of him!  Why?”\n\n“I don’t know why—I—stop! husband!” for he was going towards the\nstranger.\n\nShe had one hand pressed upon her forehead, and one upon her breast; and\nthere was a peculiar fluttering all over her, and a hurried unsteady\nmotion of her eyes, as if she had lost something.\n\n“Are you ill, my dear?”\n\n“What is it that is going from me again?” she muttered, in a low voice.\n“What _is_ this that is going away?”\n\nThen she abruptly answered:  “Ill?  No, I am quite well,” and stood\nlooking vacantly at the floor.\n\nHer husband, who had not been altogether free from the infection of her\nfear at first, and whom the present strangeness of her manner did not\ntend to reassure, addressed himself to the pale visitor in the black\ncloak, who stood still, and whose eyes were bent upon the ground.\n\n“What may be your pleasure, sir,” he asked, “with us?”\n\n“I fear that my coming in unperceived,” returned the visitor, “has\nalarmed you; but you were talking and did not hear me.”\n\n“My little woman says—perhaps you heard her say it,” returned Mr.\nTetterby, “that it’s not the first time you have alarmed her to-night.”\n\n“I am sorry for it.  I remember to have observed her, for a few moments\nonly, in the street.  I had no intention of frightening her.”\n\nAs he raised his eyes in speaking, she raised hers.  It was extraordinary\nto see what dread she had of him, and with what dread he observed it—and\nyet how narrowly and closely.\n\n“My name,” he said, “is Redlaw.  I come from the old college hard by.  A\nyoung gentleman who is a student there, lodges in your house, does he\nnot?”\n\n“Mr. Denham?” said Tetterby.\n\n“Yes.”\n\nIt was a natural action, and so slight as to be hardly noticeable; but\nthe little man, before speaking again, passed his hand across his\nforehead, and looked quickly round the room, as though he were sensible\nof some change in its atmosphere.  The Chemist, instantly transferring to\nhim the look of dread he had directed towards the wife, stepped back, and\nhis face turned paler.\n\n“The gentleman’s room,” said Tetterby, “is upstairs, sir.  There’s a more\nconvenient private entrance; but as you have come in here, it will save\nyour going out into the cold, if you’ll take this little staircase,”\nshowing one communicating directly with the parlour, “and go up to him\nthat way, if you wish to see him.”\n\n“Yes, I wish to see him,” said the Chemist.  “Can you spare a light?”\n\nThe watchfulness of his haggard look, and the inexplicable distrust that\ndarkened it, seemed to trouble Mr. Tetterby.  He paused; and looking\nfixedly at him in return, stood for a minute or so, like a man stupefied,\nor fascinated.\n\nAt length he said, “I’ll light you, sir, if you’ll follow me.”\n\n“No,” replied the Chemist, “I don’t wish to be attended, or announced to\nhim.  He does not expect me.  I would rather go alone.  Please to give me\nthe light, if you can spare it, and I’ll find the way.”\n\nIn the quickness of his expression of this desire, and in taking the\ncandle from the newsman, he touched him on the breast.  Withdrawing his\nhand hastily, almost as though he had wounded him by accident (for he did\nnot know in what part of himself his new power resided, or how it was\ncommunicated, or how the manner of its reception varied in different\npersons), he turned and ascended the stair.\n\nBut when he reached the top, he stopped and looked down.  The wife was\nstanding in the same place, twisting her ring round and round upon her\nfinger.  The husband, with his head bent forward on his breast, was\nmusing heavily and sullenly.  The children, still clustering about the\nmother, gazed timidly after the visitor, and nestled together when they\nsaw him looking down.\n\n“Come!” said the father, roughly.  “There’s enough of this.  Get to bed\nhere!”\n\n“The place is inconvenient and small enough,” the mother added, “without\nyou.  Get to bed!”\n\nThe whole brood, scared and sad, crept away; little Johnny and the baby\nlagging last.  The mother, glancing contemptuously round the sordid room,\nand tossing from her the fragments of their meal, stopped on the\nthreshold of her task of clearing the table, and sat down, pondering idly\nand dejectedly.  The father betook himself to the chimney-corner, and\nimpatiently raking the small fire together, bent over it as if he would\nmonopolise it all.  They did not interchange a word.\n\nThe Chemist, paler than before, stole upward like a thief; looking back\nupon the change below, and dreading equally to go on or return.\n\n“What have I done!” he said, confusedly.  “What am I going to do!”\n\n“To be the benefactor of mankind,” he thought he heard a voice reply.\n\nHe looked round, but there was nothing there; and a passage now shutting\nout the little parlour from his view, he went on, directing his eyes\nbefore him at the way he went.\n\n“It is only since last night,” he muttered gloomily, “that I have\nremained shut up, and yet all things are strange to me.  I am strange to\nmyself.  I am here, as in a dream.  What interest have I in this place,\nor in any place that I can bring to my remembrance?  My mind is going\nblind!”\n\nThere was a door before him, and he knocked at it.  Being invited, by a\nvoice within, to enter, he complied.\n\n“Is that my kind nurse?” said the voice.  “But I need not ask her.  There\nis no one else to come here.”\n\nIt spoke cheerfully, though in a languid tone, and attracted his\nattention to a young man lying on a couch, drawn before the\nchimney-piece, with the back towards the door.  A meagre scanty stove,\npinched and hollowed like a sick man’s cheeks, and bricked into the\ncentre of a hearth that it could scarcely warm, contained the fire, to\nwhich his face was turned.  Being so near the windy house-top, it wasted\nquickly, and with a busy sound, and the burning ashes dropped down fast.\n\n“They chink when they shoot out here,” said the student, smiling, “so,\naccording to the gossips, they are not coffins, but purses.  I shall be\nwell and rich yet, some day, if it please God, and shall live perhaps to\nlove a daughter Milly, in remembrance of the kindest nature and the\ngentlest heart in the world.”\n\nHe put up his hand as if expecting her to take it, but, being weakened,\nhe lay still, with his face resting on his other hand, and did not turn\nround.\n\nThe Chemist glanced about the room;—at the student’s books and papers,\npiled upon a table in a corner, where they, and his extinguished\nreading-lamp, now prohibited and put away, told of the attentive hours\nthat had gone before this illness, and perhaps caused it;—at such signs\nof his old health and freedom, as the out-of-door attire that hung idle\non the wall;—at those remembrances of other and less solitary scenes, the\nlittle miniatures upon the chimney-piece, and the drawing of home;—at\nthat token of his emulation, perhaps, in some sort, of his personal\nattachment too, the framed engraving of himself, the looker-on.  The time\nhad been, only yesterday, when not one of these objects, in its remotest\nassociation of interest with the living figure before him, would have\nbeen lost on Redlaw.  Now, they were but objects; or, if any gleam of\nsuch connexion shot upon him, it perplexed, and not enlightened him, as\nhe stood looking round with a dull wonder.\n\nThe student, recalling the thin hand which had remained so long\nuntouched, raised himself on the couch, and turned his head.\n\n“Mr. Redlaw!” he exclaimed, and started up.\n\nRedlaw put out his arm.\n\n“Don’t come nearer to me.  I will sit here.  Remain you, where you are!”\n\nHe sat down on a chair near the door, and having glanced at the young man\nstanding leaning with his hand upon the couch, spoke with his eyes\naverted towards the ground.\n\n“I heard, by an accident, by what accident is no matter, that one of my\nclass was ill and solitary.  I received no other description of him, than\nthat he lived in this street.  Beginning my inquiries at the first house\nin it, I have found him.”\n\n“I have been ill, sir,” returned the student, not merely with a modest\nhesitation, but with a kind of awe of him, “but am greatly better.  An\nattack of fever—of the brain, I believe—has weakened me, but I am much\nbetter.  I cannot say I have been solitary, in my illness, or I should\nforget the ministering hand that has been near me.”\n\n“You are speaking of the keeper’s wife,” said Redlaw.\n\n“Yes.”  The student bent his head, as if he rendered her some silent\nhomage.\n\nThe Chemist, in whom there was a cold, monotonous apathy, which rendered\nhim more like a marble image on the tomb of the man who had started from\nhis dinner yesterday at the first mention of this student’s case, than\nthe breathing man himself, glanced again at the student leaning with his\nhand upon the couch, and looked upon the ground, and in the air, as if\nfor light for his blinded mind.\n\n“I remembered your name,” he said, “when it was mentioned to me down\nstairs, just now; and I recollect your face.  We have held but very\nlittle personal communication together?”\n\n“Very little.”\n\n“You have retired and withdrawn from me, more than any of the rest, I\nthink?”\n\nThe student signified assent.\n\n“And why?” said the Chemist; not with the least expression of interest,\nbut with a moody, wayward kind of curiosity.  “Why?  How comes it that\nyou have sought to keep especially from me, the knowledge of your\nremaining here, at this season, when all the rest have dispersed, and of\nyour being ill?  I want to know why this is?”\n\nThe young man, who had heard him with increasing agitation, raised his\ndowncast eyes to his face, and clasping his hands together, cried with\nsudden earnestness and with trembling lips:\n\n“Mr. Redlaw!  You have discovered me.  You know my secret!”\n\n“Secret?” said the Chemist, harshly.  “I know?”\n\n“Yes!  Your manner, so different from the interest and sympathy which\nendear you to so many hearts, your altered voice, the constraint there is\nin everything you say, and in your looks,” replied the student, “warn me\nthat you know me.  That you would conceal it, even now, is but a proof to\nme (God knows I need none!) of your natural kindness and of the bar there\nis between us.”\n\nA vacant and contemptuous laugh, was all his answer.\n\n“But, Mr. Redlaw,” said the student, “as a just man, and a good man,\nthink how innocent I am, except in name and descent, of participation in\nany wrong inflicted on you or in any sorrow you have borne.”\n\n“Sorrow!” said Redlaw, laughing.  “Wrong!  What are those to me?”\n\n“For Heaven’s sake,” entreated the shrinking student, “do not let the\nmere interchange of a few words with me change you like this, sir!  Let\nme pass again from your knowledge and notice.  Let me occupy my old\nreserved and distant place among those whom you instruct.  Know me only\nby the name I have assumed, and not by that of Longford—”\n\n“Longford!” exclaimed the other.\n\nHe clasped his head with both his hands, and for a moment turned upon the\nyoung man his own intelligent and thoughtful face.  But the light passed\nfrom it, like the sun-beam of an instant, and it clouded as before.\n\n“The name my mother bears, sir,” faltered the young man, “the name she\ntook, when she might, perhaps, have taken one more honoured.  Mr.\nRedlaw,” hesitating, “I believe I know that history.  Where my\ninformation halts, my guesses at what is wanting may supply something not\nremote from the truth.  I am the child of a marriage that has not proved\nitself a well-assorted or a happy one.  From infancy, I have heard you\nspoken of with honour and respect—with something that was almost\nreverence.  I have heard of such devotion, of such fortitude and\ntenderness, of such rising up against the obstacles which press men down,\nthat my fancy, since I learnt my little lesson from my mother, has shed a\nlustre on your name.  At last, a poor student myself, from whom could I\nlearn but you?”\n\nRedlaw, unmoved, unchanged, and looking at him with a staring frown,\nanswered by no word or sign.\n\n“I cannot say,” pursued the other, “I should try in vain to say, how much\nit has impressed me, and affected me, to find the gracious traces of the\npast, in that certain power of winning gratitude and confidence which is\nassociated among us students (among the humblest of us, most) with Mr.\nRedlaw’s generous name.  Our ages and positions are so different, sir,\nand I am so accustomed to regard you from a distance, that I wonder at my\nown presumption when I touch, however lightly, on that theme.  But to one\nwho—I may say, who felt no common interest in my mother once—it may be\nsomething to hear, now that all is past, with what indescribable feelings\nof affection I have, in my obscurity, regarded him; with what pain and\nreluctance I have kept aloof from his encouragement, when a word of it\nwould have made me rich; yet how I have felt it fit that I should hold my\ncourse, content to know him, and to be unknown.  Mr. Redlaw,” said the\nstudent, faintly, “what I would have said, I have said ill, for my\nstrength is strange to me as yet; but for anything unworthy in this fraud\nof mine, forgive me, and for all the rest forget me!”\n\nThe staring frown remained on Redlaw’s face, and yielded to no other\nexpression until the student, with these words, advanced towards him, as\nif to touch his hand, when he drew back and cried to him:\n\n“Don’t come nearer to me!”\n\nThe young man stopped, shocked by the eagerness of his recoil, and by the\nsternness of his repulsion; and he passed his hand, thoughtfully, across\nhis forehead.\n\n“The past is past,” said the Chemist.  “It dies like the brutes.  Who\ntalks to me of its traces in my life?  He raves or lies!  What have I to\ndo with your distempered dreams?  If you want money, here it is.  I came\nto offer it; and that is all I came for.  