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There is probably a smell of rasted chestnuts and other good comfortable things all the time, for we are telling Winter Stories-- Ghost Stories, or more shame for us--round the Christmas fire; and we have never stirred, except to draw a little nearer to it. ut, no matter for that. We came to the house, and it is an old house, full of great chimneys where wood is burnt on ancient dogs pon the hearth, and grim portraits (some of them with grim legends, too) lower distrustfully from the oaken panels of the walls. e are a middle-aged nobleman, and we make a generous supper with our host and hostess and their guests--it being hristmas-ime, and the old house full of company--and then we go to bed. Our room is a very old room. It is hung with tapestry. We don't ike the portrait of a cavalier in green, over the fireplace. There are great black beams in the ceiling, and there is a great black edstead, supported at the foot by two great black figures, who seem to have come off a couple of tombs in the old baronial hurch in the park, for our particular accommodation. But, we are not a superstitious nobleman, and we don't mind. Well! we ismiss our servant, lock the door, and sit before the fire in our dressing-gown, musing about a great many things.
From " A Christmas Tree" by Charles Dickens
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