He did accept it!

And when they He dined upon that Christmas-day with FERRIBY. gathered round the fire after dinner, this is what he told his entertainer :He told him how, some two years since, his only daughter-the only child, in fact, that his dead wife had left him-had run away from him and married against his will; had made his home desolate, and his Christmas fireside a blank; had been utterly lost to him from that hour; had been cast out at once and for ever from her father's heart, and from her father's memory; had ceased to be his child. And so on, and so on: as angry, disappointed fathers have talked time out of mind; as they are doubtless talking now, if we were only there to hear them; as they will talk on to the end.

But, heaven be praised! let men boast as they will about their stubborn, unforgiving anger, until they persuade themselves that their selfish indignation is a virtue, the Spirit of Christmas moves and works among us still: Works in ways that we little dream of, and brings about its great and glorious ends by most unlooked-for means.

Was it the Spirit of Christmas now working in that stern old JORBOYS' heart (we are inclined to think it was)? Was it only the contrast his fancy called up between that picture of domestic happiness before him and his own cold, cheerless hearth, with thoughts of what a home he might have had? Or shall we put it on the very lowest and material grounds, and inquire was it merely the cheering, exhilarating influence of the whiskeypunch he was imbibing (and little MRS. FERRIBY was acknowledged to be about the best brewer of punch in the whole North-Western postal district)? We cannot say. But certain it is, old JORBOYS found himself speaking, and thinking less unkindly of his "little Annie" (he had never spoken of her by that name before, since her transgression), than he had ever done since she had left his home.

All of a sudden, a shrill cry rings through the stillness of that Christmas evening:

"FIRE! FIRE!

FERRIBY, who is warming and drying the poor half-drowned morsel of humanity at a good blazing fire-this time a fire in a kindly, cheerfullooking grate; not the fierce demon of a fire from which she herself has just been saved. Another glance the poor mother gives to the man who has led her almost fainting steps to that haven of safety.

Her eyes meet those of JORBOYS, and she falls into his arms-to all appearance dead!

She has recognised him. Nor she alone. Blessings upon yon, Spirit of Christmas, or whatever power it is that brings all this about!

JORBOYS, too, recognises her. He sees that he holds in his arms once more his own dear "Little Annie!"

To tell how all was forgiven, how father and daughter were immediately and for ever reconciled, would be superfluous. Suffice it to say, that old JORBOYS has ever since been amongst the most enthusiastic of "believers in Christmas," and that his "Little Annie" and her husband, whatever amount of property they may have lost in that memorable conflagration, always look back with joy and gratitude to the breaking out of their "CHRISTMAS FIRE!"

WILLIAM BROUGH.

OUT IN THE COLD. 3 Twenty Minutes' Romance.

CHAPTER I.

he did not believe in Christmas!

"My child-my baby!'

HERE. is some-thing awfully dreary in the life of a fellow, who, having no great taste for "places of amusement," and very few visiting acquaintances, takes a set of cheap chambers in a dingy precinct for the purpose ostensibly of "reading," but really because he don't quite know how he can otherwise lodge. There come times when he feels desperately lonesome, shut up within those four walls in an apartment fourteen feet by twelve, and with no human aid, save the chance of summoning the old woman who "does for" him, or the late ticket porter, who may be heard

But there were reasons apart from the quiet life I led for making me long for some sort of change which would take me out of my own dreary company.

The fact is I was in love, and in difficulties at the same time. Not suffering from any sudden romantic attachment, or from absolute poverty, not even threatened with arrest. Sixty pounds would have paid off all my debts, and I had an income of a hundred a-year, beside the couple of hundred that I contrived to earn by such precarious literary work as I found time for in the intervals of "reading for the bar."

My love was the cause of my difficulties, for I had no nearer relative than my mother's brother, and he was so well acquainted with my circumstances, that he actually received my proposal to marry my cousin ANNIE, with good humoured laughter.

We had been playfellows, ANNIE and I, when I was a public schoolboy, and probably took to loving each other as we might either of us have caught the measles, by being so much in each other's company.

Nobody was aware of the complaint, and we never found it out till I was left an orphan, and suddenly found myself thrown upon my own resources, with a symptom of whisker and the income already mentioned.

