"Bad," he answered.
"We are quite ruined?"
"No. There is hope yet, Caroline."
"If he relents," she said, amazed, "there is! Nothing is
past hope, if such a miracle has happened."
"He is past relenting," said her husband. "He is dead."
She was a mild and patient creature if her face spoke
truth; but she was thankful in her soul to hear it, and she
said so, with clasped hands. She prayed forgiveness the next
moment, and was sorry; but the first was the emotion of
her heart.
"What the half-drunken woman whom I told you of last
night, said to me, when I tried to see him and obtain a
week's delay; and what I thought was a mere excuse to avoid
me; turns out to have been quite true. He was not only
very ill, but dying, then."
"To whom will our debt be transferred?"
"I don't know. But before that time we shall be ready
with the money; and even though we were not, it would be
a bad fortune indeed to find so merciless a creditor in his
successor. We may sleep to-night with light hearts, Caroline!"
Yes. Soften it as they would, their hearts were lighter.
The children's faces, hushed and clustered round to hear what
they so little understood, were brighter; and it was a happier
house for this man's death! The only emotion that the
Ghost could show him, caused by the event, was one of
pleasure.
"Let me see some tenderness connected with a death," said
Scrooge; "or that dark chamber, Spirit, which we left just
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