Year: 1869

His Last Christmas.


1t was very strange, thought old Joseph
Golding, that he couldn't be master OF his
own mind. He had lived great many
years, and neither remorse nor memory
had ever been in the habit of disturbing
him but now il seemed to him as if the
very foundations of his life were breakin 2
up. He was well through with his days
work-he had dined comfortably sat
in an easy chair in luxurious drawing
room, whose crimson hangings shut out
the still cold of the December afternoon
he had nothing to do but enjoy himself.
Mr.. Golding liked to enjoy himself at this
season as much as others did, FOR it was
Christmas eve. What though he was in
the habit of spending it solitarily ?-he
liked solitude. Perhaps because nothing
more lively came in his way, and he was
too shy and proud to look out for it.


For many year on Christmas eve he
had sat balancing in his mind the great
accounts presented in his ledgers, the ac-
cumulating Golfers at his bankers, the
strokes of business he would make in flu
ture. Not so now. The year was draw
ing to close some intruding voice kept
whispering that in like manner so was his
career. He could not pat it from him,
try as he would. The voice reminded him
of a coming time when his life's work
would be all done-even as his days
work was all done now-when be would
be ready to sit down in the evening and
look over the balance sheet of his deeds,
good and evil. Curiously the old days
came trooping in slow procession before
aim. And he had been able to forget
hem for SO very long


His dead wife. He had not loved her
much when she was with him, but how
vivid was his memory of her now ! He
could see her moving round the house,
noiseless as shadow, never intrlding on
him after he had once or twice repulsed
her gruffly, but goina on her own MEX,
still ways, with her face growing whittier
every day. He began to understand, as
he looked back, why her strength had
failed and she had been ready, when her
baby came, to float out on the tide and let
it drift her into Gods haven. She had
had enough to eat and to drink, but he
saw now that he had left her heart to
starve. Heaven what hard man he had
been He seemed to see her white, still
face, as he looked at it the last time before
they screwed down the coffin lid, with the
dumb reproach frozen on it; the eyes that
would never plead vainly any more, closed
for ever.


He recalled how passionately the three
days-old baby had cried in another room
just at that moment, moving all the people
gathered together for the funeral with a
thrill of pity for the poor little motherless
morse. She pns passionate, wilful
baby, all through her baybyhood; he
remembered that. She wanted-mssed
without knowing what the lack was-the
love and sustenance which her mother
would have given her, and protested
against fate with all the might of her in
fant lungs. But as soon as she grew old
enough to understand how useless it was,
she had grown quiet, too; just like her
mother. He recalled her, all through her
girlhood, shy, still girl. always obedient
and submissive. but never drawing very
near him. Why Becasue he would have
repulsed her as he repulssd her mother
He could see it now. 1t vas very strange
these facts should come back to him to-
day. and their naked truth with them
He had been cold, hard, ungenial man,
without sympathy for any one human be.
ing /; absorbed utterly in the pursuit Of
money making. And so the child, Amy
had grown up in shadow without him.


But suddenly, when she was eighteen
the old, passionate spirit that had made
her cry so when a baby, must have awak-
ened again, he thought; for she fell in
love then, and wished to marry. Te
marry in defiance of his wishes. He re.
membered her standing proudly before
him after one of their quarres, where he
had been harsh and bitter, and abusive Of
the man she wanted to call husband. She
had horne in silence reproach of herself
I but not of him who had become to her a.
her best existence. Her words came bach
to the old man now.


"Father, do you know anything against
Harry Chsrch p


EYES, he had answered, wrathfully
~ know that he is as poor as Job wal
when he sat among the ashes. He cannot
keep wife as a daughter of mine must bt
} kept"


Anything else, father?" looking him
steadily in the eye.


mo, that's enough" he thundered.- -
, "I'll tell you, besides, that if you marry
him you must lie in the bed you viii
make. My doors will never open to you
again, never"


He met with will as strong as his own
that time. She did marry him, and went
away with him from her fathers house
Mr.. Golding had known the day the we'd
ding was to take place, and disdained te
stop it. He washed his hands of Harry
Church, and of Amy, his wife. She wrote
home afterwards over and over again, bu
4 Mr.. Golding sent all the letters back un
opened. Subsequent to that, they disap
peared from the tswn and he had never
: heard what became of them. 1t was al
least fen vpara apO now