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Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens
page 99 of 1240 (07%)
an angry glance by turns at Alice and the eldest sister. "Stay, and
hear from me what these recollections are, which you would cherish above
eternity, and awaken--if in mercy they slumbered--by means of idle toys.
The memory of earthly things is charged, in after life, with bitter
disappointment, affliction, death; with dreary change and wasting
sorrow. The time will one day come, when a glance at those unmeaning
baubles will tear open deep wounds in the hearts of some among you, and
strike to your inmost souls. When that hour arrives--and, mark me, come
it will--turn from the world to which you clung, to the refuge which you
spurned. Find me the cell which shall be colder than the fire of mortals
grows, when dimmed by calamity and trial, and there weep for the dreams
of youth. These things are Heaven's will, not mine," said the friar,
subduing his voice as he looked round upon the shrinking girls. "The
Virgin's blessing be upon you, daughters!"

'With these words he disappeared through the postern; and the sisters
hastening into the house were seen no more that day.

'But nature will smile though priests may frown, and next day the
sun shone brightly, and on the next, and the next again. And in the
morning's glare, and the evening's soft repose, the five sisters still
walked, or worked, or beguiled the time by cheerful conversation, in
their quiet orchard.

'Time passed away as a tale that is told; faster indeed than many tales
that are told, of which number I fear this may be one. The house of the
five sisters stood where it did, and the same trees cast their pleasant
shade upon the orchard grass. The sisters too were there, and lovely as
at first, but a change had come over their dwelling. Sometimes, there
was the clash of armour, and the gleaming of the moon on caps of steel;
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