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"I had not finished," answered the King. "We recognize your claims to our attention, my Lord of Carrisdale. We have no mind to neglect you. It is our further will that you, Richard Alwyn, Earl of Carrisdale, be likewise and at the same time executed by having your head stricken from your body. I give you as fair a trial as you gave the old man you hanged, or Magnus gave the boy he butchered. They were your vassals; you are mine."

"You dare not! You dare not!” cried Carrisdale, white with fear and anger. "Your nobles will not stand by and see it."

The King swept his sword from its sheath, facing the assembled nobles.

"Dare I not?" he cried, his eyes glittering fiercely, his voice for the first time stern and ringing. "Dare I not, Richard Alwyn? You shall see. Who among you, my vassals, would step between your King and his righteous anger, between your king and these condemned traitors?" He paused for a moment but no man moved. Then he continued: "It is well. I execute you both for a pair of false, clumsy knaves. You have in my name done deeds which would shame the devil. You thought me weak and a fool. Today your cup is full, and too late you learn your mistake.-William McLeod Raine.

LESSON LI

Agitated feeling may be the result of either merriment or grief.

All gladness does not produce agitation of mind, neither does all sorrow. But when either joy or sorrow is strong enough to agitate the mind, the expression of it belongs to this class. When the mind is thus agitated by strong emotion, the nerves and flesh are tremulous, and the voice quavers. The attempt to imitate these deep feelings by a shaking voice disgusts us. You must get into the spirit of the emotion by genuine sympathy, careful paraphrase and vivid imagination. Then under the mind's influence, the whole body will be in a jelly-like quiver, and involuntarily the voice will have a delicate trembling.

Oh, Mother, look, it's snowing. Hurrah, we'll play snowballs, and make a snow man, and go coasting, can we mother? oh, say yes quick!

Break, break, break,

On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!

And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.

O well for the fisherman's boy,

That he shouts with his sister at play!

O well for the sailor lad,

That he sings in his boat on the bay!

And the stately ships go on

To their haven under the hill;

But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand.
And the sound of a voice that is still!

Break, break, break,

At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!

But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me.

-Tennyson.

Mark the passages that show Agitated feeling.

Mark also any passages that show Genial, Exalted, Stern or Awesome feelings.

THE CHRISTMAS DINNER

The good Spirit led him straight to Scrooge's clerk's; and on the threshold of the door the Spirit smiled, and stopped to bless Bob Cratchit's dwelling with the sprinklings of his torch.

Then up rose Mrs. Cratchit, Cratchit's wife, dressed out but poorly in a twice turned gown, but brave in ribbons, which are cheap and make a goodly show for sixpence; and she laid the cloth, assisted by Belinda Cratchit, second of her daughters, also brave in ribbons; while Master Peter Cratchit plunged a fork into the saucepan of potatoes. And now two smaller Cratchits, boy and girl, came tearing in, screaming that outside the baker's they had smelt the goose, and known it for their own; and basking in luxurious thoughts of sage and onion, these young Cratchits danced about the table.

"What has ever got your precious father then?" said Mrs. Cratchit. "And your brother, Tiny Tim! And Martha warn't as late last Christmas Day by half-an-hour?"

"Here's Martha, Mother!" said a girl, appearing as she spoke.

"Here's Martha, Mother!" cried the two young Cratchits. "Hurrah! There's such a goose, Martha."

"Why, bless your heart alive, my dear, how late you are!" said Mrs. Cratchit, kissing her a dozen times, and taking off her shawl and bonnet for her with officious zeal.

"We'd a deal of work to finish up last night," replied the girl, "and had to clear away this morning, mother!" "Well! Never mind so long as you are come," said Mrs. Cratchit. "Sit ye down before the fire, my dear, and have a warm, Lord bless ye!"

"No, no! There's father coming," cried the two young Cratchits, who were everywhere at once. "Hide, Martha, hide!"

"So Martha hid herself, and in came little Bob, the father, with at least three feet of comforter exclusive of the fringe, hanging down before him; and his threadbare clothes darned up and brushed, to look seasonable; and Tiny Tim upon his shoulder. Alas for Tiny Tim, he bore a little crutch, and had his limbs supported by an iron frame!

"Why, where's our Martha?" cried Bob Cratchit, looking round. "Not coming upon Christmas Day!"

Martha didn't like to see him disappointed, if it were only in joke; so she came out prematurely from behind the closet door, and ran into his arms, while the two young Cratchits hustled Tiny Tim, and bore him off into the wash-house, that he might hear the pudding singing in the copper.