It was not till long afterwards that I ventured to run down to Kent and see my uncle alone, though to tell the truth there had been quires of letters, and more than one stolen interview between ANNIE and me, not that there was the slightest necessity for the latter, for nobody but our two selves had the least idea of our extraordinary attachment, and I had always corresponded with the girls-there were three of them, POLLY, ANNIE, and little KATE, who was a school girl of fifteen, and an exacting letter writer

who crossed every scrap of paper, and wound up with a postscript on the envelope. When I declared myself to my uncle in the character of ANNIE's lover, nothing could persuade him to take it seriously, and he had been so kind to me that I felt it would be ungenerous to stamp and rave. I could only urge him with tears in my eyes to look at the matter "like a man of the world."

I thought he never would have done laughing.

"My dear HARRY," he said, "upon my word, I don't mean to be unkind, but ho! ho! ho!-I do look at it so. You neither of you know your own minds; why the whole thing's absurd, my dear boy, only fancy your being married like a couple of school children, to get tired of each other, and find out when it was too late that you'd made a mistake."

"Uncle, uncle," I said, losing my temper, "I'm no child at all events, and I will have her. I came to you to ask you honourably whether our engagement would be approved by you, and

Stop HARRY," said my uncle, looking sternly enough, "I don't want to treat this matter seriously goodness knows, but you can't have thought of your position. You have, I believe, a hundred a year?"

"And can earn two hundred more till I am called-after that"The deluge of course, HARRY. After that there may be years of patient waiting, which to a man encumbered with a wife and children would be slow, grinding misery; no, no, my boy, this is a foolish fancy, brought about by the companionship of a couple of cousins, who have neither of them met with anybody else to fall in love with. Come, come down to dinner, and let us hear no more of it."

CHAPTER II.

I DIDN'T go down to dinner, but left him silently, and came back to town by the next train. Then I wrote a long letter to my cousin, and tried to settle down to hard work for love of her; but I was nervous, broken-spirited, and miserable. The silence of my dingy chambers became insupportable, and I wondered what would become of me. I thought of all the gloomy stories I had heard and read about men who had died shut up behind two doors, and had been found afterwards mere skeletons, gnawed by the rats. I grew sleepless, neglected my meals, had no pride in my personal appearance, went out so seldom that I was nervous at all the crossings, and was in a bad way. One bright morning, when a gleam of sunshine found its way even through the dusty window of my sitting room, and a resumption of the cold bath had put me into a little better spirits, I took up the "Times," which had been brought in with the milk, and saw an advertisement for a lodger in a healthy neighbourhood, where a widow lady and her family would contribute to make society mutually cheerful, and where the terms asked would be moderate, since it was only desired that a highly respectable inmate should be added to the domestic circle. References given and required. In a moment of infatuation I answered it.

On the following morning I had removed most of my possessions in a cab, and was superintending the unpacking of my books in the spare sitting room of No. 74, Great Lavender-street, Bayswater, assisted by MISS HENRIETTA TWIGG, second daughter of MRS. TWIGG, relict of a gentleman, who, having been "late in H.M.'s Customs,' as I saw by a mortuary poem with a black border, in the TwIGG album, was, no doubt," an honour to his country and his Queen," as the poet went on to remark. MRS. TWIGG was a very genteel person, indeed, with an air of pensive resignation which was equivalent to any amount of practical benevolence, and a smile which so plainly said, "Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,' that it was a wonder everybody didn't begin to be uproariously merry there and then, especially as the MISSES TWIGG were both blushing, gushing creatures, with an innocent giggle, and a way of looking out of their curls (which, by-the-bye, were of "the fashionable colour") that was, in itself, a complete challenge to mankind.

Not that I found out this peculiarity at once; for though Miss HENRIETTA-they called her Harry and had already made quite a little sentimental capital out of that being my name too-was handing up the books while I placed them in a little battered, top-heavy book-case, I took no notice of her furtive glances till her sister, MISS PAULINA, popped her head into the room and said, "Oh! I never, HARRY, whatever will Ma say?" upon which my companion began to giggle, and flush, and hang her head. I was a little startled, I confess, and felt guilty without knowing exactly why, for it was quite a new experience for me.

When I got down off the chair MISS HENRIETTA caught me by the hand, and said, "Don't be angry; she won't say a word, you won't say anything will you, there's a dear?" and immediately covered her face with her hands

and ran out of the room.

This was nothing to what occurred at tea time, when we all sat at a round table, and MRS. TWIGG quoted some lines from CowPER about the hissing urn, probably referring to an old, battered, electro-plated tea pot, which graced the board. PAULINA stifled a giggle to put up her finger at me in a warning manner, and HENRIETTA hung her head wtih an appealing look. Then P. formed the word "naughty" with her lips, and H. pinched her sister under the table, while I felt the pressure of her little foot on my boot at the same time. Meanwhile the Mamma looked on with a smile of sweet tolerance as who should say, "amidst our trials how fresh is the ingenuousness of youth."

