Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1910-11-29

II produced an immediate effect, for
again Scrooge saw himself. He was
older now, a man in the prime Of life.
His face had not the harsh and rigid
lines of later years, but it had begun
| to wear the signs of care and avarice.
There was an eager, greedy, restless
motion in the eye which showed the
passion that had taken root and where
the shadow of the growing tree would
| fall.
| He was not alone, but sat by the
side of fair young girl in a mourn
ing dress in whose eyes there were
tears, which sparkled in the light that
shone out of the Ghost of Christmas
Past.
1T matters little," she said softly
| 'tO you very little. Another idol has
displaced me, and if it can cheer and
comfort you in time to come, as |
would have tried to do, l have no just
cause to grieve."
What idol has displaced you?" he
rejoined.
"A golden one"
"This is the even handed dealing of
the world" he said. There is moth
| ing on which it is so hard as poverty,
and there is nothing it processes to
| condemn with such severity as the
pursuit of wealth."
You fear the world too much," she
answered gently. "All your other
hopes have merged into the hope of
being beyond the chance of it's SER
did approach. have seen your nobler
aspirations fall off one by one until the
master passion, gain, engrosses you.
Have 1 not?"
"W' t ,..Jn?" he retorted Even If
l have grown so much wiser, what
then? l am not changed toward you"
She shook her head.
Am II"
"Our contract is an old one It was
made when we were both poor and
content to be so until in good season
we would improve our worldly fortune
by our patient industry. You are
changed. When it was made you were
another man."
II was boy" he said impatiently.
He was about to speak further; but,
with her head turned from him, she
resumed:
You may-the memory of what Is
past half makes me hope you will
have pain in this. A very, very brief
lection of it gladly as an Improbable
dream from which it happened we'll
that you awoke. May you be happy
in the life you have chosen"
She left him, and they parted.
Spirit" said Scrooge in a broken
voice, remove me from this place."
He turned upon the ghost and. see
ing that 1t looked upon him with a
face in which in some strange way
there were fragments of all the faces
it had shown him, wrestled with it.
Leave me! Take me back! Haunt
me no longer!"
In the struggle, If that can be called
a struggle in which the ghost, with no
visible resistance on its part, was un-
disturbed by any effort of it's adver-
sary. Scrooge observed that it's light
was burning high and bright, and,
dimly connecting that with its influ-
ence over him, he seized the extin-
gusher cap and by a sudden action
pressed it down upon it's head.
The spirit dropped beneath 1t so
that the extinguisher covered it's whole
form; but, though Scrooge pressed it
down with all his force, he could
not hide the light which streamed
from under it in an unbroken flood
upon the ground.
He was conscious Of being exhaust
ed and overcome by an irresistible
drowsiness and, further Of being in
his own bedroom. He gave the cap
a parting squeeze, in which his hand
relaxed, and had barely time to reel
to bed before he sank into a heavy
sleep.
(To be Continued).