Dickens's Christmas Books - complete online versions

The Christmas Carol, The Chimes, Cricket On the Hearth, Battle Of Life
& The Haunted Man & the Ghosts's Bargain with Illustrations.

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THE BATTLE OF LIFE.                                  265
its responsibilities; and Alfred, taking it on himself, was fairly started on the journey of life.
" Britain ! " said the Doctor. " Run to the gate, and watch for the coach. Time flies, Alfred ! "
" Yes, Sir, yes," returned the young man, hurriedly. " Dear Grace ! a moment! Marion—so young and beautiful, so winning and so much admired, dear to my heart as nothing else in life is— remember! I leave Marion to you ! "
" She has always been a sacred charge to me, Alfred. She is doubly so now. I will be faithful to my trust, believe me."
"I do believe it, Grace. I know it well. Who could look upon your face, and hear your earnest voice, and not know it! Ah, good Grace ! If I had your well-governed heart, and tranquil mind, how bravely I would leave this place to-day ! "
" Would you ?" she answered, with a quiet smile.
" And yet, Grace—Sister, seems the natural word."
" LTse it! " she said quickly. " I am glad to hear it, call me nothing else."
"And yet, Sister, then," said Alfred, "Marion and I had better have your true and steadfast qualities serving us here, and making us both happier and better. I wouldn't carry them away, to sustain myself, if I could !"
" Coach upon the hill-top !" exclaimed Britain.
"Time flies, Alfred," said the Doctor.
Marion had stood apart, with her eyes fixed upon the ground; but this warning being given, her young lover brought her tenderly to where her sister stood, and gave her into her embrace.
" I have been telling Grace, dear Marion," he said, " that you are her charge ; my precious trust at parting. And when I come back and reclaim you, dearest, and the bright prospect of our married life lies stretched before us, it shall be one of our chief pleasures to consult how we can make Grace happy; how we can anticipate her wishes ; how we can show our gratitude and love to her; how we can return her something of the debt she will have heaped upon us."
The younger sister had one hand in his; the other rested on her sister's neck. She looked into that sister's eyes, so calm, serene, and cheerful, with a gaze in which affection, admiration, sorrow, wonder, almost veneration were blended. She looked into that sister's face, as if it were the face of some bright angeL Calm, serene, and cheerful, it looked back on her and on her lover.
"And when the time comes, as it must one day," said Alfred, ■—"I wonder it has never come yet: but Grace knows best, for
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