There can be nothing else that\nbrings me here,” he muttered, holding his head again, with both his\nhands.  “There _can_ be nothing else, and yet—”\n\nHe had tossed his purse upon the table.  As he fell into this dim\ncogitation with himself, the student took it up, and held it out to him.\n\n“Take it back, sir,” he said proudly, though not angrily.  “I wish you\ncould take from me, with it, the remembrance of your words and offer.”\n\n“You do?” he retorted, with a wild light in his eyes.  “You do?”\n\n“I do!”\n\nThe Chemist went close to him, for the first time, and took the purse,\nand turned him by the arm, and looked him in the face.\n\n“There is sorrow and trouble in sickness, is there not?” he demanded,\nwith a laugh.\n\nThe wondering student answered, “Yes.”\n\n“In its unrest, in its anxiety, in its suspense, in all its train of\nphysical and mental miseries?” said the Chemist, with a wild unearthly\nexultation.  “All best forgotten, are they not?”\n\nThe student did not answer, but again passed his hand, confusedly, across\nhis forehead.  Redlaw still held him by the sleeve, when Milly’s voice\nwas heard outside.\n\n“I can see very well now,” she said, “thank you, Dolf.  Don’t cry, dear.\nFather and mother will be comfortable again, to-morrow, and home will be\ncomfortable too.  A gentleman with him, is there!”\n\nRedlaw released his hold, as he listened.\n\n“I have feared, from the first moment,” he murmured to himself, “to meet\nher.  There is a steady quality of goodness in her, that I dread to\ninfluence.  I may be the murderer of what is tenderest and best within\nher bosom.”\n\nShe was knocking at the door.\n\n“Shall I dismiss it as an idle foreboding, or still avoid her?” he\nmuttered, looking uneasily around.\n\nShe was knocking at the door again.\n\n“Of all the visitors who could come here,” he said, in a hoarse alarmed\nvoice, turning to his companion, “this is the one I should desire most to\navoid.  Hide me!”\n\nThe student opened a frail door in the wall, communicating where the\ngarret-roof began to slope towards the floor, with a small inner room.\nRedlaw passed in hastily, and shut it after him.\n\nThe student then resumed his place upon the couch, and called to her to\nenter.\n\n“Dear Mr. Edmund,” said Milly, looking round, “they told me there was a\ngentleman here.”\n\n“There is no one here but I.”\n\n“There has been some one?”\n\n“Yes, yes, there has been some one.”\n\nShe put her little basket on the table, and went up to the back of the\ncouch, as if to take the extended hand—but it was not there.  A little\nsurprised, in her quiet way, she leaned over to look at his face, and\ngently touched him on the brow.\n\n“Are you quite as well to-night?  Your head is not so cool as in the\nafternoon.”\n\n“Tut!” said the student, petulantly, “very little ails me.”\n\nA little more surprise, but no reproach, was expressed in her face, as\nshe withdrew to the other side of the table, and took a small packet of\nneedlework from her basket.  But she laid it down again, on second\nthoughts, and going noiselessly about the room, set everything exactly in\nits place, and in the neatest order; even to the cushions on the couch,\nwhich she touched with so light a hand, that he hardly seemed to know it,\nas he lay looking at the fire.  When all this was done, and she had swept\nthe hearth, she sat down, in her modest little bonnet, to her work, and\nwas quietly busy on it directly.\n\n“It’s the new muslin curtain for the window, Mr. Edmund,” said Milly,\nstitching away as she talked.  “It will look very clean and nice, though\nit costs very little, and will save your eyes, too, from the light.  My\nWilliam says the room should not be too light just now, when you are\nrecovering so well, or the glare might make you giddy.”\n\nHe said nothing; but there was something so fretful and impatient in his\nchange of position, that her quick fingers stopped, and she looked at him\nanxiously.\n\n“The pillows are not comfortable,” she said, laying down her work and\nrising.  “I will soon put them right.”\n\n“They are very well,” he answered.  “Leave them alone, pray.  You make so\nmuch of everything.”\n\nHe raised his head to say this, and looked at her so thanklessly, that,\nafter he had thrown himself down again, she stood timidly pausing.\nHowever, she resumed her seat, and her needle, without having directed\neven a murmuring look towards him, and was soon as busy as before.\n\n“I have been thinking, Mr. Edmund, that _you_ have been often thinking of\nlate, when I have been sitting by, how true the saying is, that adversity\nis a good teacher.  Health will be more precious to you, after this\nillness, than it has ever been.  And years hence, when this time of year\ncomes round, and you remember the days when you lay here sick, alone,\nthat the knowledge of your illness might not afflict those who are\ndearest to you, your home will be doubly dear and doubly blest.  Now,\nisn’t that a good, true thing?”\n\nShe was too intent upon her work, and too earnest in what she said, and\ntoo composed and quiet altogether, to be on the watch for any look he\nmight direct towards her in reply; so the shaft of his ungrateful glance\nfell harmless, and did not wound her.\n\n“Ah!” said Milly, with her pretty head inclining thoughtfully on one\nside, as she looked down, following her busy fingers with her eyes.\n“Even on me—and I am very different from you, Mr. Edmund, for I have no\nlearning, and don’t know how to think properly—this view of such things\nhas made a great impression, since you have been lying ill.  When I have\nseen you so touched by the kindness and attention of the poor people down\nstairs, I have felt that you thought even that experience some repayment\nfor the loss of health, and I have read in your face, as plain as if it\nwas a book, that but for some trouble and sorrow we should never know\nhalf the good there is about us.”\n\nHis getting up from the couch, interrupted her, or she was going on to\nsay more.\n\n“We needn’t magnify the merit, Mrs. William,” he rejoined slightingly.\n“The people down stairs will be paid in good time I dare say, for any\nlittle extra service they may have rendered me; and perhaps they\nanticipate no less.  I am much obliged to you, too.”\n\nHer fingers stopped, and she looked at him.\n\n“I can’t be made to feel the more obliged by your exaggerating the case,”\nhe said.  “I am sensible that you have been interested in me, and I say I\nam much obliged to you.  What more would you have?”\n\nHer work fell on her lap, as she still looked at him walking to and fro\nwith an intolerant air, and stopping now and then.\n\n“I say again, I am much obliged to you.  Why weaken my sense of what is\nyour due in obligation, by preferring enormous claims upon me?  Trouble,\nsorrow, affliction, adversity!  One might suppose I had been dying a\nscore of deaths here!”\n\n“Do you believe, Mr. Edmund,” she asked, rising and going nearer to him,\n“that I spoke of the poor people of the house, with any reference to\nmyself?  To me?” laying her hand upon her bosom with a simple and\ninnocent smile of astonishment.\n\n“Oh!  I think nothing about it, my good creature,” he returned.  “I have\nhad an indisposition, which your solicitude—observe! I say\nsolicitude—makes a great deal more of, than it merits; and it’s over, and\nwe can’t perpetuate it.”\n\nHe coldly took a book, and sat down at the table.\n\nShe watched him for a little while, until her smile was quite gone, and\nthen, returning to where her basket was, said gently:\n\n“Mr. Edmund, would you rather be alone?”\n\n“There is no reason why I should detain you here,” he replied.\n\n“Except—” said Milly, hesitating, and showing her work.\n\n“Oh! the curtain,” he answered, with a supercilious laugh.  “That’s not\nworth staying for.”\n\nShe made up the little packet again, and put it in her basket.  Then,\nstanding before him with such an air of patient entreaty that he could\nnot choose but look at her, she said:\n\n“If you should want me, I will come back willingly.  When you did want\nme, I was quite happy to come; there was no merit in it.  I think you\nmust be afraid, that, now you are getting well, I may be troublesome to\nyou; but I should not have been, indeed.  I should have come no longer\nthan your weakness and confinement lasted.  You owe me nothing; but it is\nright that you should deal as justly by me as if I was a lady—even the\nvery lady that you love; and if you suspect me of meanly making much of\nthe little I have tried to do to comfort your sick room, you do yourself\nmore wrong than ever you can do me.  That is why I am sorry.  That is why\nI am very sorry.”\n\nIf she had been as passionate as she was quiet, as indignant as she was\ncalm, as angry in her look as she was gentle, as loud of tone as she was\nlow and clear, she might have left no sense of her departure in the room,\ncompared with that which fell upon the lonely student when she went away.\n\nHe was gazing drearily upon the place where she had been, when Redlaw\ncame out of his concealment, and came to the door.\n\n“When sickness lays its hand on you again,” he said, looking fiercely\nback at him, “—may it be soon!—Die here!  Rot here!”\n\n“What have you done?” returned the other, catching at his cloak.  “What\nchange have you wrought in me?  What curse have you brought upon me?\nGive me back _my_self!”\n\n“Give me back myself!” exclaimed Redlaw like a madman.  “I am infected!\nI am infectious!  I am charged with poison for my own mind, and the minds\nof all mankind.  Where I felt interest, compassion, sympathy, I am\nturning into stone.  Selfishness and ingratitude spring up in my\nblighting footsteps.  I am only so much less base than the wretches whom\nI make so, that in the moment of their transformation I can hate them.”\n\nAs he spoke—the young man still holding to his cloak—he cast him off, and\nstruck him: then, wildly hurried out into the night air where the wind\nwas blowing, the snow falling, the cloud-drift sweeping on, the moon\ndimly shining; and where, blowing in the wind, falling with the snow,\ndrifting with the clouds, shining in the moonlight, and heavily looming\nin the darkness, were the Phantom’s words, “The gift that I have given,\nyou shall give again, go where you will!”\n\nWhither he went, he neither knew nor cared, so that he avoided company.\nThe change he felt within him made the busy streets a desert, and himself\na desert, and the multitude around him, in their manifold endurances and\nways of life, a mighty waste of sand, which the winds tossed into\nunintelligible heaps and made a ruinous confusion of.  Those traces in\nhis breast which the Phantom had told him would “die out soon,” were not,\nas yet, so far upon their way to death, but that he understood enough of\nwhat he was, and what he made of others, to desire to be alone.\n\nThis put it in his mind—he suddenly bethought himself, as he was going\nalong, of the boy who had rushed into his room.  And then he recollected,\nthat of those with whom he had communicated since the Phantom’s\ndisappearance, that boy alone had shown no sign of being changed.\n\nMonstrous and odious as the wild thing was to him, he determined to seek\nit out, and prove if this were really so; and also to seek it with\nanother intention, which came into his thoughts at the same time.\n\nSo, resolving with some difficulty where he was, he directed his steps\nback to the old college, and to that part of it where the general porch\nwas, and where, alone, the pavement was worn by the tread of the\nstudents’ feet.\n\nThe keeper’s house stood just within the iron gates, forming a part of\nthe chief quadrangle.  There was a little cloister outside, and from that\nsheltered place he knew he could look in at the window of their ordinary\nroom, and see who was within.  The iron gates were shut, but his hand was\nfamiliar with the fastening, and drawing it back by thrusting in his\nwrist between the bars, he passed through softly, shut it again, and\ncrept up to the window, crumbling the thin crust of snow with his feet.\n\nThe fire, to which he had directed the boy last night, shining brightly\nthrough the glass, made an illuminated place upon the ground.\nInstinctively avoiding this, and going round it, he looked in at the\nwindow.  At first, he thought that there was no one there, and that the\nblaze was reddening only the old beams in the ceiling and the dark walls;\nbut peering in more narrowly, he saw the object of his search coiled\nasleep before it on the floor.  He passed quickly to the door, opened it,\nand went in.\n\nThe creature lay in such a fiery heat, that, as the Chemist stooped to\nrouse him, it scorched his head.  So soon as he was touched, the boy, not\nhalf awake, clutching his rags together with the instinct of flight upon\nhim, half rolled and half ran into a distant corner of the room, where,\nheaped upon the ground, he struck his foot out to defend himself.\n\n“Get up!” said the Chemist.  “You have not forgotten me?”\n\n“You let me alone!” returned the boy.  “This is the woman’s house—not\nyours.”\n\nThe Chemist’s steady eye controlled him somewhat, or inspired him with\nenough submission to be raised upon his feet, and looked at.\n\n“Who washed them, and put those bandages where they were bruised and\ncracked?” asked the Chemist, pointing to their altered state.\n\n“The woman did.”\n\n“And is it she who has made you cleaner in the face, too?”\n\n“Yes, the woman.”\n\nRedlaw asked these questions to attract his eyes towards himself, and\nwith the same intent now held him by the chin, and threw his wild hair\nback, though he loathed to touch him.  The boy watched his eyes keenly,\nas if he thought it needful to his own defence, not knowing what he might\ndo next; and Redlaw could see well that no change came over him.\n\n“Where are they?” he inquired.