"And how did little Tim behave?" asked Mrs. Cratchit. when Bob had hugged his daughter to his heart's content.

"As good as gold," said Bob, "and better. Somehow he gets thoughtful sitting by himself so much, and thinks the strangest things you ever heard. He told me, coming home, that he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember upon Christmas Day, who made lame beggars walk, and blind men see."

Bob's voice was tremulous when he told them this, and trembled more when he said that Tiny Tim was growing strong and hearty.

His active little crutch was heard upon the floor, and back came Tiny Tim before another word was spoken, escorted by his brother and sister to his stool before the fire; and Master Peter, and the two ubiquitous young Cratchits went to fetch the goose, with which they soon returned in high procession.

Mrs. Cratchit made the gravy (ready beforehand in a little saucepan) hissing hot; Master Peter mashed the potatoes with incredible vigor; Miss Belinda sweetened up the apple-sauce; Martha dusted the hot plates; Bob took Tiny Tim beside him in a tiny corner at the table; the two young Cratchits set chairs for everybody, not forgetting themselves, and crammed spoons into their mouths, lest they should shriek for goose before their turn came to be helped. At last the dishes were set on, and grace was said. It was succeeded by a breathless pause, as Mrs. Cratchit, looking slowly along the carving-knife, prepared to plunge it in the breast; but when she did, and when the long expected gush of stuffing issued forth, one murmur of delight arose all around the board, and even Tiny Tim, excited by the two young Cratchits, beat on the table with the handle of his knife, and feebly cried Hurrah!

There never was such a goose. Bob said he didn't believe there ever was such a goose cooked. Its tenderness and flavor, size and cheapness, were the themes of universal admiration. Eked out by apple-sauce and mashed potatoes, it was a sufficient dinner for the whole family; indeed, as Mrs. Cratchit said with great delight (surveying one small atom of the bone upon the dish), they hadn't ate it all at last! Yet every one had had enough, and the youngest Cratchits in particular, were steeped in sage and onion to the eyebrows! But now the plates being changed by Miss Belinda, Mrs. Cratchit left the room alone-too nervous to bear witnesses-to take the pudding up and bring it in.

Suppose it should not be done enough! Suppose it should break in turning out! Suppose somebody should have got over the wall of the back-yard, and stolen it, while they were merry with the goose-a supposition at which the two young Cratchits became livid! All sorts of horrors were supposed.

Hallo! A great deal of steam! The pudding was out of the copper. A smell like a washing-day! That was the cloth. A smell like an eating-house and a pastrycook's next door to each other, with a laundress' next door to that! That was the pudding! In half a minute Mrs. Cratchit entered-flushed but smiling proudly-with the pudding, like a speckled cannon-ball so hard and firm, blazing in half of half a-quartern of ignited brandy, and bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top.

Oh, a wonderful pudding! Bob Cratchit said, and calmly, too, that he regarded it as the greatest success achieved by Mrs. Cratchit since their marriage. Mrs. Cratchit said that now the weight was off her mind, she would confess she had her doubts about the quantity of flour. Everybody had something to say about it, but nobody said or thought it was a small pudding for a large family. It would have been flat heresy to do so. Cratchit would have blushed to hint at such a thing.

Any

At last the dinner was all done, the cloth was cleared, the hearth swept, and the fire made up. Apples and oranges were put upon the table, and a shovelful of chestnuts on the fire. Then all the Cratchit family drew around the hearth.

us!"

"A merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless

Which all the family re-echoed. "God bless us every one!" said Tiny Tim, the last of all. Charles Dickens.

"Yo-ho, my boys!" said Fezziwig; "no more work tonight, Christmas Eve, Dick! Christmas, Ebenezer! Let's have the shutters up before a man can say Jack Robinson! Clear away, my lads, and let's have lots of room here!"

Clear away! There was nothing they wouldn't have done, or couldn't have done, with old Fezziwig standing by. It was done in a minute. Every movable was packed off as if it were dismissed from public life forevermore. The floor was swept and watered, lamps were trimmed, fuel was heaped upon the fire, and the warehouse was as snug and warm and dry and bright a ball-room as you could desire to see upon a winter night. In came a fiddler with a music-book and walked up to the lofty desk and made an orchestra of it, and tuned like fifty stomach-aches. In came Mrs. Fezziwig, one vast, substantial smile. In came the two Miss Fezziwigs, beaming and amiable. In came the six young followers, whose hearts they broke. In came all the young men and women employed in the business. In came the housemaid with her cousin, the baker. In came the cook with her brother's particular friend, the milkman. In they all came anyhow and everyhow! Away they all went, twenty couples at once, hands half round and

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