Scrooge's former self grew larger at the words,
and the room became a little darker and more dirty.
The panels shrunk, the windows cracked; fragments
of plaster fell out of the ceiling, and the naked laths
were shown instead; but how all this was brought
about, Scrooge knew no more than you do. He only
knew that it was quite correct; that everything had
happened so; that there he was, alone again, when
all the other boys had gone home for the jolly
holidays.
He was not reading now, but walking up and
down despairingly. Scrooge looked at the Ghost, and
with a mournful shaking of his head, glanced
anxiously towards the door.
It opened; and a little girl, much younger than
the boy, came darting in, and putting her arms
about his neck, and often kissing him, addressed him
as her "Dear, dear brother."
"I have come to bring you home, dear brother!"
said the child, clapping her tiny hands, and bending
down to laugh. "To bring you home, home, home!"
"Home, little Fan?" returned the boy.
"Yes!" said the child, brimful of glee. "Home, for
good and all. Home, for ever and ever. Father is so
much kinder than he used to be, that home's like
Heaven! He spoke so gently to me one dear night
when I was going to bed, that I was not afraid to
ask him once more if you might come home; and he
said Yes, you should; and sent me in a coach to
bring you. And you're to be a man!" said the child,
opening her eyes, "and are never to come back
here; but first, we're to be together all the
Christmas long, and have the merriest time in all the
world."
"You are quite a woman, little Fan!" exclaimed the
boy.
She clapped her hands and laughed, and tried to
touch his head; but being too little, laughed again,
and stood on tiptoe to embrace him. Then she
began to drag him, in her childish eagerness,
towards the door; and he, nothing loth to go,
accompanied her.
A terrible voice in the hall cried. "Bring down
Master Scrooge's box, there! " and in the hall
appeared the schoolmaster himself, who glared on
Master Scrooge with a ferocious condescension, and
threw him into a dreadful state of mind by shaking
hands with him. He then conveyed him and his sister
into the veriest old well of a shivering best-parlour
that ever was seen, where the maps upon the wall,
and the celestial and terrestrial globes in the
windows, were waxy with cold. Here he produced a
decanter of curiously light wine, and a block of
curiously heavy cake, and administered instalments
of those dainties to the young people: at the same
time, sending out a meagre servant to offer a glass
of something to the postboy, who answered that he
thanked the gentleman, but if it was the same tap
as he had tasted before, he had rather not. Master
Scrooge's trunk being by this time tied on to the top
of the chaise, the children bade the schoolmaster
good-bye right willingly; and getting into it, drove
gaily down the garden-sweep: the quick wheels
dashing the hoar-frost and snow from off the dark
leaves of the evergreens like spray.
"Always a delicate creature, whom a breath might
have withered," said the Ghost. "But she had a large
heart!"
"So she had," cried Scrooge. "You're right, I will
not gainsay it, Spirit. God forbid!"
"She died a woman," said the Ghost, "and had, as
I think, children."
"One child," Scrooge returned.
"True," said the Ghost. "Your nephew!"
Scrooge seemed uneasy in his mind; and
answered briefly, "Yes."