Mrs. Fezziwig. As to her, she was worthy to be his partner in every sense of the term. A positive light appeared to issue from Fezziwig's calves. They shone in every part of the dance. You couldn't have predicted, at any given time, what would become of 'em next. And when old Fezziwig and Mrs. Fezziwig had gone all through the dance, - advance and retire, turn your partner, bow and courtesy, cockscrew, thread the needle and back again to your place, Fezziwig "cut," - cut so deftly, that he appeared to wink with his legs.

When the clock struck eleven this domestic ball broke up. Mr. and Mrs. Fezziwig took their stations, one on either side of the door, and, shaking hands with every person individually as he or she went out, wished him or her a Merry Christmas. When everybody had retired but the two 'prentices, they did the same to them; and thus the cheerful voices died away, and the lads were left to their beds, which were under a counter in the back shop.

CHARLES DICKENS.

THE SHIPWRECK.

(From "David Copperfield.")

As the night advanced, it came on to blow harder and harder. I had been in Yarmouth when the seamen said it blew great guns, but I had never known the like of this, or anything approaching to it.

The tremendous sea itself, when I could find pause to look at it, in the agitation of the blinding wind, the flying stones and sand, and the awful noise, confounded me. As the high

watery walls came rolling in, and tumbled into surf, I seemed to see a rending and upheaving of all nature.

Not finding Ham among the people whom this memorable wind had brought together on the beach, I made my way to his house.

I learned that he had gone on a job of shipwright's work some miles away, but that he would be back to-morrow morning in good time.

So I went back to the inn.

I could not eat, I could not sit still, I could not continue steadfast to anything. So I resolved to go to bed.

For hours I lay in bed listening to the wind and water, imagining, now, that I heard shrieks out at sea; now, that I distinctly heard the firing of signal-guns; now, the fall of houses in the town. Then I fell into the depths of sleep until broad day; when I was aroused at eight or nine o'clock by some one knocking and calling at my door. I opened the door a bit and asked:

"What is the matter?"

"A wreck! close by! A schooner from Spain or Portugal, laden with fruit and wine. Make haste, sir, if you want to see her! It's thought down on the beach she'll go to pieces every moment."

I wrapped myself in my clothes as quickly as I could, and ran into the street, where numbers of people were before me, all running in one direction, to the beach. I ran the same way, outstripping a good many, and soon came facing the wild sea. The height to which the breakers rose and bore one another down, and rolled in, in interminable hosts, was most appalling.

In the difficulty of hearing anything but wind and waves,

and in the crowd, and the unspeakable confusion, and my first breathless efforts to stand against the weather, I was so confused that I looked out to sea for the wreck, and saw nothing but the foaming heads of the great waves.

A boatman laid a hand upon my arm, and pointed. Then I saw it, close in upon us.

-

One mast was broken short off, six or eight feet from the deck, and lay over the side, entangled in a maze of sail and rigging; and all that ruin, as the ship rolled and beat, beat the side as if it would stave it in. Some efforts were being made to cut this portion of the wreck away; for as the ship, which was broadside on, turned towards us in her rolling, I plainly descried her people at work with axes, — especially one active figure in a red cap, conspicuous among the rest. But a great cry, audible even above the wind and water, rose from the shore; the sea, sweeping over the wreck, made a clean breach, and carried men, spars, casks, planks, bulwarks, heaps of such toys, into the boiling surge.

The second mast was yet standing, with the rags of a sail, and a wild confusion of broken cordage, flapping to and fro. The ship had struck once, the boatman said, and then lifted in, and struck again. I understood him to add that she was parting amidships. As he spoke, there was another great cry of pity from the beach. Four men arose with the wreck out of the deep, clinging to the rigging of the remaining mast; uppermost, the active figure with the red cap.

There was a bell on board; and as the ship rolled and dashed, this bell rang; and its sound, the knell of those unhappy men, was borne towards us on the wind. Again we lost her, and again she rose. Two of the four men were gone.

All at once Ham came breaking through them to the front.

Instantly I ran to him, for I divined that he meant to wade off with a rope. "Ham, it's sure death."

Another cry arose, and we saw the cruel sail, with blow on blow, beat off the lower of the two men, and fly up in triumph round the active figure in the red cap left alone upon the mast. Then I saw Ham standing alone, in a seaman's frock and trousers, a rope in his hand, another round his body, and several of the best men holding to the latter.

The wreck was breaking up. I saw that she was parting in the middle, and that the life of the solitary man upon the mast hung by a thread. As the few planks between him and destruction rolled and bulged, and as his death-knell rung, he was seen by all of us to wave his red cap. I saw him do it, and thought I was going distracted, when his action brought an old remembrance to my mind of a once dear friend, the once dear friend, -Steerforth.

Ham watched the sea until there was a great retiring wave; when he dashed in after it, and in a moment was buffeting with the waves, rising with the hills, falling with the valleys, lost beneath the foam, -borne in towards the shore, borne on towards the ship.

At length he neared the wreck. He was so near, that with one more of his vigorous strokes he would be clinging to it, when, a high, green, vast hillside of water moving on shoreward from beyond the ship, he seemed to leap up into it with a mighty bound, the wave fell and the ship was gone!

They drew him to my very feet, insensible, dead. He had been beaten to death by the great wave, and his generous heart was stilled forever.

As I stood beside him, a fisherman came to me and said: "Sir, will you come over yonder?"

"Has a body come ashore?"

"Yes."

"Do I know it?"

He answered nothing. But he led me to the spot and there, close by the threshold of the home he had ruined, I saw him lying with his head upon his arm, as I had often seen him lie at school, James Steerforth.

CHARLES DICKENS.

LOCHINVAR.

1. O young Lochinvar is come out of the West,
Through all the wide Border his steed was the best!
And, save his good broadsword, he weapon had none, —
He rode all unarmed, and he rode all alone.
So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war,

There never was knight like the young Lochinvar.

2. He stayed not for brake, and he stopped not for stone, He swam the Eske river where ford there was none;

But, ere he alighted at Netherby gate,

The bride had consented, the gallant came late:
For a laggard in love, and a dastard in war,
Was to wed the fair Ellen of brave Lochinvar.

3. So boldly he entered the Netherby hall,

'Mong bridesmen, and kinsmen, and brothers, and all: Then spoke the bride's father, his hand on his sword (For the poor craven bridegroom said never a word), "O, come ye in peace here, or come ye in war,

Or to dance at our bridal, young Lord Lochinvar?” —