Practice Book | Page 6

swept and watered, the
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 would
desire to see upon a winter's night.
In came a fiddler with a music-book, and went 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 three Miss
Fezziwigs, beaming and lovable. 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 one after another; some shyly, some boldly,
some gracefully, some awkwardly, some pushing, some pulling; in they
all came, anyhow and everyhow. Away they all went, twenty couple at
once; hands half round and back again the other way; down the middle
and up again; round and round in various stages of affectionate
grouping; old top couple always turning up in the wrong place; new top
couple starting off again, as soon as they got there; all top couples at
last, and not a bottom one to help them. When this result was brought
about, old Fezziwig, clapping his hands to Stop the dance, cried out,
"Well done!" and the fiddler plunged his hot face into a pot of porter
especially provided for that purpose.

There were more dances, and there were forfeits, and more dances, and
there was cake, and there was negus, and there was a great piece of
Cold Roast, and there was a great piece of Cold Boiled, and there were
mince pies, and plenty of beer. But the great effect of the evening came
after the Roast and Boiled, when the fiddler struck up "Sir Roger de
Coverley." Then old Fezziwig stood out to dance with Mrs. Fezziwig.
Top couple, too; with a good stiff piece of work cut out for them; three
or four and twenty pair of partners, people who were not to be trifled
with; people who would dance, and had no notion of walking.
But if they had been twice as many,--four times,--old Fezziwig would
have been a match for them and so would 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, corkscrew, 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.

THE BROOK.
I.
I come from haunts of coot and hern,
I make a sudden sally,
And
sparkle out among the fern,
To bicker down a valley.

II.
By thirty hills I hurry down,
Or slip between the ridges;
By twenty
thorps, a little town,
And half a hundred bridges.
III.
I chatter over stony ways,
In little sharps and trebles,
I bubble into
eddying bays,
I babble on the pebbles.
IV.
With many a curve my banks I fret
By many a field and fallow,

And many a fairy foreland set
With willow-weed and mallow.
V.
I chatter, chatter, as I flow
To join the brimming river;
For men
may come, and men may go,
But I go on forever.
VI.
I wind about and in and out,
With here a blossom sailing,
And here
and there a lusty trout,
And here and there a grayling.
VII.
And here and there a foamy flake
Upon me as I travel
With many a
silvery water-break
Above the golden gravel.
VIII.
I steal by lawns and grassy plots,
I slide by hazel covers,
I move the
sweet forget-me-nots
That grow for happy lovers.
IX.

I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance,
Among my skimming swallows;
I
make the netted sunbeam dance
Against my sandy shallows.
X.
I murmur, under moon and stars
In brambly wildernesses,
I linger
by my shingly bars,
I loiter round my cresses.
XI.
And out again I curve and flow
To join the brimming river;
For
men may come, and men may go,
But I go on forever.

ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON.
A LAUGHING CHORUS.
[Used by permission, from "Nature