\n\n“The woman’s out.”\n\n“I know she is.  Where is the old man with the white hair, and his son?”\n\n“The woman’s husband, d’ye mean?” inquired the boy.\n\n“Ay.  Where are those two?”\n\n“Out.  Something’s the matter, somewhere.  They were fetched out in a\nhurry, and told me to stop here.”\n\n“Come with me,” said the Chemist, “and I’ll give you money.”\n\n“Come where? and how much will you give?”\n\n“I’ll give you more shillings than you ever saw, and bring you back soon.\nDo you know your way to where you came from?”\n\n“You let me go,” returned the boy, suddenly twisting out of his grasp.\n“I’m not a going to take you there.  Let me be, or I’ll heave some fire\nat you!”\n\nHe was down before it, and ready, with his savage little hand, to pluck\nthe burning coals out.\n\nWhat the Chemist had felt, in observing the effect of his charmed\ninfluence stealing over those with whom he came in contact, was not\nnearly equal to the cold vague terror with which he saw this baby-monster\nput it at defiance.  It chilled his blood to look on the immovable\nimpenetrable thing, in the likeness of a child, with its sharp malignant\nface turned up to his, and its almost infant hand, ready at the bars.\n\n“Listen, boy!” he said.  “You shall take me where you please, so that you\ntake me where the people are very miserable or very wicked.  I want to do\nthem good, and not to harm them.  You shall have money, as I have told\nyou, and I will bring you back.  Get up!  Come quickly!”  He made a hasty\nstep towards the door, afraid of her returning.\n\n“Will you let me walk by myself, and never hold me, nor yet touch me?”\nsaid the boy, slowly withdrawing the hand with which he threatened, and\nbeginning to get up.\n\n“I will!”\n\n“And let me go, before, behind, or anyways I like?”\n\n“I will!”\n\n“Give me some money first, then, and go.”\n\nThe Chemist laid a few shillings, one by one, in his extended hand.  To\ncount them was beyond the boy’s knowledge, but he said “one,” every time,\nand avariciously looked at each as it was given, and at the donor.  He\nhad nowhere to put them, out of his hand, but in his mouth; and he put\nthem there.\n\nRedlaw then wrote with his pencil on a leaf of his pocket-book, that the\nboy was with him; and laying it on the table, signed to him to follow.\nKeeping his rags together, as usual, the boy complied, and went out with\nhis bare head and naked feet into the winter night.\n\nPreferring not to depart by the iron gate by which he had entered, where\nthey were in danger of meeting her whom he so anxiously avoided, the\nChemist led the way, through some of those passages among which the boy\nhad lost himself, and by that portion of the building where he lived, to\na small door of which he had the key.  When they got into the street, he\nstopped to ask his guide—who instantly retreated from him—if he knew\nwhere they were.\n\nThe savage thing looked here and there, and at length, nodding his head,\npointed in the direction he designed to take.  Redlaw going on at once,\nhe followed, something less suspiciously; shifting his money from his\nmouth into his hand, and back again into his mouth, and stealthily\nrubbing it bright upon his shreds of dress, as he went along.\n\nThree times, in their progress, they were side by side.  Three times they\nstopped, being side by side.  Three times the Chemist glanced down at his\nface, and shuddered as it forced upon him one reflection.\n\nThe first occasion was when they were crossing an old churchyard, and\nRedlaw stopped among the graves, utterly at a loss how to connect them\nwith any tender, softening, or consolatory thought.\n\nThe second was, when the breaking forth of the moon induced him to look\nup at the Heavens, where he saw her in her glory, surrounded by a host of\nstars he still knew by the names and histories which human science has\nappended to them; but where he saw nothing else he had been wont to see,\nfelt nothing he had been wont to feel, in looking up there, on a bright\nnight.\n\nThe third was when he stopped to listen to a plaintive strain of music,\nbut could only hear a tune, made manifest to him by the dry mechanism of\nthe instruments and his own ears, with no address to any mystery within\nhim, without a whisper in it of the past, or of the future, powerless\nupon him as the sound of last year’s running water, or the rushing of\nlast year’s wind.\n\nAt each of these three times, he saw with horror that, in spite of the\nvast intellectual distance between them, and their being unlike each\nother in all physical respects, the expression on the boy’s face was the\nexpression on his own.\n\nThey journeyed on for some time—now through such crowded places, that he\noften looked over his shoulder thinking he had lost his guide, but\ngenerally finding him within his shadow on his other side; now by ways so\nquiet, that he could have counted his short, quick, naked footsteps\ncoming on behind—until they arrived at a ruinous collection of houses,\nand the boy touched him and stopped.\n\n“In there!” he said, pointing out one house where there were shattered\nlights in the windows, and a dim lantern in the doorway, with “Lodgings\nfor Travellers” painted on it.\n\nRedlaw looked about him; from the houses to the waste piece of ground on\nwhich the houses stood, or rather did not altogether tumble down,\nunfenced, undrained, unlighted, and bordered by a sluggish ditch; from\nthat, to the sloping line of arches, part of some neighbouring viaduct or\nbridge with which it was surrounded, and which lessened gradually towards\nthem, until the last but one was a mere kennel for a dog, the last a\nplundered little heap of bricks; from that, to the child, close to him,\ncowering and trembling with the cold, and limping on one little foot,\nwhile he coiled the other round his leg to warm it, yet staring at all\nthese things with that frightful likeness of expression so apparent in\nhis face, that Redlaw started from him.\n\n“In there!” said the boy, pointing out the house again.  “I’ll wait.”\n\n“Will they let me in?” asked Redlaw.\n\n“Say you’re a doctor,” he answered with a nod.  “There’s plenty ill\nhere.”\n\nLooking back on his way to the house-door, Redlaw saw him trail himself\nupon the dust and crawl within the shelter of the smallest arch, as if he\nwere a rat.  He had no pity for the thing, but he was afraid of it; and\nwhen it looked out of its den at him, he hurried to the house as a\nretreat.\n\n“Sorrow, wrong, and trouble,” said the Chemist, with a painful effort at\nsome more distinct remembrance, “at least haunt this place darkly.  He\ncan do no harm, who brings forgetfulness of such things here!”\n\nWith these words, he pushed the yielding door, and went in.\n\nThere was a woman sitting on the stairs, either asleep or forlorn, whose\nhead was bent down on her hands and knees.  As it was not easy to pass\nwithout treading on her, and as she was perfectly regardless of his near\napproach, he stopped, and touched her on the shoulder.  Looking up, she\nshowed him quite a young face, but one whose bloom and promise were all\nswept away, as if the haggard winter should unnaturally kill the spring.\n\nWith little or no show of concern on his account, she moved nearer to the\nwall to leave him a wider passage.\n\n“What are you?” said Redlaw, pausing, with his hand upon the broken\nstair-rail.\n\n“What do you think I am?” she answered, showing him her face again.\n\nHe looked upon the ruined Temple of God, so lately made, so soon\ndisfigured; and something, which was not compassion—for the springs in\nwhich a true compassion for such miseries has its rise, were dried up in\nhis breast—but which was nearer to it, for the moment, than any feeling\nthat had lately struggled into the darkening, but not yet wholly\ndarkened, night of his mind—mingled a touch of softness with his next\nwords.\n\n“I am come here to give relief, if I can,” he said.  “Are you thinking of\nany wrong?”\n\nShe frowned at him, and then laughed; and then her laugh prolonged itself\ninto a shivering sigh, as she dropped her head again, and hid her fingers\nin her hair.\n\n“Are you thinking of a wrong?” he asked once more.\n\n“I am thinking of my life,” she said, with a mometary look at him.\n\nHe had a perception that she was one of many, and that he saw the type of\nthousands, when he saw her, drooping at his feet.\n\n“What are your parents?” he demanded.\n\n“I had a good home once.  My father was a gardener, far away, in the\ncountry.”\n\n“Is he dead?”\n\n“He’s dead to me.  All such things are dead to me.  You a gentleman, and\nnot know that!”  She raised her eyes again, and laughed at him.\n\n“Girl!” said Redlaw, sternly, “before this death, of all such things, was\nbrought about, was there no wrong done to you?  In spite of all that you\ncan do, does no remembrance of wrong cleave to you?  Are there not times\nupon times when it is misery to you?”\n\nSo little of what was womanly was left in her appearance, that now, when\nshe burst into tears, he stood amazed.  But he was more amazed, and much\ndisquieted, to note that in her awakened recollection of this wrong, the\nfirst trace of her old humanity and frozen tenderness appeared to show\nitself.\n\nHe drew a little off, and in doing so, observed that her arms were black,\nher face cut, and her bosom bruised.\n\n“What brutal hand has hurt you so?” he asked.\n\n“My own.  I did it myself!” she answered quickly.\n\n“It is impossible.”\n\n“I’ll swear I did!  He didn’t touch me.  I did it to myself in a passion,\nand threw myself down here.  He wasn’t near me.  He never laid a hand\nupon me!”\n\nIn the white determination of her face, confronting him with this\nuntruth, he saw enough of the last perversion and distortion of good\nsurviving in that miserable breast, to be stricken with remorse that he\nhad ever come near her.\n\n“Sorrow, wrong, and trouble!” he muttered, turning his fearful gaze away.\n“All that connects her with the state from which she has fallen, has\nthose roots!  In the name of God, let me go by!”\n\nAfraid to look at her again, afraid to touch her, afraid to think of\nhaving sundered the last thread by which she held upon the mercy of\nHeaven, he gathered his cloak about him, and glided swiftly up the\nstairs.\n\nOpposite to him, on the landing, was a door, which stood partly open, and\nwhich, as he ascended, a man with a candle in his hand, came forward from\nwithin to shut.  But this man, on seeing him, drew back, with much\nemotion in his manner, and, as if by a sudden impulse, mentioned his name\naloud.\n\nIn the surprise of such a recognition there, he stopped, endeavouring to\nrecollect the wan and startled face.  He had no time to consider it, for,\nto his yet greater amazement, old Philip came out of the room, and took\nhim by the hand.\n\n“Mr. Redlaw,” said the old man, “this is like you, this is like you, sir!\nyou have heard of it, and have come after us to render any help you can.\nAh, too late, too late!”\n\nRedlaw, with a bewildered look, submitted to be led into the room.  A man\nlay there, on a truckle-bed, and William Swidger stood at the bedside.\n\n“Too late!” murmured the old man, looking wistfully into the Chemist’s\nface; and the tears stole down his cheeks.\n\n“That’s what I say, father,” interposed his son in a low voice.  “That’s\nwhere it is, exactly.  To keep as quiet as ever we can while he’s a\ndozing, is the only thing to do.  You’re right, father!”\n\nRedlaw paused at the bedside, and looked down on the figure that was\nstretched upon the mattress.  It was that of a man, who should have been\nin the vigour of his life, but on whom it was not likely the sun would\never shine again.  The vices of his forty or fifty years’ career had so\nbranded him, that, in comparison with their effects upon his face, the\nheavy hand of Time upon the old man’s face who watched him had been\nmerciful and beautifying.\n\n“Who is this?” asked the Chemist, looking round.\n\n“My son George, Mr. Redlaw,” said the old man, wringing his hands.  “My\neldest son, George, who was more his mother’s pride than all the rest!”\n\nRedlaw’s eyes wandered from the old man’s grey head, as he laid it down\nupon the bed, to the person who had recognised him, and who had kept\naloof, in the remotest corner of the room.  He seemed to be about his own\nage; and although he knew no such hopeless decay and broken man as he\nappeared to be, there was something in the turn of his figure, as he\nstood with his back towards him, and now went out at the door, that made\nhim pass his hand uneasily across his brow.\n\n“William,” he said in a gloomy whisper, “who is that man?”\n\n“Why you see, sir,” returned Mr. William, “that’s what I say, myself.\nWhy should a man ever go and gamble, and the like of that, and let\nhimself down inch by inch till he can’t let himself down any lower!”\n\n“Has _he_ done so?” asked Redlaw, glancing after him with the same uneasy\naction as before.\n\n“Just exactly that, sir,” returned William Swidger, “as I’m told.  He\nknows a little about medicine, sir, it seems; and having been wayfaring\ntowards London with my unhappy brother that you see here,” Mr. William\npassed his coat-sleeve across his eyes, “and being lodging up stairs for\nthe night—what I say, you see, is that strange companions come together\nhere sometimes—he looked in to attend upon him, and came for us at his\nrequest.  What a mournful spectacle, sir!  But that’s where it is.  It’s\nenough to kill my father!”\n\nRedlaw looked up, at these words, and, recalling where he was and with\nwhom, and the spell he carried with him—which his surprise had\nobscured—retired a little, hurriedly, debating with himself whether to\nshun the house that moment, or remain.\n\nYielding to a certain sullen doggedness, which it seemed to be a part of\nhis condition to struggle with, he argued for remaining.