“The north wind doth blow, And we shall have snow, And what will my uncle do then, poor thing? He’ll run for his port, But he will run short, And have too much water to drink, poor thing!
“With the influences of the chamber of my childhood crowding upon me, I kept repenting the travestied rhyme to myself, till I fell asleep.
“Now, boys and girls, if I were writing a novel, I should like to make you, somehow or other, put together the facts—that I was in the room I have mentioned; that I had been in the cellar with my uncle for the first time that evening; that I had seen my uncle’s distress, and heard his reflections upon his father. I may add that I was not myself, even then, so indifferent to the merits of a good glass of port as to be unable to enter into my uncle’s dismay, and that of his guests at last, if they should find that the snowstorm had actually closed up the sweet approaches of the expected port. If I was personally indifferent to the matter, I fear it is to be attributed to your mother, and not to myself.”
“Nonsense!” interposed my mother once more. “I never knew such a man for making little of himself and much of other people. You never drank a glass too much port in your life.”
“That’s why I’m so fond of it, my dear,” returned my father. “I declare you make me quite discontented with my pig-wash here.
“That night I had a dream.
“The next day the visitors began to arrive. Before the evening after, they had all come. There were five of them—three tars and two land-crabs, as they called each other when they got jolly, which, by-the-way, they would not have done long without me.
“My uncle’s anxiety visibly increased. Each guest, as he came down to breakfast, received each morning a more constrained greeting.—I beg