“Most certainly, and well if you have no heavier load to bear,” replied the other.  “And now, my dear sister, I must bid you farewell, earnestly advising and exhorting you to expect no gratitude nor good-will from this peevish, unreasonable, inconsiderate, ill-intending and worse-behaving world.  However warmly its inhabitants may seem to welcome you, yet, do what you may and lavish on them what means of happiness you please, they will still be complaining, still craving what it is not in your power to give, still looking forward to some other year for the accomplishment of projects which ought never to have been formed, and which, if successful, would only provide new occasions of discontent.  If these ridiculous people ever see anything tolerable in you, it will be after you are gone for ever.”

“But I,” cried the fresh-hearted New Year—­“I shall try to leave men wiser than I find them.  I will offer them freely whatever good gifts Providence permits me to distribute, and will tell them to be thankful for what they have and humbly hopeful for more; and surely, if they are not absolute fools, they will condescend to be happy, and will allow me to be a happy year.  For my happiness must depend on them.”

“Alas for you, then, my poor sister!” said the Old Year, sighing, as she uplifted her burden.  “We grandchildren of Time are born to trouble.  Happiness, they say, dwells in the mansions of eternity, but we can only lead mortals thither step by step with reluctant murmurings, and ourselves must perish on the threshold.  But hark! my task is done.”

The clock in the tall steeple of Dr. Emerson’s church struck twelve; there was a response from Dr. Flint’s, in the opposite quarter of the city; and while the strokes were yet dropping into the air the Old Year either flitted or faded away, and not the wisdom and might of angels, to say nothing of the remorseful yearnings of the millions who had used her ill, could have prevailed with that departed year to return one step.  But she, in the company of Time and all her kindred, must hereafter hold a reckoning with mankind.  So shall it be, likewise, with the maidenly New Year, who, as the clock ceased to strike, arose from the steps of the city-hall and set out rather timorously on her earthly course.

“A happy New Year!” cried a watchman, eying her figure very questionably, but without the least suspicion that he was addressing the New Year in person.

“Thank you kindly,” said the New Year; and she gave the watchman one of the roses of hope from her basket.  “May this flower keep a sweet smell long after I have bidden you good-bye!”