DOLLY DOVE. 369 



presently gave her, (a practice as invariable on that particular 

 evening as his annual gift,) to sit upon his knee, there to un- 

 dergo the ceremony of its presentation. In fact, poor Lucy 

 could not bear old Caligraph ; there was not a cliild that 

 could. Whether it were from his ugly ink-blot eyes, his liny 

 parchment face, his monotonous creaking voice, his sharp, an- 

 gular figure, clothed always in a sort of half dominie, half 

 clerical livery, grey and black, large-buttoned, and of a fit as 

 tight as his knobby joints permitted; whether it were from 

 any or from all of these uninviting external attributes, or be- 

 cause Caleb tried to teach her figures, the only thing she could 

 never learn, and never, like Dolly, told her a fairy tale or sang 

 her a song or hymn ; but so it was, that in proportion as the 

 little girl loved her kind nurse, she hated, no, no, she could 

 hate nothing, but she shrank from her nurse's old fellow- 

 servant, though, to do him justice, he meant, in his way, to be 

 kind too. 



Happy, therefore, was Lucy when the sound of my uncle's 

 bell summoned Caleb, in his capacity of butler, to the par- 

 lour ; and happier was she still, as she slid from the un- 

 easy pinnacle of the old man's knee to run into the soft yield- 

 ing arms of Dolly Dove, who at that moment re-entered from 

 her toilette in all her Christmas glory. Poor, faithful, kind- 

 hearted soul ! never again didst thou appear as on that night 

 to do us honour ; thy round, plump person, rustling, as was 

 its annual wont, in a silken gown of ancient fabric and as 



