Tom Tiddler's Ground, by Charles Dickens

Some Christmas Stories, by Charles Dickens

The Seven Poor Travellers, by Charles Dickens

Mugby Junction, by Charles Dickens

Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings, by Charles Dickens

Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy, by Charles Dickens

A Message from the Sea, by Charles Dickens

THE HOLLY-TREE--THREE BRANCHES

FIRST BRANCH--MYSELF

I have kept one secret in the course of my life. I am a bashful man. Nobody would suppose it, nobody ever does suppose it, nobody ever did suppose it, but I am naturally a bashful man. This is the secret which I have never breathed until now.

I might greatly move the reader by some account of the innumerable places I have not been to, the innumerable people I have not called upon or received, the innumerable social evasions I have been guilty of, solely because I am by original constitution and character a bashful man. But I will leave the reader unmoved, and proceed with the object before me.

Doctor Marigold, by Charles Dickens

I am a Cheap Jack, and my own father's name was Willum Marigold. It was in his lifetime supposed by some that his name was William, but my own father always consistently said, No, it was Willum. On which point I content myself with looking at the argument this way: If a man is not allowed to know his own name in a free country, how much is he allowed to know in a land of slavery? As to looking at the argument through the medium of the Register, Willum Marigold come into the world before Registers come up much,--and went out of it too. They wouldn't have been greatly in his line neither, if they had chanced to come up before him.

The Cricket on the Hearth, by Charles Dickens