Not to dwell upon the peculiarities of the TWIGG family, I soon discovered that I was in rather dangerous quarters, although I shrank from coming to a conclusion which involved, perhaps, that I was only a conceited puppy. Whenever I was alone in the spare sitting room I found that HENRIETTA wanted something which had been left there accidentally, and whenever she came she was so long looking for it that PAULINA would come after her,

and seeing us alone together would apologise, and leave the apartment in a marked manner. Twice when a letter came from ANNIE-for we still corresponded the younger sister was absent from the breakfast table, and I had to meet glances so pensively reproachful that I made haste to get out, and spent the rest of the day at my old chambers, which I still rented. At length I could stand it no longer, and thankful that, in the first instance, I had written to MRS. TWIGG from a club, of which I was a member, and had never told her my address in town, I enclosed a quarter's rent in a letter, stating that I was suddenly called to a distant part of England, and fled.

CHAPTER III.

I HAD had enough to disquiet me, goodness knows: for a month before I had heard from my cousin KATE, who said that she and her sisters had been to a naval ball, where they had met with an officer, not in uniform, but she believed a lieutenant, who had paid ANNIE marked attention. This was confirmed afterwards by a letter from ANNIE herself, who told me that their new acquaintance had already been invited to dinner, and had hinted at preferring his suit, without receiving any discouragement from my uncle.

His name was LEFROY, and though she hated him, and even disliked a sort of roughness in his manners, which she said he was always endeavouring to conceal under a pretended politeness, he had already written to her, making her the offer of his hand; and had at the same time appointed a day formally to speak on the subject to her father. Another letter informed me that he had failed to keep this appointment, sending instead a hurried note to say that he was suddenly called away to the Admiralty, where he hoped to hear of his promotion, but promising to be back again in a week. The following day a messenger left a handsome bracelet as a present from him to ANNIE. I made all sorts of enquiries at the Admiralty and elsewhere, but could hear of no officer bearing the name of LEFROY. A week or more passed and KATE wrote to say that the gentleman himself had not returned, but that they were all going to Devonshire for the winter, and a message had been left for him with the servants.

I began to suspect mischief, and made up my mind that I would go to Devonshire too.

Not only for the purpose of being near ANNIE, but that I might escape from HENRIETTA TWIGG.

For I became aware of the awful fact that she was addressing me through the second column of the "Times" newspaper, where I had been in the habit of reading those wonderful sham advertisements, which ex-detective officers are in the habit of inserting, as decoys to lead people into the belief that anything they are anxious to know may be found out by an application to some "Private Enquiry Office," where confidential agents, with a good eye for a keyhole, are always on hand. First I saw

HA

ARRY. I have seen you at last, and was at your very door last night. Oh, cruel! Is man always to betray? Meet me once more; but let us meet only as strangers. I have sent your letters addressed to MR. POLLICKY PERKINS, of Paddington Green. There we may say adieu! and in other climes you may forget. I never wrote a letter to her in my life, and even her mother had nothing to show but a Pickwickian correspondence; but I fled again.

CHAPTER IV.

It was in wild weather, and only a few days before Christmas, that I got down to the village where my relations had taken a house for the winter. Wild weather, and not far from a wild part of the country-but that was of little importance since I found a quiet inn, where I took a lodging.

I passed the time between sleeping and taking long solitary walks, by which I became acquainted with the whole topography of the place, and believed myself to be a tolerable guide, even amidst the intricacies of heath and stream, and granite tor, and now bare skeleton woodland, of Dartmoor itself, where I ventured sometimes by moonlight to watch the glinting of the water, or to brace myself in the cool pure air.

It was on Christmas Eve that a strange fancy came over me to go for a long tramp to a spot which I remembered having visited three days before. A wild, bare space, whence a wonderful view could be obtained, if the night were but fine enough.

I knew the road so well, that I was far upon the moor before I thought of the weather.

When I looked up, I felt a cool, shivering breeze, and a few flakes of snow began to fall. Had I been wise I should have turned back instantly; but I fancied I knew my way, and kept on to a turn in the path. Then the wind fell, the snow came down in small, icy particles, that drifted under the peak of my cap and nearly blinded me; and the great bank of cloud blotted out all light except that from the black, steely sky far beyond.

I tried to turn, but it was too late. The snow drifted in a thickening