"Nineteen dollars and a half! Bless me! what am I coming to? It may be
laying up treasures in heaven; but, by Jove, I had rather see it than
hear tell of it."


The Refrain.

It certainly was the dreariest 24th of December an unhappy boy ever had
the misery of witnessing. In a vain endeavor to get up an excitement, I
expended my last fire-cracker; but the continuous drizzle drowned out
every one. It was only four o'clock, and yet the fog hung like a pall
over the windows, and the gas-men were lighting the lamps in the street.
My mother, and an old schoolmate, Mrs. Mary Morton, adjourned to the
privacy of her bedroom; and, a pet navigation enterprise, conducted in
the gutter, having resulted in shipwreck and a severe sore throat, I
also was permitted to enjoy its cosey quiet. John Redfield came in as
the evening advanced. He had been sick; and my mother, wheeling the
lounge near the fire, made him lie down and have something warm to
drink. He and Mrs. Morton were intimate with the family from my earliest
recollection.

The four, in their childhood, lived near each other, among the
picturesque hills of Western Pennsylvania. They went to the same school,
played in the same woods, and now, in mature life, retained the warm
regard of the days gone by. I say four; for Mr. Redfield had a
sister,--Mrs. Hague, a pale, lovely little lady, who at one time visited
my mother very often. There had been some estrangement between her and
her brother, the particulars of which I never knew. She had married,
years before, a worthless kind of a man, who kept a shoestore; but he
became involved, the store was sold out by the sheriff and since then