Christmas Hours

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1858. Excerpt: ... CHRISTMAS DAY. rpHE short, winter afternoon drew near its close, and the streets of the city were thronged with an eager, busy multitude, all hastening on their different ways, as if there were yet much for them to accomplish, ere the last rays of the setting sun should quite disappear, and darkness compel them to seek their various homes, or places of evening resort. Groups of children hurried to and fro, laden with bundles and boxes, as if there were some matter of special interest in anticipation; express wagons were unusually laden; toy shops presented a most tempting display to youthful eyes, and too often, alas! to empty purses; music stores displayed their choicest selection of melodies; the windows of the grocers were filled with oranges, figs, nuts, pears, grapes, and every thing that could tempt the eye or the appetite of the passer by. The feeble old woman who had stood all day at the public corner behind her little stall, selling now and then an apple or a cake of gingerbread to some hungry school-boy, now drew her faded cloak closer around her, and gathering up her fruits and cakes, prepared to return to her small, dark room, where her little crippled grandchild patiently awaited her arrival. The windows of the book-stores were filled with volumes of every size and binding, from the brightcolored picture-book for the youngest pet of the household, to the rich and chaste volumes suitable as choice gifts for grandmother or aunt, on the approaching Christmas. But amid all the rich displays of toys and confectionery, of silks and of laces, of books and of pictures, which filled the windows of every shop, and attracted many a.longing eye, there was one, around which a dense and constantly changing group was gathered, where old and young, rich and ...