who loved snuff herself, has left a legacy of snuff to certain
poorhouses; and, in her watchful nights, this old woman takes a
pinch of Queen Charlotte's snuff, "and it do comfort me, sir,
that it do!" Pulveris exigui munus. Here is a forlorn aged
creature, shaking with palsy, with no soul among the great
struggling multitude of mankind to care for her, not quite
trampled out of life, but past and forgotten in the rush, made a
little happy, and soothed in her hours of unrest by this penny
legacy. Let me think as I write. (The next month's sermon,
thank goodness! is safe to press.) This discourse will appear at
the season when I have read that wassail-bowls make their
appearance; at the season of pantomime, turkey and sausages,
plum-puddings, jollifications for schoolboys; Christmas bills,
and reminiscences more or less sad and sweet for elders. If we
oldsters are not merry, we shall be having a semblance of
merriment. We shall see the young folks laughing round the
holly-bush. We shall pass the bottle round cosily as we sit by
the fire. That old thing will have a sort of festival too.
Beef, beer, and pudding will be served to her for that day also.
Christmas falls on a Thursday. Friday is the workhouse day for
coming out. Mary, remember that old Goody Twoshoes has her
invitation for Friday, 26th December! Ninety is she, poor old
soul? Ah! what a bonny face to catch under a mistletoe! "Yes,
ninety, sir," she says, "and my mother was a hundred, and my
grandmother was a hundred and two."

Herself ninety, her mother a hundred, her grandmother a hundred
and two? What a queer calculation!

Ninety! Very good, granny: you were born, then, in 1772.