Becca opened it, and returned with a letter stating that the bearer required an answer.  The stranger took it with an air of authority and broke the seal; as he did so, a five pound note fluttered to the ground.  While he read the letter his eyes flashed with a strange fire, and his quivering nostril showed the strength of the passion raging within.

Turning to the boy, he thrust the letter into his hand, and bade him pick up the note.  “Take this answer to your master, boy,” he said; “we return the letter and his money with disdain, and tell him that Bessy Green is not so desolate and friendless that she needs accept five pounds as the price of two innocent lives.  The debt is one that no man can cancel:  but the reckoning day is sure to come! tell him that, boy, from the brother of Bessy Green, from the uncle of Tom and Susy.”

The boy hurried away with the message; and Bessy, who had been aroused by the stranger’s vehemence, at the word “brother,” threw herself upon his neck, crying—­“It is George!” What follows is quickly told:  Bessy’s grief was deep, and it took long long months before she was fitted to engage in the ordinary occupations of life; but change of scene and cheerful company, together with the daily expanding beauties of her only child, partially healed her lacerated heart.  Her generous brother, who had returned from a distant land,—­where fortune had smiled upon his labours—­took her to live with him, and adopted her child as his son.  Becca and Abe became also installed in the house as helpers; and now, far away from the regions of factory whews, they are all living amicably together.

“That is my story for this; Christmas.  How do you like it?”

It is very sorrowful, uncle John, but we are much obliged to you for telling it us, but it is surely wrong for children so young to be compelled to go to work at such an early hour?

“It may not be wrong to require them so to do, but it would at least show a desire on the part of the employers to ameliorate the hardness of their lot if, while endeavouring to enforce strict punctuality, they would provide some shelter for those who, having come from a distance, fail to arrive in time for admission.”

“Hark, the village Waits!”

Pill Jim’s Progress Wi’ Johns Bunion.

It wor a varry wild day when John set off to see Pill Jim, as he wor called, but as it wor varry particklar business, he didn’t let th’ weather stop him.

Nah, Pill Jim wor a varry nooated chap i’ some pairts o’ Yorkshire.  He wor an old chap, an’ lived in a little haase to hissen, an’ gate a livin’ wi’ quack-docterin’ a bit; an’ whativer anybody ailed, he’d some pills at wor sure to cure ’em; soa, as John had been sufferin’ a long’ time, he thought he’d goa an’ have a bit o’ tawk wi’ him, an’ see if he could get any gooid done.

It chonced, as luck let, at Jim wor at hooam, an’ he invited him in, but as he’d nobbut one cheer, John had to sit o’th’ edge o’th’ long table.