\n\n“Was it only yesterday,” he said, “when I observed the memory of this old\nman to be a tissue of sorrow and trouble, and shall I be afraid,\nto-night, to shake it?  Are such remembrances as I can drive away, so\nprecious to this dying man that I need fear for _him_?  No!  I’ll stay\nhere.”\n\nBut he stayed in fear and trembling none the less for these words; and,\nshrouded in his black cloak with his face turned from them, stood away\nfrom the bedside, listening to what they said, as if he felt himself a\ndemon in the place.\n\n“Father!” murmured the sick man, rallying a little from stupor.\n\n“My boy!  My son George!” said old Philip.\n\n“You spoke, just now, of my being mother’s favourite, long ago.  It’s a\ndreadful thing to think now, of long ago!”\n\n“No, no, no;” returned the old man.  “Think of it.  Don’t say it’s\ndreadful.  It’s not dreadful to me, my son.”\n\n“It cuts you to the heart, father.”  For the old man’s tears were falling\non him.\n\n“Yes, yes,” said Philip, “so it does; but it does me good.  It’s a heavy\nsorrow to think of that time, but it does me good, George.  Oh, think of\nit too, think of it too, and your heart will be softened more and more!\nWhere’s my son William?  William, my boy, your mother loved him dearly to\nthe last, and with her latest breath said, ‘Tell him I forgave him,\nblessed him, and prayed for him.’  Those were her words to me.  I have\nnever forgotten them, and I’m eighty-seven!”\n\n“Father!” said the man upon the bed, “I am dying, I know.  I am so far\ngone, that I can hardly speak, even of what my mind most runs on.  Is\nthere any hope for me beyond this bed?”\n\n“There is hope,” returned the old man, “for all who are softened and\npenitent.  There is hope for all such.  Oh!” he exclaimed, clasping his\nhands and looking up, “I was thankful, only yesterday, that I could\nremember this unhappy son when he was an innocent child.  But what a\ncomfort it is, now, to think that even God himself has that remembrance\nof him!”\n\nRedlaw spread his hands upon his face, and shrank, like a murderer.\n\n“Ah!” feebly moaned the man upon the bed.  “The waste since then, the\nwaste of life since then!”\n\n“But he was a child once,” said the old man.  “He played with children.\nBefore he lay down on his bed at night, and fell into his guiltless rest,\nhe said his prayers at his poor mother’s knee.  I have seen him do it,\nmany a time; and seen her lay his head upon her breast, and kiss him.\nSorrowful as it was to her and me, to think of this, when he went so\nwrong, and when our hopes and plans for him were all broken, this gave\nhim still a hold upon us, that nothing else could have given.  Oh,\nFather, so much better than the fathers upon earth!  Oh, Father, so much\nmore afflicted by the errors of Thy children! take this wanderer back!\nNot as he is, but as he was then, let him cry to Thee, as he has so often\nseemed to cry to us!”\n\nAs the old man lifted up his trembling hands, the son, for whom he made\nthe supplication, laid his sinking head against him for support and\ncomfort, as if he were indeed the child of whom he spoke.\n\nWhen did man ever tremble, as Redlaw trembled, in the silence that\nensued!  He knew it must come upon them, knew that it was coming fast.\n\n“My time is very short, my breath is shorter,” said the sick man,\nsupporting himself on one arm, and with the other groping in the air,\n“and I remember there is something on my mind concerning the man who was\nhere just now, Father and William—wait!—is there really anything in\nblack, out there?”\n\n“Yes, yes, it is real,” said his aged father.\n\n“Is it a man?”\n\n“What I say myself, George,” interposed his brother, bending kindly over\nhim.  “It’s Mr. Redlaw.”\n\n“I thought I had dreamed of him.  Ask him to come here.”\n\nThe Chemist, whiter than the dying man, appeared before him.  Obedient to\nthe motion of his hand, he sat upon the bed.\n\n“It has been so ripped up, to-night, sir,” said the sick man, laying his\nhand upon his heart, with a look in which the mute, imploring agony of\nhis condition was concentrated, “by the sight of my poor old father, and\nthe thought of all the trouble I have been the cause of, and all the\nwrong and sorrow lying at my door, that—”\n\nWas it the extremity to which he had come, or was it the dawning of\nanother change, that made him stop?\n\n“—that what I _can_ do right, with my mind running on so much, so fast,\nI’ll try to do. There was another man here.  Did you see him?”\n\nRedlaw could not reply by any word; for when he saw that fatal sign he\nknew so well now, of the wandering hand upon the forehead, his voice died\nat his lips.  But he made some indication of assent.\n\n“He is penniless, hungry, and destitute.  He is completely beaten down,\nand has no resource at all.  Look after him!  Lose no time!  I know he\nhas it in his mind to kill himself.”\n\nIt was working.  It was on his face.  His face was changing, hardening,\ndeepening in all its shades, and losing all its sorrow.\n\n“Don’t you remember?  Don’t you know him?” he pursued.\n\nHe shut his face out for a moment, with the hand that again wandered over\nhis forehead, and then it lowered on Redlaw, reckless, ruffianly, and\ncallous.\n\n“Why, d-n you!” he said, scowling round, “what have you been doing to me\nhere!  I have lived bold, and I mean to die bold.  To the Devil with\nyou!”\n\nAnd so lay down upon his bed, and put his arms up, over his head and\nears, as resolute from that time to keep out all access, and to die in\nhis indifference.\n\nIf Redlaw had been struck by lightning, it could not have struck him from\nthe bedside with a more tremendous shock.  But the old man, who had left\nthe bed while his son was speaking to him, now returning, avoided it\nquickly likewise, and with abhorrence.\n\n“Where’s my boy William?” said the old man hurriedly.  “William, come\naway from here.  We’ll go home.”\n\n“Home, father!” returned William.  “Are you going to leave your own son?”\n\n“Where’s my own son?” replied the old man.\n\n“Where? why, there!”\n\n“That’s no son of mine,” said Philip, trembling with resentment.  “No\nsuch wretch as that, has any claim on me.  My children are pleasant to\nlook at, and they wait upon me, and get my meat and drink ready, and are\nuseful to me.  I’ve a right to it!  I’m eighty-seven!”\n\n“You’re old enough to be no older,” muttered William, looking at him\ngrudgingly, with his hands in his pockets.  “I don’t know what good you\nare, myself.  We could have a deal more pleasure without you.”\n\n“_My_ son, Mr. Redlaw!” said the old man.  “_My_ son, too!  The boy\ntalking to me of _my_ son!  Why, what has he ever done to give me any\npleasure, I should like to know?”\n\n“I don’t know what you have ever done to give _me_ any pleasure,” said\nWilliam, sulkily.\n\n“Let me think,” said the old man.  “For how many Christmas times running,\nhave I sat in my warm place, and never had to come out in the cold night\nair; and have made good cheer, without being disturbed by any such\nuncomfortable, wretched sight as him there?  Is it twenty, William?”\n\n“Nigher forty, it seems,” he muttered.  “Why, when I look at my father,\nsir, and come to think of it,” addressing Redlaw, with an impatience and\nirritation that were quite new, “I’m whipped if I can see anything in him\nbut a calendar of ever so many years of eating and drinking, and making\nhimself comfortable, over and over again.”\n\n“I—I’m eighty-seven,” said the old man, rambling on, childishly and\nweakly, “and I don’t know as I ever was much put out by anything.  I’m\nnot going to begin now, because of what he calls my son.  He’s not my\nson.  I’ve had a power of pleasant times.  I recollect once—no I\ndon’t—no, it’s broken off.  It was something about a game of cricket and\na friend of mine, but it’s somehow broken off.  I wonder who he was—I\nsuppose I liked him?  And I wonder what became of him—I suppose he died?\nBut I don’t know.  And I don’t care, neither; I don’t care a bit.”\n\nIn his drowsy chuckling, and the shaking of his head, he put his hands\ninto his waistcoat pockets.  In one of them he found a bit of holly (left\nthere, probably last night), which he now took out, and looked at.\n\n“Berries, eh?” said the old man.  “Ah!  It’s a pity they’re not good to\neat.  I recollect, when I was a little chap about as high as that, and\nout a walking with—let me see—who was I out a walking with?—no, I don’t\nremember how that was.  I don’t remember as I ever walked with any one\nparticular, or cared for any one, or any one for me.  Berries, eh?\nThere’s good cheer when there’s berries.  Well; I ought to have my share\nof it, and to be waited on, and kept warm and comfortable; for I’m\neighty-seven, and a poor old man.  I’m eigh-ty-seven.  Eigh-ty-seven!”\n\nThe drivelling, pitiable manner in which, as he repeated this, he nibbled\nat the leaves, and spat the morsels out; the cold, uninterested eye with\nwhich his youngest son (so changed) regarded him; the determined apathy\nwith which his eldest son lay hardened in his sin; impressed themselves\nno more on Redlaw’s observation,—for he broke his way from the spot to\nwhich his feet seemed to have been fixed, and ran out of the house.\n\nHis guide came crawling forth from his place of refuge, and was ready for\nhim before he reached the arches.\n\n“Back to the woman’s?” he inquired.\n\n“Back, quickly!” answered Redlaw.  “Stop nowhere on the way!”\n\nFor a short distance the boy went on before; but their return was more\nlike a flight than a walk, and it was as much as his bare feet could do,\nto keep pace with the Chemist’s rapid strides.  Shrinking from all who\npassed, shrouded in his cloak, and keeping it drawn closely about him, as\nthough there were mortal contagion in any fluttering touch of his\ngarments, he made no pause until they reached the door by which they had\ncome out.  He unlocked it with his key, went in, accompanied by the boy,\nand hastened through the dark passages to his own chamber.\n\nThe boy watched him as he made the door fast, and withdrew behind the\ntable, when he looked round.\n\n“Come!” he said.  “Don’t you touch me!  You’ve not brought me here to\ntake my money away.”\n\nRedlaw threw some more upon the ground.  He flung his body on it\nimmediately, as if to hide it from him, lest the sight of it should tempt\nhim to reclaim it; and not until he saw him seated by his lamp, with his\nface hidden in his hands, began furtively to pick it up.  When he had\ndone so, he crept near the fire, and, sitting down in a great chair\nbefore it, took from his breast some broken scraps of food, and fell to\nmunching, and to staring at the blaze, and now and then to glancing at\nhis shillings, which he kept clenched up in a bunch, in one hand.\n\n“And this,” said Redlaw, gazing on him with increased repugnance and\nfear, “is the only one companion I have left on earth!”\n\nHow long it was before he was aroused from his contemplation of this\ncreature, whom he dreaded so—whether half-an-hour, or half the night—he\nknew not.  But the stillness of the room was broken by the boy (whom he\nhad seen listening) starting up, and running towards the door.\n\n“Here’s the woman coming!” he exclaimed.\n\nThe Chemist stopped him on his way, at the moment when she knocked.\n\n“Let me go to her, will you?” said the boy.\n\n“Not now,” returned the Chemist.  “Stay here.  Nobody must pass in or out\nof the room now.  Who’s that?”\n\n“It’s I, sir,” cried Milly.  “Pray, sir, let me in!”\n\n“No! not for the world!” he said.\n\n“Mr. Redlaw, Mr. Redlaw, pray, sir, let me in.”\n\n“What is the matter?” he said, holding the boy.\n\n“The miserable man you saw, is worse, and nothing I can say will wake him\nfrom his terrible infatuation.  William’s father has turned childish in a\nmoment, William himself is changed.  The shock has been too sudden for\nhim; I cannot understand him; he is not like himself.  Oh, Mr. Redlaw,\npray advise me, help me!”\n\n“No!  No!  No!” he answered.\n\n“Mr. Redlaw!  Dear sir!  George has been muttering, in his doze, about\nthe man you saw there, who, he fears, will kill himself.”\n\n“Better he should do it, than come near me!”\n\n“He says, in his wandering, that you know him; that he was your friend\nonce, long ago; that he is the ruined father of a student here—my mind\nmisgives me, of the young gentleman who has been ill.  What is to be\ndone?  How is he to be followed?  How is he to be saved?  Mr. Redlaw,\npray, oh, pray, advise me!  Help me!”\n\nAll this time he held the boy, who was half-mad to pass him, and let her\nin.\n\n“Phantoms!  Punishers of impious thoughts!” cried Redlaw, gazing round in\nanguish, “look upon me!  From the darkness of my mind, let the glimmering\nof contrition that I know is there, shine up and show my misery!  In the\nmaterial world as I have long taught, nothing can be spared; no step or\natom in the wondrous structure could be lost, without a blank being made\nin the great universe.  I know, now, that it is the same with good and\nevil, happiness and sorrow, in the memories of men.  Pity me!  Relieve\nme!”\n\nThere was no response, but her “Help me, help me, let me in!” and the\nboy’s struggling to get to her.\n\n“Shadow of myself!  Spirit of my darker hours!” cried Redlaw, in\ndistraction, “come back, and haunt me day and night, but take this gift\naway!  Or, if it must still rest with me, deprive me of the dreadful\npower of giving it to others.  Undo what I have done.  Leave me\nbenighted, but restore the day to those whom I have cursed.  As I have\nspared this woman from the first, and as I never will go forth again, but\nwill die here, with no hand to tend me, save this creature’s who is proof\nagainst me,—hear me!”\n\nThe only reply still was, the boy struggling to get to her, while he held\nhim back; and the cry, increasing in its energy, “Help! let me in.  