SCENE IV.--_A room. Enter Belle and Scrooge's former

self, at twenty-five years of age._

_Scro._ It is Belle, as sure as I am a living sinner.

_Belle._ It matters little to you. To you very little. Another idol has displaced me; and if it can cheer and comfort you in time to come, as I would have tried to do, I have no just cause to grieve.

_Young S._ What idol has displaced you?

_Belle._ A golden one.

_Young S._ This is the even-handed dealing of the world. There is nothing on which it is so hard as poverty; and there is nothing it professes to condemn with such severity, as the pursuit of wealth.

_Belle._ You fear the world too much. All your other hopes have merged into the hope of being beyond the chance of its sordid reproach. I have seen your nobler aspirations fall off one by one, until the master passion _gain_, engrosses you. Have I not?

_Young S._ What then? Even if I have grown so much wiser, what then? I am not changed toward you, (_She shakes her head._) Am I?

_Belle._ Our contract is an old one. It was made when we were both poor and content to be so, until in good season, we could improve our worldly fortune by our patient industry. You _are_ changed. When it was made you were another man.

_Young S._ I was a boy.

_Belle._ Your own feeling tells you that you were not what you are. I am. That which promised happiness when we were one in heart is fraught with misery now that we are two. How often and how keenly I have thought of this, I will not say. It is enough that I _have_ thought of it, and can release you.

_Young S._ Have I ever sought release?

_Belle._ In words; no, never.

_Young S._ In what, then?

_Belle._ In a changed nature; in an altered spirit; in another atmosphere of life; another hope as to its great end. In everything that made my love of any worth or value in your sight. If this had never been between us, tell me, would you seek me out and try to win me now? Ah, no!

_Young S._ You think not?

_Belle._ I would gladly think otherwise, if I could; Heaven knows. When I have learned a truth like this, I know how strong and irresistible it must be. But if you were free to-day, to-morrow, yesterday, can even I believe that you would choose a dowerless girl--you, who, in your very confidence with her, weigh everything by gain; or choosing her, if for a moment you were false enough to your one guiding principle to do so, do I not know that your repentance and regret would surely follow? I do; and I release you, with a full heart, for the love of him you once were. (_He is about to speak, but with her head turned from him she resumes._) You may--the memory of what is past half makes me hope you will--have pain in this. A very, very brief time, and you will dismiss the recollection of it, gladly, as an unprofitable dream, from which it happened well that you awoke. May you be happy in the life you have chosen. Fare well. [_Exit._]

_Young S._ (_Following_) Belle, Belle! Hear me. Let me explain. [_Exit._]

[_Scene Closes._]

_Scro._ Spirit, show me no more! Conduct me home. Why do you delight to torture me?

_Spir._ O, mortal, what a treasure didst thou cast away. She, whom you resigned for paltry gold, became the happy wife of your former schoolmate, Kemper. One shadow more. Behold now the tender mother of smiling children, in their joyous home--a home that might have been your own.

_Scro._ No more! no more! I don't wish to see it.

_Spir._ Behold. (_Waves Wand._)