Bertha's Christmas Vision: An Autumn Sheaf (Ebook)

Of all the houses which Martin Kendrick owned, he used the oldest and meanest for his own habitation. It was an old tumble-down building, on a narrow street, which had already lived out more than its appointed term of service, and was no longer fit to “cumber the ground.” But the owner still clung to it, the more, perhaps, because, as it stood there in its desolation, unsightly and weather-beaten, it was no unfit emblem of himself.

Martin the miser! Years of voluntary privation, such as in most cases follow only in the train of the most extreme penury, had given him a claim to the appellation. It might be somewhat inconsistent with his natural character, that, with the exception of the one room which he occupied, the remainder of the large house was left tenantless. After all, it was not so difficult to account for. He could not bear the idea of having immediate neighbors. Who knows but they might seize the opportunity afforded by his absence, and rob him of the gains of many years, which, distrusting banks and other places of deposit, he kept in a strong box under his own immediate charge?