He\nwas your friend once, how shall he be followed, how shall he be saved?\nThey are all changed, there is no one else to help me, pray, pray, let me\nin!”\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III—The Gift Reversed\n\n\nNight was still heavy in the sky.  On open plains, from hill-tops, and\nfrom the decks of solitary ships at sea, a distant low-lying line, that\npromised by-and-by to change to light, was visible in the dim horizon;\nbut its promise was remote and doubtful, and the moon was striving with\nthe night-clouds busily.\n\nThe shadows upon Redlaw’s mind succeeded thick and fast to one another,\nand obscured its light as the night-clouds hovered between the moon and\nearth, and kept the latter veiled in darkness.  Fitful and uncertain as\nthe shadows which the night-clouds cast, were their concealments from\nhim, and imperfect revelations to him; and, like the night-clouds still,\nif the clear light broke forth for a moment, it was only that they might\nsweep over it, and make the darkness deeper than before.\n\nWithout, there was a profound and solemn hush upon the ancient pile of\nbuilding, and its buttresses and angles made dark shapes of mystery upon\nthe ground, which now seemed to retire into the smooth white snow and now\nseemed to come out of it, as the moon’s path was more or less beset.\nWithin, the Chemist’s room was indistinct and murky, by the light of the\nexpiring lamp; a ghostly silence had succeeded to the knocking and the\nvoice outside; nothing was audible but, now and then, a low sound among\nthe whitened ashes of the fire, as of its yielding up its last breath.\nBefore it on the ground the boy lay fast asleep.  In his chair, the\nChemist sat, as he had sat there since the calling at his door had\nceased—like a man turned to stone.\n\nAt such a time, the Christmas music he had heard before, began to play.\nHe listened to it at first, as he had listened in the church-yard; but\npresently—it playing still, and being borne towards him on the night air,\nin a low, sweet, melancholy strain—he rose, and stood stretching his\nhands about him, as if there were some friend approaching within his\nreach, on whom his desolate touch might rest, yet do no harm.  As he did\nthis, his face became less fixed and wondering; a gentle trembling came\nupon him; and at last his eyes filled with tears, and he put his hands\nbefore them, and bowed down his head.\n\nHis memory of sorrow, wrong, and trouble, had not come back to him; he\nknew that it was not restored; he had no passing belief or hope that it\nwas.  But some dumb stir within him made him capable, again, of being\nmoved by what was hidden, afar off, in the music.  If it were only that\nit told him sorrowfully the value of what he had lost, he thanked Heaven\nfor it with a fervent gratitude.\n\nAs the last chord died upon his ear, he raised his head to listen to its\nlingering vibration.  Beyond the boy, so that his sleeping figure lay at\nits feet, the Phantom stood, immovable and silent, with its eyes upon\nhim.\n\nGhastly it was, as it had ever been, but not so cruel and relentless in\nits aspect—or he thought or hoped so, as he looked upon it trembling.  It\nwas not alone, but in its shadowy hand it held another hand.\n\nAnd whose was that?  Was the form that stood beside it indeed Milly’s, or\nbut her shade and picture?  The quiet head was bent a little, as her\nmanner was, and her eyes were looking down, as if in pity, on the\nsleeping child.  A radiant light fell on her face, but did not touch the\nPhantom; for, though close beside her, it was dark and colourless as\never.\n\n“Spectre!” said the Chemist, newly troubled as he looked, “I have not\nbeen stubborn or presumptuous in respect of her.  Oh, do not bring her\nhere.  Spare me that!”\n\n“This is but a shadow,” said the Phantom; “when the morning shines seek\nout the reality whose image I present before you.”\n\n“Is it my inexorable doom to do so?” cried the Chemist.\n\n“It is,” replied the Phantom.\n\n“To destroy her peace, her goodness; to make her what I am myself, and\nwhat I have made of others!”\n\n“I have said seek her out,” returned the Phantom.  “I have said no more.”\n\n“Oh, tell me,” exclaimed Redlaw, catching at the hope which he fancied\nmight lie hidden in the words.  “Can I undo what I have done?”\n\n“No,” returned the Phantom.\n\n“I do not ask for restoration to myself,” said Redlaw.  “What I\nabandoned, I abandoned of my own free will, and have justly lost.  But\nfor those to whom I have transferred the fatal gift; who never sought it;\nwho unknowingly received a curse of which they had no warning, and which\nthey had no power to shun; can I do nothing?”\n\n“Nothing,” said the Phantom.\n\n“If I cannot, can any one?”\n\nThe Phantom, standing like a statue, kept its gaze upon him for a while;\nthen turned its head suddenly, and looked upon the shadow at its side.\n\n“Ah!  Can she?” cried Redlaw, still looking upon the shade.\n\nThe Phantom released the hand it had retained till now, and softly raised\nits own with a gesture of dismissal.  Upon that, her shadow, still\npreserving the same attitude, began to move or melt away.\n\n“Stay,” cried Redlaw with an earnestness to which he could not give\nenough expression.  “For a moment!  As an act of mercy!  I know that some\nchange fell upon me, when those sounds were in the air just now.  Tell\nme, have I lost the power of harming her?  May I go near her without\ndread?  Oh, let her give me any sign of hope!”\n\nThe Phantom looked upon the shade as he did—not at him—and gave no\nanswer.\n\n“At least, say this—has she, henceforth, the consciousness of any power\nto set right what I have done?”\n\n“She has not,” the Phantom answered.\n\n“Has she the power bestowed on her without the consciousness?”\n\nThe phantom answered: “Seek her out.”\n\nAnd her shadow slowly vanished.\n\nThey were face to face again, and looking on each other, as intently and\nawfully as at the time of the bestowal of the gift, across the boy who\nstill lay on the ground between them, at the Phantom’s feet.\n\n“Terrible instructor,” said the Chemist, sinking on his knee before it,\nin an attitude of supplication, “by whom I was renounced, but by whom I\nam revisited (in which, and in whose milder aspect, I would fain believe\nI have a gleam of hope), I will obey without inquiry, praying that the\ncry I have sent up in the anguish of my soul has been, or will be, heard,\nin behalf of those whom I have injured beyond human reparation.  But\nthere is one thing—”\n\n“You speak to me of what is lying here,” the phantom interposed, and\npointed with its finger to the boy.\n\n“I do,” returned the Chemist.  “You know what I would ask.  Why has this\nchild alone been proof against my influence, and why, why, have I\ndetected in its thoughts a terrible companionship with mine?”\n\n“This,” said the Phantom, pointing to the boy, “is the last, completest\nillustration of a human creature, utterly bereft of such remembrances as\nyou have yielded up.  No softening memory of sorrow, wrong, or trouble\nenters here, because this wretched mortal from his birth has been\nabandoned to a worse condition than the beasts, and has, within his\nknowledge, no one contrast, no humanising touch, to make a grain of such\na memory spring up in his hardened breast.  All within this desolate\ncreature is barren wilderness.  All within the man bereft of what you\nhave resigned, is the same barren wilderness.  Woe to such a man!  Woe,\ntenfold, to the nation that shall count its monsters such as this, lying\nhere, by hundreds and by thousands!”\n\nRedlaw shrank, appalled, from what he heard.\n\n“There is not,” said the Phantom, “one of these—not one—but sows a\nharvest that mankind MUST reap.  From every seed of evil in this boy, a\nfield of ruin is grown that shall be gathered in, and garnered up, and\nsown again in many places in the world, until regions are overspread with\nwickedness enough to raise the waters of another Deluge.  Open and\nunpunished murder in a city’s streets would be less guilty in its daily\ntoleration, than one such spectacle as this.”\n\nIt seemed to look down upon the boy in his sleep.  Redlaw, too, looked\ndown upon him with a new emotion.\n\n“There is not a father,” said the Phantom, “by whose side in his daily or\nhis nightly walk, these creatures pass; there is not a mother among all\nthe ranks of loving mothers in this land; there is no one risen from the\nstate of childhood, but shall be responsible in his or her degree for\nthis enormity.  There is not a country throughout the earth on which it\nwould not bring a curse.  There is no religion upon earth that it would\nnot deny; there is no people upon earth it would not put to shame.”\n\nThe Chemist clasped his hands, and looked, with trembling fear and pity,\nfrom the sleeping boy to the Phantom, standing above him with his finger\npointing down.\n\n“Behold, I say,” pursued the Spectre, “the perfect type of what it was\nyour choice to be.  Your influence is powerless here, because from this\nchild’s bosom you can banish nothing.  His thoughts have been in\n‘terrible companionship’ with yours, because you have gone down to his\nunnatural level.  He is the growth of man’s indifference; you are the\ngrowth of man’s presumption.  The beneficent design of Heaven is, in each\ncase, overthrown, and from the two poles of the immaterial world you come\ntogether.”\n\nThe Chemist stooped upon the ground beside the boy, and, with the same\nkind of compassion for him that he now felt for himself, covered him as\nhe slept, and no longer shrank from him with abhorrence or indifference.\n\nSoon, now, the distant line on the horizon brightened, the darkness\nfaded, the sun rose red and glorious, and the chimney stacks and gables\nof the ancient building gleamed in the clear air, which turned the smoke\nand vapour of the city into a cloud of gold.  The very sun-dial in his\nshady corner, where the wind was used to spin with such unwindy\nconstancy, shook off the finer particles of snow that had accumulated on\nhis dull old face in the night, and looked out at the little white\nwreaths eddying round and round him.  Doubtless some blind groping of the\nmorning made its way down into the forgotten crypt so cold and earthy,\nwhere the Norman arches were half buried in the ground, and stirred the\ndull sap in the lazy vegetation hanging to the walls, and quickened the\nslow principle of life within the little world of wonderful and delicate\ncreation which existed there, with some faint knowledge that the sun was\nup.\n\nThe Tetterbys were up, and doing.  Mr. Tetterby took down the shutters of\nthe shop, and, strip by strip, revealed the treasures of the window to\nthe eyes, so proof against their seductions, of Jerusalem Buildings.\nAdolphus had been out so long already, that he was halfway on to “Morning\nPepper.”  Five small Tetterbys, whose ten round eyes were much inflamed\nby soap and friction, were in the tortures of a cool wash in the back\nkitchen; Mrs. Tetterby presiding.  Johnny, who was pushed and hustled\nthrough his toilet with great rapidity when Moloch chanced to be in an\nexacting frame of mind (which was always the case), staggered up and down\nwith his charge before the shop door, under greater difficulties than\nusual; the weight of Moloch being much increased by a complication of\ndefences against the cold, composed of knitted worsted-work, and forming\na complete suit of chain-armour, with a head-piece and blue gaiters.\n\nIt was a peculiarity of this baby to be always cutting teeth.  Whether\nthey never came, or whether they came and went away again, is not in\nevidence; but it had certainly cut enough, on the showing of Mrs.\nTetterby, to make a handsome dental provision for the sign of the Bull\nand Mouth.  All sorts of objects were impressed for the rubbing of its\ngums, notwithstanding that it always carried, dangling at its waist\n(which was immediately under its chin), a bone ring, large enough to have\nrepresented the rosary of a young nun.  Knife-handles, umbrella-tops, the\nheads of walking-sticks selected from the stock, the fingers of the\nfamily in general, but especially of Johnny, nutmeg-graters, crusts, the\nhandles of doors, and the cool knobs on the tops of pokers, were among\nthe commonest instruments indiscriminately applied for this baby’s\nrelief.  The amount of electricity that must have been rubbed out of it\nin a week, is not to be calculated.  Still Mrs. Tetterby always said “it\nwas coming through, and then the child would be herself;” and still it\nnever did come through, and the child continued to be somebody else.\n\nThe tempers of the little Tetterbys had sadly changed with a few hours.\nMr. and Mrs. Tetterby themselves were not more altered than their\noffspring.  Usually they were an unselfish, good-natured, yielding little\nrace, sharing short commons when it happened (which was pretty often)\ncontentedly and even generously, and taking a great deal of enjoyment out\nof a very little meat.  But they were fighting now, not only for the soap\nand water, but even for the breakfast which was yet in perspective.  The\nhand of every little Tetterby was against the other little Tetterbys; and\neven Johnny’s hand—the patient, much-enduring, and devoted Johnny—rose\nagainst the baby!  Yes, Mrs. Tetterby, going to the door by mere\naccident, saw him viciously pick out a weak place in the suit of armour\nwhere a slap would tell, and slap that blessed child.\n\nMrs. Tetterby had him into the parlour by the collar, in that same flash\nof time, and repaid him the assault with usury thereto.\n\n“You brute, you murdering little boy,” said Mrs. Tetterby.  “Had you the\nheart to do it?”\n\n“Why don’t her teeth come through, then,” retorted Johnny, in a loud\nrebellious voice, “instead of bothering me?  How would you like it\nyourself?”