The Battle of Life | Page 6

need we
talk of him at all, just now!'
It was agreeable to see the graceful figures of the blooming sisters, twined together,
lingering among the trees, conversing thus, with earnestness opposed to lightness, yet,
with love responding tenderly to love. And it was very curious indeed to see the younger
sister's eyes suffused with tears, and something fervently and deeply felt, breaking
through the wilfulness of what she said, and striving with it painfully.
The difference between them, in respect of age, could not exceed four years at most; but
Grace, as often happens in such cases, when no mother watches over both (the Doctor's
wife was dead), seemed, in her gentle care of her young sister, and in the steadiness of
her devotion to her, older than she was; and more removed, in course of nature, from all
competition with her, or participation, otherwise than through her sympathy and true
affection, in her wayward fancies, than their ages seemed to warrant. Great character of
mother, that, even in this shadow and faint reflection of it, purifies the heart, and raises
the exalted nature nearer to the angels!
The Doctor's reflections, as he looked after them, and heard the purport of their discourse,
were limited at first to certain merry meditations on the folly of all loves and likings, and
the idle imposition practised on themselves by young people, who believed for a moment,
that there could be anything serious in such bubbles, and were always undeceived -
always!
But, the home-adorning, self-denying qualities of Grace, and her sweet temper, so gentle
and retiring, yet including so much constancy and bravery of spirit, seemed all expressed
to him in the contrast between her quiet household figure and that of his younger and
more beautiful child; and he was sorry for her sake - sorry for them both - that life should
be such a very ridiculous business as it was.
The Doctor never dreamed of inquiring whether his children, or either of them, helped in
any way to make the scheme a serious one. But then he was a Philosopher.
A kind and generous man by nature, he had stumbled, by chance, over that common
Philosopher's stone (much more easily discovered than the object of the alchemist's
researches), which sometimes trips up kind and generous men, and has the fatal property
of turning gold to dross and every precious thing to poor account.
'Britain!' cried the Doctor. 'Britain! Holloa!'

A small man, with an uncommonly sour and discontented face, emerged from the house,
and returned to this call the unceremonious acknowledgment of 'Now then!'
'Where's the breakfast table?' said the Doctor.
'In the house,' returned Britain.
'Are you going to spread it out here, as you were told last night?' said the Doctor. 'Don't
you know that there are gentlemen coming? That there's business to be done this morning,
before the coach comes by? That this is a very particular occasion?'
'I couldn't do anything, Dr. Jeddler, till the women had done getting in the apples, could
I?' said Britain, his voice rising with his reasoning, so that it was very loud at last.
'Well, have they done now?' replied the Doctor, looking at his watch, and clapping his
hands. 'Come! make haste! where's Clemency?'
'Here am I, Mister,' said a voice from one of the ladders, which a pair of clumsy feet
descended briskly. 'It's all done now. Clear away, gals. Everything shall be ready for you
in half a minute, Mister.'
With that she began to bustle about most vigorously; presenting, as she did so, an
appearance sufficiently peculiar to justify a word of introduction.
She was about thirty years old, and had a sufficiently plump and cheerful face, though it
was twisted up into an odd expression of tightness that made it comical. But, the
extraordinary homeliness of her gait and manner, would have superseded any face in the
world. To say that she had two left legs, and somebody else's arms, and that all four limbs
seemed to be out of joint, and to start from perfectly wrong places when they were set in
motion, is to offer the mildest outline of the reality. To say that she was perfectly content
and satisfied with these arrangements, and regarded them as being no business of hers,
and that she took her arms and legs as they came, and allowed them to dispose of
themselves just as it happened, is to render faint justice to her equanimity. Her dress was
a prodigious pair of self-willed shoes, that never wanted to go where her feet went; blue
stockings; a printed gown of many colours, and the most hideous pattern procurable for
money; and a white apron. She always wore short sleeves, and always had, by some
accident, grazed elbows,