\n\n“Like it, sir!” said Mrs. Tetterby, relieving him of his dishonoured\nload.\n\n“Yes, like it,” said Johnny.  “How would you?  Not at all.  If you was\nme, you’d go for a soldier.  I will, too.  There an’t no babies in the\nArmy.”\n\nMr. Tetterby, who had arrived upon the scene of action, rubbed his chin\nthoughtfully, instead of correcting the rebel, and seemed rather struck\nby this view of a military life.\n\n“I wish I was in the Army myself, if the child’s in the right,” said Mrs.\nTetterby, looking at her husband, “for I have no peace of my life here.\nI’m a slave—a Virginia slave:” some indistinct association with their\nweak descent on the tobacco trade perhaps suggested this aggravated\nexpression to Mrs. Tetterby.  “I never have a holiday, or any pleasure at\nall, from year’s end to year’s end!  Why, Lord bless and save the child,”\nsaid Mrs. Tetterby, shaking the baby with an irritability hardly suited\nto so pious an aspiration, “what’s the matter with her now?”\n\nNot being able to discover, and not rendering the subject much clearer by\nshaking it, Mrs. Tetterby put the baby away in a cradle, and, folding her\narms, sat rocking it angrily with her foot.\n\n“How you stand there, ’Dolphus,” said Mrs. Tetterby to her husband.  “Why\ndon’t you do something?”\n\n“Because I don’t care about doing anything,” Mr. Tetterby replied.\n\n“I am sure _I_ don’t,” said Mrs. Tetterby.\n\n“I’ll take my oath _I_ don’t,” said Mr. Tetterby.\n\nA diversion arose here among Johnny and his five younger brothers, who,\nin preparing the family breakfast table, had fallen to skirmishing for\nthe temporary possession of the loaf, and were buffeting one another with\ngreat heartiness; the smallest boy of all, with precocious discretion,\nhovering outside the knot of combatants, and harassing their legs.  Into\nthe midst of this fray, Mr. and Mrs. Tetterby both precipitated\nthemselves with great ardour, as if such ground were the only ground on\nwhich they could now agree; and having, with no visible remains of their\nlate soft-heartedness, laid about them without any lenity, and done much\nexecution, resumed their former relative positions.\n\n“You had better read your paper than do nothing at all,” said Mrs.\nTetterby.\n\n“What’s there to read in a paper?” returned Mr. Tetterby, with excessive\ndiscontent.\n\n“What?” said Mrs. Tetterby.  “Police.”\n\n“It’s nothing to me,” said Tetterby.  “What do I care what people do, or\nare done to?”\n\n“Suicides,” suggested Mrs. Tetterby.\n\n“No business of mine,” replied her husband.\n\n“Births, deaths, and marriages, are those nothing to you?” said Mrs.\nTetterby.\n\n“If the births were all over for good, and all to-day; and the deaths\nwere all to begin to come off to-morrow; I don’t see why it should\ninterest me, till I thought it was a coming to my turn,” grumbled\nTetterby.  “As to marriages, I’ve done it myself.  I know quite enough\nabout _them_.”\n\nTo judge from the dissatisfied expression of her face and manner, Mrs.\nTetterby appeared to entertain the same opinions as her husband; but she\nopposed him, nevertheless, for the gratification of quarrelling with him.\n\n“Oh, you’re a consistent man,” said Mrs. Tetterby, “an’t you?  You, with\nthe screen of your own making there, made of nothing else but bits of\nnewspapers, which you sit and read to the children by the half-hour\ntogether!”\n\n“Say used to, if you please,” returned her husband.  “You won’t find me\ndoing so any more.  I’m wiser now.”\n\n“Bah! wiser, indeed!” said Mrs. Tetterby.  “Are you better?”\n\nThe question sounded some discordant note in Mr. Tetterby’s breast.  He\nruminated dejectedly, and passed his hand across and across his forehead.\n\n“Better!” murmured Mr. Tetterby.  “I don’t know as any of us are better,\nor happier either.  Better, is it?”\n\nHe turned to the screen, and traced about it with his finger, until he\nfound a certain paragraph of which he was in quest.\n\n“This used to be one of the family favourites, I recollect,” said\nTetterby, in a forlorn and stupid way, “and used to draw tears from the\nchildren, and make ’em good, if there was any little bickering or\ndiscontent among ’em, next to the story of the robin redbreasts in the\nwood.  ‘Melancholy case of destitution.  Yesterday a small man, with a\nbaby in his arms, and surrounded by half-a-dozen ragged little ones, of\nvarious ages between ten and two, the whole of whom were evidently in a\nfamishing condition, appeared before the worthy magistrate, and made the\nfollowing recital:’—Ha!  I don’t understand it, I’m sure,” said Tetterby;\n“I don’t see what it has got to do with us.”\n\n“How old and shabby he looks,” said Mrs. Tetterby, watching him.  “I\nnever saw such a change in a man.  Ah! dear me, dear me, dear me, it was\na sacrifice!”\n\n“What was a sacrifice?” her husband sourly inquired.\n\nMrs. Tetterby shook her head; and without replying in words, raised a\ncomplete sea-storm about the baby, by her violent agitation of the\ncradle.\n\n“If you mean your marriage was a sacrifice, my good woman—” said her\nhusband.\n\n“I _do_ mean it,” said his wife.\n\n“Why, then I mean to say,” pursued Mr. Tetterby, as sulkily and surlily\nas she, “that there are two sides to that affair; and that I was the\nsacrifice; and that I wish the sacrifice hadn’t been accepted.”\n\n“I wish it hadn’t, Tetterby, with all my heart and soul I do assure you,”\nsaid his wife.  “You can’t wish it more than I do, Tetterby.”\n\n“I don’t know what I saw in her,” muttered the newsman, “I’m\nsure;—certainly, if I saw anything, it’s not there now.  I was thinking\nso, last night, after supper, by the fire.  She’s fat, she’s ageing, she\nwon’t bear comparison with most other women.”\n\n“He’s common-looking, he has no air with him, he’s small, he’s beginning\nto stoop and he’s getting bald,” muttered Mrs. Tetterby.\n\n“I must have been half out of my mind when I did it,” muttered Mr.\nTetterby.\n\n“My senses must have forsook me.  That’s the only way in which I can\nexplain it to myself,” said Mrs. Tetterby with elaboration.\n\nIn this mood they sat down to breakfast.  The little Tetterbys were not\nhabituated to regard that meal in the light of a sedentary occupation,\nbut discussed it as a dance or trot; rather resembling a savage ceremony,\nin the occasionally shrill whoops, and brandishings of bread and butter,\nwith which it was accompanied, as well as in the intricate filings off\ninto the street and back again, and the hoppings up and down the\ndoor-steps, which were incidental to the performance.  In the present\ninstance, the contentions between these Tetterby children for the\nmilk-and-water jug, common to all, which stood upon the table, presented\nso lamentable an instance of angry passions risen very high indeed, that\nit was an outrage on the memory of Dr. Watts.  It was not until Mr.\nTetterby had driven the whole herd out at the front door, that a moment’s\npeace was secured; and even that was broken by the discovery that Johnny\nhad surreptitiously come back, and was at that instant choking in the jug\nlike a ventriloquist, in his indecent and rapacious haste.\n\n“These children will be the death of me at last!” said Mrs. Tetterby,\nafter banishing the culprit.  “And the sooner the better, I think.”\n\n“Poor people,” said Mr. Tetterby, “ought not to have children at all.\nThey give _us_ no pleasure.”\n\nHe was at that moment taking up the cup which Mrs. Tetterby had rudely\npushed towards him, and Mrs. Tetterby was lifting her own cup to her\nlips, when they both stopped, as if they were transfixed.\n\n“Here!  Mother!  Father!” cried Johnny, running into the room.  “Here’s\nMrs. William coming down the street!”\n\nAnd if ever, since the world began, a young boy took a baby from a cradle\nwith the care of an old nurse, and hushed and soothed it tenderly, and\ntottered away with it cheerfully, Johnny was that boy, and Moloch was\nthat baby, as they went out together!\n\nMr. Tetterby put down his cup; Mrs. Tetterby put down her cup.  Mr.\nTetterby rubbed his forehead; Mrs. Tetterby rubbed hers.  Mr. Tetterby’s\nface began to smooth and brighten; Mrs. Tetterby’s began to smooth and\nbrighten.\n\n“Why, Lord forgive me,” said Mr. Tetterby to himself, “what evil tempers\nhave I been giving way to?  What has been the matter here!”\n\n“How could I ever treat him ill again, after all I said and felt last\nnight!” sobbed Mrs. Tetterby, with her apron to her eyes.\n\n“Am I a brute,” said Mr. Tetterby, “or is there any good in me at all?\nSophia!  My little woman!”\n\n“’Dolphus dear,” returned his wife.\n\n“I—I’ve been in a state of mind,” said Mr. Tetterby, “that I can’t abear\nto think of, Sophy.”\n\n“Oh!  It’s nothing to what I’ve been in, Dolf,” cried his wife in a great\nburst of grief.\n\n“My Sophia,” said Mr. Tetterby, “don’t take on.  I never shall forgive\nmyself.  I must have nearly broke your heart, I know.”\n\n“No, Dolf, no.  It was me!  Me!” cried Mrs. Tetterby.\n\n“My little woman,” said her husband, “don’t.  You make me reproach myself\ndreadful, when you show such a noble spirit.  Sophia, my dear, you don’t\nknow what I thought.  I showed it bad enough, no doubt; but what I\nthought, my little woman!—”\n\n“Oh, dear Dolf, don’t!  Don’t!” cried his wife.\n\n“Sophia,” said Mr. Tetterby, “I must reveal it.  I couldn’t rest in my\nconscience unless I mentioned it.  My little woman—”\n\n“Mrs. William’s very nearly here!” screamed Johnny at the door.\n\n“My little woman, I wondered how,” gasped Mr. Tetterby, supporting\nhimself by his chair, “I wondered how I had ever admired you—I forgot the\nprecious children you have brought about me, and thought you didn’t look\nas slim as I could wish.  I—I never gave a recollection,” said Mr.\nTetterby, with severe self-accusation, “to the cares you’ve had as my\nwife, and along of me and mine, when you might have had hardly any with\nanother man, who got on better and was luckier than me (anybody might\nhave found such a man easily I am sure); and I quarrelled with you for\nhaving aged a little in the rough years you have lightened for me.  Can\nyou believe it, my little woman?  I hardly can myself.”\n\nMrs. Tetterby, in a whirlwind of laughing and crying, caught his face\nwithin her hands, and held it there.\n\n“Oh, Dolf!” she cried.  “I am so happy that you thought so; I am so\ngrateful that you thought so!  For I thought that you were\ncommon-looking, Dolf; and so you are, my dear, and may you be the\ncommonest of all sights in my eyes, till you close them with your own\ngood hands.  I thought that you were small; and so you are, and I’ll make\nmuch of you because you are, and more of you because I love my husband.\nI thought that you began to stoop; and so you do, and you shall lean on\nme, and I’ll do all I can to keep you up.  I thought there was no air\nabout you; but there is, and it’s the air of home, and that’s the purest\nand the best there is, and God bless home once more, and all belonging to\nit, Dolf!”\n\n“Hurrah!  Here’s Mrs. William!” cried Johnny.\n\nSo she was, and all the children with her; and so she came in, they\nkissed her, and kissed one another, and kissed the baby, and kissed their\nfather and mother, and then ran back and flocked and danced about her,\ntrooping on with her in triumph.\n\nMr. and Mrs. Tetterby were not a bit behind-hand in the warmth of their\nreception.  They were as much attracted to her as the children were; they\nran towards her, kissed her hands, pressed round her, could not receive\nher ardently or enthusiastically enough.  She came among them like the\nspirit of all goodness, affection, gentle consideration, love, and\ndomesticity.\n\n“What! are _you_ all so glad to see me, too, this bright Christmas\nmorning?” said Milly, clapping her hands in a pleasant wonder.  “Oh dear,\nhow delightful this is!”\n\nMore shouting from the children, more kissing, more trooping round her,\nmore happiness, more love, more joy, more honour, on all sides, than she\ncould bear.\n\n“Oh dear!” said Milly, “what delicious tears you make me shed.  How can I\never have deserved this!  What have I done to be so loved?”\n\n“Who can help it!” cried Mr. Tetterby.\n\n“Who can help it!” cried Mrs. Tetterby.\n\n“Who can help it!” echoed the children, in a joyful chorus.  And they\ndanced and trooped about her again, and clung to her, and laid their rosy\nfaces against her dress, and kissed and fondled it, and could not fondle\nit, or her, enough.\n\n“I never was so moved,” said Milly, drying her eyes, “as I have been this\nmorning.  I must tell you, as soon as I can speak.—Mr. Redlaw came to me\nat sunrise, and with a tenderness in his manner, more as if I had been\nhis darling daughter than myself, implored me to go with him to where\nWilliam’s brother George is lying ill.  We went together, and all the way\nalong he was so kind, and so subdued, and seemed to put such trust and\nhope in me, that I could not help crying with pleasure.  When we got to\nthe house, we met a woman at the door (somebody had bruised and hurt her,\nI am afraid), who caught me by the hand, and blessed me as I passed.”\n\n“She was right!” said Mr. Tetterby.  Mrs. Tetterby said she was right.\nAll the children cried out that she was right.\n\n“Ah, but there’s more than that,” said Milly.  “When we got up stairs,\ninto the room, the sick man who had lain for hours in a state from which\nno effort could rouse him, rose up in his bed, and, bursting into tears,\nstretched out his arms to me, and said that he had led a mis-spent life,\nbut that he was truly repentant now, in his sorrow for the past, which\nwas all as plain to him as a great prospect, from which a dense black\ncloud had cleared away, and that he entreated me to ask his poor old\nfather for his pardon and his blessing, and to say a prayer beside his\nbed.  And when I did so, Mr. Redlaw joined in it so fervently, and then\nso thanked and thanked me, and thanked Heaven, that my heart quite\noverflowed, and I could have done nothing but sob and cry, if the sick\nman had not begged me to sit down by him,—which made me quiet of course.\nAs I sat there, he held my hand in his until he sank in a doze; and even\nthen, when I withdrew my hand to leave him to come here (which Mr. Redlaw\nwas very earnest indeed in wishing me to do), his hand felt for mine, so\nthat some one else was obliged to take my place and make believe to give\nhim my hand back.  Oh dear, oh dear,” said Milly, sobbing.  “How thankful\nand how happy I should feel, and do feel, for all this!”\n\nWhile she was speaking, Redlaw had come in, and, after pausing for a\nmoment to observe the group of which she was the centre, had silently\nascended the stairs.  Upon those stairs he now appeared again; remaining\nthere, while the young student passed him, and came running down.\n\n“Kind nurse, gentlest, best of creatures,” he said, falling on his knee\nto her, and catching at her hand, “forgive my cruel ingratitude!”\n\n“Oh dear, oh dear!” cried Milly innocently, “here’s another of them!  Oh\ndear, here’s somebody else who likes me.  What shall I ever do!”\n\nThe guileless, simple way in which she said it, and in which she put her\nhands before her eyes and wept for very happiness, was as touching as it\nwas delightful.\n\n“I was not myself,” he said.  “I don’t know what it was—it was some\nconsequence of my disorder perhaps—I was mad.  But I am so no longer.\nAlmost as I speak, I am restored.  I heard the children crying out your\nname, and the shade passed from me at the very sound of it.  Oh, don’t\nweep!  Dear Milly, if you could read my heart, and only knew with what\naffection and what grateful homage it is glowing, you would not let me\nsee you weep.  It is such deep reproach.”\n\n“No, no,” said Milly, “it’s not that.  It’s not indeed.  It’s joy.  It’s\nwonder that you should think it necessary to ask me to forgive so little,\nand yet it’s pleasure that you do.”\n\n“And will you come again? and will you finish the little curtain?”\n\n“No,” said Milly, drying her eyes, and shaking her head.  “You won’t care\nfor my needlework now.”\n\n“Is it forgiving me, to say that?”\n\nShe beckoned him aside, and whispered in his ear.\n\n“There is news from your home, Mr. Edmund.”\n\n“News?  How?”\n\n“Either your not writing when you were very ill, or the change in your\nhandwriting when you began to be better, created some suspicion of the\ntruth; however that is—but you’re sure you’ll not be the worse for any\nnews, if it’s not bad news?”\n\n“Sure.”\n\n“Then there’s some one come!” said Milly.\n\n“My mother?” asked the student, glancing round involuntarily towards\nRedlaw, who had come down from the stairs.\n\n“Hush!  No,” said Milly.\n\n“It can be no one else.”\n\n“Indeed?” said Milly, “are you sure?”\n\n“It is not—”  Before he could say more, she put her hand upon his mouth.\n\n“Yes it is!” said Milly.  “The young lady (she is very like the\nminiature, Mr. Edmund, but she is prettier) was too unhappy to rest\nwithout satisfying her doubts, and came up, last night, with a little\nservant-maid.  As you always dated your letters from the college, she\ncame there; and before I saw Mr. Redlaw this morning, I saw her.  _She_\nlikes me too!” said Milly.  “Oh dear, that’s another!”\n\n“This morning!  Where is she now?”\n\n“Why, she is now,” said Milly, advancing her lips to his ear, “in my\nlittle parlour in the Lodge, and waiting to see you.”\n\nHe pressed her hand, and was darting off, but she detained him.\n\n“Mr. Redlaw is much altered, and has told me this morning that his memory\nis impaired.  Be very considerate to him, Mr. Edmund; he needs that from\nus all.”\n\nThe young man assured her, by a look, that her caution was not\nill-bestowed; and as he passed the Chemist on his way out, bent\nrespectfully and with an obvious interest before him.\n\nRedlaw returned the salutation courteously and even humbly, and looked\nafter him as he passed on.  He dropped his head upon his hand too, as\ntrying to reawaken something he had lost.  But it was gone.\n\nThe abiding change that had come upon him since the influence of the\nmusic, and the Phantom’s reappearance, was, that now he truly felt how\nmuch he had lost, and could compassionate his own condition, and contrast\nit, clearly, with the natural state of those who were around him.  In\nthis, an interest in those who were around him was revived, and a meek,\nsubmissive sense of his calamity was bred, resembling that which\nsometimes obtains in age, when its mental powers are weakened, without\ninsensibility or sullenness being added to the list of its infirmities.\n\nHe was conscious that, as he redeemed, through Milly, more and more of\nthe evil he had done, and as he was more and more with her, this change\nripened itself within him.  Therefore, and because of the attachment she\ninspired him with (but without other hope), he felt that he was quite\ndependent on her, and that she was his staff in his affliction.\n\nSo, when she asked him whether they should go home now, to where the old\nman and her husband were, and he readily replied “yes”—being anxious in\nthat regard—he put his arm through hers, and walked beside her; not as if\nhe were the wise and learned man to whom the wonders of Nature were an\nopen book, and hers were the uninstructed mind, but as if their two\npositions were reversed, and he knew nothing, and she all.\n\nHe saw the children throng about her, and caress her, as he and she went\naway together thus, out of the house; he heard the ringing of their\nlaughter, and their merry voices; he saw their bright faces, clustering\naround him like flowers; he witnessed the renewed contentment and\naffection of their parents; he breathed the simple air of their poor\nhome, restored to its tranquillity; he thought of the unwholesome blight\nhe had shed upon it, and might, but for her, have been diffusing then;\nand perhaps it is no wonder that he walked submissively beside her, and\ndrew her gentle bosom nearer to his own.\n\nWhen they arrived at the Lodge, the old man was sitting in his chair in\nthe chimney-corner, with his eyes fixed on the ground, and his son was\nleaning against the opposite side of the fire-place, looking at him.  As\nshe came in at the door, both started, and turned round towards her, and\na radiant change came upon their faces.\n\n“Oh dear, dear, dear, they are all pleased to see me like the rest!”\ncried Milly, clapping her hands in an ecstasy, and stopping short.  “Here\nare two more!”\n\nPleased to see her!  Pleasure was no word for it.  She ran into her\nhusband’s arms, thrown wide open to receive her, and he would have been\nglad to have her there, with her head lying on his shoulder, through the\nshort winter’s day.  But the old man couldn’t spare her.  He had arms for\nher too, and he locked her in them.\n\n“Why, where has my quiet Mouse been all this time?” said the old man.\n“She has been a long while away.  I find that it’s impossible for me to\nget on without Mouse.  I—where’s my son William?—I fancy I have been\ndreaming, William.”\n\n“That’s what I say myself, father,” returned his son.  “I have been in an\nugly sort of dream, I think.—How are you, father?  Are you pretty well?”\n\n“Strong and brave, my boy,” returned the old man.\n\nIt was quite a sight to see Mr. William shaking hands with his father,\nand patting him on the back, and rubbing him gently down with his hand,\nas if he could not possibly do enough to show an interest in him.\n\n“What a wonderful man you are, father!—How are you, father?  Are you\nreally pretty hearty, though?” said William, shaking hands with him\nagain, and patting him again, and rubbing him gently down again.\n\n“I never was fresher or stouter in my life, my boy.”\n\n“What a wonderful man you are, father!  But that’s exactly where it is,”\nsaid Mr. William, with enthusiasm.  “When I think of all that my father’s\ngone through, and all the chances and changes, and sorrows and troubles,\nthat have happened to him in the course of his long life, and under which\nhis head has grown grey, and years upon years have gathered on it, I feel\nas if we couldn’t do enough to honour the old gentleman, and make his old\nage easy.—How are you, father?  Are you really pretty well, though?”\n\nMr. William might never have left off repeating this inquiry, and shaking\nhands with him again, and patting him again, and rubbing him down again,\nif the old man had not espied the Chemist, whom until now he had not\nseen.\n\n“I ask your pardon, Mr. Redlaw,” said Philip, “but didn’t know you were\nhere, sir, or should have made less free.  It reminds me, Mr. Redlaw,\nseeing you here on a Christmas morning, of the time when you was a\nstudent yourself, and worked so hard that you were backwards and forwards\nin our Library even at Christmas time.  Ha! ha!  I’m old enough to\nremember that; and I remember it right well, I do, though I am\neighty-seven.  It was after you left here that my poor wife died.  You\nremember my poor wife, Mr. Redlaw?”\n\nThe Chemist answered yes.\n\n“Yes,” said the old man.  “She was a dear creetur.—I recollect you come\nhere one Christmas morning with a young lady—I ask your pardon, Mr.\nRedlaw, but I think it was a sister you was very much attached to?”\n\nThe Chemist looked at him, and shook his head.  “I had a sister,” he said\nvacantly.  He knew no more.\n\n“One Christmas morning,” pursued the old man, “that you come here with\nher—and it began to snow, and my wife invited the lady to walk in, and\nsit by the fire that is always a burning on Christmas Day in what used to\nbe, before our ten poor gentlemen commuted, our great Dinner Hall.  I was\nthere; and I recollect, as I was stirring up the blaze for the young lady\nto warm her pretty feet by, she read the scroll out loud, that is\nunderneath that pictur, ‘Lord, keep my memory green!’  She and my poor\nwife fell a talking about it; and it’s a strange thing to think of, now,\nthat they both said (both being so unlike to die) that it was a good\nprayer, and that it was one they would put up very earnestly, if they\nwere called away young, with reference to those who were dearest to them.\n‘My brother,’ says the young lady—‘My husband,’ says my poor wife.—‘Lord,\nkeep his memory of me, green, and do not let me be forgotten!’”\n\nTears more painful, and more bitter than he had ever shed in all his\nlife, coursed down Redlaw’s face.  Philip, fully occupied in recalling\nhis story, had not observed him until now, nor Milly’s anxiety that he\nshould not proceed.\n\n“Philip!” said Redlaw, laying his hand upon his arm, “I am a stricken\nman, on whom the hand of Providence has fallen heavily, although\ndeservedly.  You speak to me, my friend, of what I cannot follow; my\nmemory is gone.”\n\n“Merciful power!” cried the old man.\n\n“I have lost my memory of sorrow, wrong, and trouble,” said the Chemist,\n“and with that I have lost all man would remember!”\n\nTo see old Philip’s pity for him, to see him wheel his own great chair\nfor him to rest in, and look down upon him with a solemn sense of his\nbereavement, was to know, in some degree, how precious to old age such\nrecollections are.\n\nThe boy came running in, and ran to Milly.\n\n“Here’s the man,” he said, “in the other room.  I don’t want _him_.”\n\n“What man does he mean?” asked Mr. William.\n\n“Hush!” said Milly.\n\nObedient to a sign from her, he and his old father softly withdrew.  As\nthey went out, unnoticed, Redlaw beckoned to the boy to come to him.\n\n“I like the woman best,” he answered, holding to her skirts.\n\n“You are right,” said Redlaw, with a faint smile.  “But you needn’t fear\nto come to me.  I am gentler than I was.  Of all the world, to you, poor\nchild!”\n\nThe boy still held back at first, but yielding little by little to her\nurging, he consented to approach, and even to sit down at his feet.  As\nRedlaw laid his hand upon the shoulder of the child, looking on him with\ncompassion and a fellow-feeling, he put out his other hand to Milly.  She\nstooped down on that side of him, so that she could look into his face,\nand after silence, said:\n\n“Mr. Redlaw, may I speak to you?”\n\n“Yes,” he answered, fixing his eyes upon her.  “Your voice and music are\nthe same to me.”\n\n“May I ask you something?”\n\n“What you will.”\n\n“Do you remember what I said, when I knocked at your door last night?\nAbout one who was your friend once, and who stood on the verge of\ndestruction?”\n\n“Yes.  I remember,” he said, with some hesitation.\n\n“Do you understand it?”\n\nHe smoothed the boy’s hair—looking at her fixedly the while, and shook\nhis head.\n\n“This person,” said Milly, in her clear, soft voice, which her mild eyes,\nlooking at him, made clearer and softer, “I found soon afterwards.  I\nwent back to the house, and, with Heaven’s help, traced him.  I was not\ntoo soon.  A very little and I should have been too late.”\n\nHe took his hand from the boy, and laying it on the back of that hand of\nhers, whose timid and yet earnest touch addressed him no less appealingly\nthan her voice and eyes, looked more intently on her.\n\n“He _is_ the father of Mr. Edmund, the young gentleman we saw just now.\nHis real name is Longford.—You recollect the name?”\n\n“I recollect the name.”\n\n“And the man?”\n\n“No, not the man.  Did he ever wrong me?”\n\n“Yes!”\n\n“Ah!  Then it’s hopeless—hopeless.”\n\nHe shook his head, and softly beat upon the hand he held, as though\nmutely asking her commiseration.\n\n“I did not go to Mr. Edmund last night,” said Milly,—“You will listen to\nme just the same as if you did remember all?”\n\n“To every syllable you say.”\n\n“Both, because I did not know, then, that this really was his father, and\nbecause I was fearful of the effect of such intelligence upon him, after\nhis illness, if it should be.  Since I have known who this person is, I\nhave not gone either; but that is for another reason.  He has long been\nseparated from his wife and son—has been a stranger to his home almost\nfrom this son’s infancy, I learn from him—and has abandoned and deserted\nwhat he should have held most dear.  In all that time he has been falling\nfrom the state of a gentleman, more and more, until—” she rose up,\nhastily, and going out for a moment, returned, accompanied by the wreck\nthat Redlaw had beheld last night.\n\n“Do you know me?” asked the Chemist.\n\n“I should be glad,” returned the other, “and that is an unwonted word for\nme to use, if I could answer no.”\n\nThe Chemist looked at the man, standing in self-abasement and degradation\nbefore him, and would have looked longer, in an ineffectual struggle for\nenlightenment, but that Milly resumed her late position by his side, and\nattracted his attentive gaze to her own face.\n\n“See how low he is sunk, how lost he is!” she whispered, stretching out\nher arm towards him, without looking from the Chemist’s face.  “If you\ncould remember all that is connected with him, do you not think it would\nmove your pity to reflect that one you ever loved (do not let us mind how\nlong ago, or in what belief that he has forfeited), should come to this?”\n\n“I hope it would,” he answered.  “I believe it would.”\n\nHis eyes wandered to the figure standing near the door, but came back\nspeedily to her, on whom he gazed intently, as if he strove to learn some\nlesson from every tone of her voice, and every beam of her eyes.\n\n“I have no learning, and you have much,” said Milly; “I am not used to\nthink, and you are always thinking.  May I tell you why it seems to me a\ngood thing for us, to remember wrong that has been done us?”\n\n“Yes.”\n\n“That we may forgive it.”\n\n“Pardon me, great Heaven!” said Redlaw, lifting up his eyes, “for having\nthrown away thine own high attribute!”\n\n“And if,” said Milly, “if your memory should one day be restored, as we\nwill hope and pray it may be, would it not be a blessing to you to recall\nat once a wrong and its forgiveness?”\n\nHe looked at the figure by the door, and fastened his attentive eyes on\nher again; a ray of clearer light appeared to him to shine into his mind,\nfrom her bright face.\n\n“He cannot go to his abandoned home.  He does not seek to go there.  He\nknows that he could only carry shame and trouble to those he has so\ncruelly neglected; and that the best reparation he can make them now, is\nto avoid them.  A very little money carefully bestowed, would remove him\nto some distant place, where he might live and do no wrong, and make such\natonement as is left within his power for the wrong he has done.  To the\nunfortunate lady who is his wife, and to his son, this would be the best\nand kindest boon that their best friend could give them—one too that they\nneed never know of; and to him, shattered in reputation, mind, and body,\nit might be salvation.”\n\nHe took her head between her hands, and kissed it, and said: “It shall be\ndone.  I trust to you to do it for me, now and secretly; and to tell him\nthat I would forgive him, if I were so happy as to know for what.”\n\nAs she rose, and turned her beaming face towards the fallen man, implying\nthat her mediation had been successful, he advanced a step, and without\nraising his eyes, addressed himself to Redlaw.\n\n“You are so generous,” he said, “—you ever were—that you will try to\nbanish your rising sense of retribution in the spectacle that is before\nyou.  I do not try to banish it from myself, Redlaw.  If you can, believe\nme.”\n\nThe Chemist entreated Milly, by a gesture, to come nearer to him; and, as\nhe listened looked in her face, as if to find in it the clue to what he\nheard.\n\n“I am too decayed a wretch to make professions; I recollect my own career\ntoo well, to array any such before you.  But from the day on which I made\nmy first step downward, in dealing falsely by you, I have gone down with\na certain, steady, doomed progression.  That, I say.”\n\nRedlaw, keeping her close at his side, turned his face towards the\nspeaker, and there was sorrow in it.  Something like mournful recognition\ntoo.\n\n“I might have been another man, my life might have been another life, if\nI had avoided that first fatal step.  I don’t know that it would have\nbeen.  I claim nothing for the possibility.  Your sister is at rest, and\nbetter than she could have been with me, if I had continued even what you\nthought me: even what I once supposed myself to be.”\n\nRedlaw made a hasty motion with his hand, as if he would have put that\nsubject on one side.\n\n“I speak,” the other went on, “like a man taken from the grave.  I should\nhave made my own grave, last night, had it not been for this blessed\nhand.”\n\n“Oh dear, he likes me too!” sobbed Milly, under her breath.  “That’s\nanother!”\n\n“I could not have put myself in your way, last night, even for bread.\nBut, to-day, my recollection of what has been is so strongly stirred, and\nis presented to me, I don’t know how, so vividly, that I have dared to\ncome at her suggestion, and to take your bounty, and to thank you for it,\nand to beg you, Redlaw, in your dying hour, to be as merciful to me in\nyour thoughts, as you are in your deeds.”\n\nHe turned towards the door, and stopped a moment on his way forth.\n\n“I hope my son may interest you, for his mother’s sake.  I hope he may\ndeserve to do so.  Unless my life should be preserved a long time, and I\nshould know that I have not misused your aid, I shall never look upon him\nmore.”\n\nGoing out, he raised his eyes to Redlaw for the first time.  Redlaw,\nwhose steadfast gaze was fixed upon him, dreamily held out his hand.  He\nreturned and touched it—little more—with both his own; and bending down\nhis head, went slowly out.\n\nIn the few moments that elapsed, while Milly silently took him to the\ngate, the Chemist dropped into his chair, and covered his face with his\nhands.  Seeing him thus, when she came back, accompanied by her husband\nand his father (who were both greatly concerned for him), she avoided\ndisturbing him, or permitting him to be disturbed; and kneeled down near\nthe chair to put some warm clothing on the boy.\n\n“That’s exactly where it is.  That’s what I always say, father!”\nexclaimed her admiring husband.  “There’s a motherly feeling in Mrs.\nWilliam’s breast that must and will have went!”\n\n“Ay, ay,” said the old man; “you’re right.  My son William’s right!”\n\n“It happens all for the best, Milly dear, no doubt,” said Mr. William,\ntenderly, “that we have no children of our own; and yet I sometimes wish\nyou had one to love and cherish.  Our little dead child that you built\nsuch hopes upon, and that never breathed the breath of life—it has made\nyou quiet-like, Milly.”\n\n“I am very happy in the recollection of it, William dear,” she answered.\n“I think of it every day.”\n\n“I was afraid you thought of it a good deal.”\n\n“Don’t say, afraid; it is a comfort to me; it speaks to me in so many\nways.  The innocent thing that never lived on earth, is like an angel to\nme, William.”\n\n“You are like an angel to father and me,” said Mr. William, softly.  “I\nknow that.”\n\n“When I think of all those hopes I built upon it, and the many times I\nsat and pictured to myself the little smiling face upon my bosom that\nnever lay there, and the sweet eyes turned up to mine that never opened\nto the light,” said Milly, “I can feel a greater tenderness, I think, for\nall the disappointed hopes in which there is no harm.  When I see a\nbeautiful child in its fond mother’s arms, I love it all the better,\nthinking that my child might have been like that, and might have made my\nheart as proud and happy.”\n\nRedlaw raised his head, and looked towards her.\n\n“All through life, it seems by me,” she continued, “to tell me something.\nFor poor neglected children, my little child pleads as if it were alive,\nand had a voice I knew, with which to speak to me.  When I hear of youth\nin suffering or shame, I think that my child might have come to that,\nperhaps, and that God took it from me in His mercy.  Even in age and grey\nhair, such as father’s, it is present: saying that it too might have\nlived to be old, long and long after you and I were gone, and to have\nneeded the respect and love of younger people.”\n\nHer quiet voice was quieter than ever, as she took her husband’s arm, and\nlaid her head against it.\n\n“Children love me so, that sometimes I half fancy—it’s a silly fancy,\nWilliam—they have some way I don’t know of, of feeling for my little\nchild, and me, and understanding why their love is precious to me.  If I\nhave been quiet since, I have been more happy, William, in a hundred\nways.  Not least happy, dear, in this—that even when my little child was\nborn and dead but a few days, and I was weak and sorrowful, and could not\nhelp grieving a little, the thought arose, that if I tried to lead a good\nlife, I should meet in Heaven a bright creature, who would call me,\nMother!”\n\nRedlaw fell upon his knees, with a loud cry.\n\n“O Thou,” he said, “who through the teaching of pure love, hast\ngraciously restored me to the memory which was the memory of Christ upon\nthe Cross, and of all the good who perished in His cause, receive my\nthanks, and bless her!”\n\nThen, he folded her to his heart; and Milly, sobbing more than ever,\ncried, as she laughed, “He is come back to himself!  He likes me very\nmuch indeed, too!  Oh, dear, dear, dear me, here’s another!”\n\nThen, the student entered, leading by the hand a lovely girl, who was\nafraid to come.  And Redlaw so changed towards him, seeing in him and his\nyouthful choice, the softened shadow of that chastening passage in his\nown life, to which, as to a shady tree, the dove so long imprisoned in\nhis solitary ark might fly for rest and company, fell upon his neck,\nentreating them to be his children.\n\nThen, as Christmas is a time in which, of all times in the year, the\nmemory of every remediable sorrow, wrong, and trouble in the world around\nus, should be active with us, not less than our own experiences, for all\ngood, he laid his hand upon the boy, and, silently calling Him to witness\nwho laid His hand on children in old time, rebuking, in the majesty of\nHis prophetic knowledge, those who kept them from Him, vowed to protect\nhim, teach him, and reclaim him.\n\nThen, he gave his right hand cheerily to Philip, and said that they would\nthat day hold a Christmas dinner in what used to be, before the ten poor\ngentlemen commuted, their great Dinner Hall; and that they would bid to\nit as many of that Swidger family, who, his son had told him, were so\nnumerous that they might join hands and make a ring round England, as\ncould be brought together on so short a notice.\n\nAnd it was that day done.  There were so many Swidgers there, grown up\nand children, that an attempt to state them in round numbers might\nengender doubts, in the distrustful, of the veracity of this history.\nTherefore the attempt shall not be made.  But there they were, by dozens\nand scores—and there was good news and good hope there, ready for them,\nof George, who had been visited again by his father and brother, and by\nMilly, and again left in a quiet sleep.  There, present at the dinner,\ntoo, were the Tetterbys, including young Adolphus, who arrived in his\nprismatic comforter, in good time for the beef.  Johnny and the baby were\ntoo late, of course, and came in all on one side, the one exhausted, the\nother in a supposed state of double-tooth; but that was customary, and\nnot alarming.\n\nIt was sad to see the child who had no name or lineage, watching the\nother children as they played, not knowing how to talk with them, or\nsport with them, and more strange to the ways of childhood than a rough\ndog.  It was sad, though in a different way, to see what an instinctive\nknowledge the youngest children there had of his being different from all\nthe rest, and how they made timid approaches to him with soft words and\ntouches, and with little presents, that he might not be unhappy.  But he\nkept by Milly, and began to love her—that was another, as she said!—and,\nas they all liked her dearly, they were glad of that, and when they saw\nhim peeping at them from behind her chair, they were pleased that he was\nso close to it.\n\nAll this, the Chemist, sitting with the student and his bride that was to\nbe, Philip, and the rest, saw.\n\nSome people have said since, that he only thought what has been herein\nset down; others, that he read it in the fire, one winter night about the\ntwilight time; others, that the Ghost was but the representation of his\ngloomy thoughts, and Milly the embodiment of his better wisdom.  _I_ say\nnothing.\n\n—Except this.  That as they were assembled in the old Hall, by no other\nlight than that of a great fire (having dined early), the shadows once\nmore stole out of their hiding-places, and danced about the room, showing\nthe children marvellous shapes and faces on the walls, and gradually\nchanging what was real and familiar there, to what was wild and magical.\nBut that there was one thing in the Hall, to which the eyes of Redlaw,\nand of Milly and her husband, and of the old man, and of the student, and\nhis bride that was to be, were often turned, which the shadows did not\nobscure or change.  Deepened in its gravity by the fire-light, and gazing\nfrom the darkness of the panelled wall like life, the sedate face in the\nportrait, with the beard and ruff, looked down at them from under its\nverdant wreath of holly, as they looked up at it; and, clear and plain\nbelow, as if a voice had uttered them, were the words.\n\n                                * * * * *\n\n                        Lord keep my Memory green."