Oliver Twist-CHAPTER XXIV Đây là một tác phẩm anh ngữ dành cho trẻ em nổi tiếng của nhà văn Charles Dicken với những từ vựng quen thuộc. Nhằm giúp các em và các bạn yêu thich tiếng anh luyện tập và củng cố thêm kỹ năng đọc tiếng anh . | Oliver Twist Charles Dickens CHAPTER XXIV TREATS ON A VERY POOR SUBJECT. BUT IS A SHORT ONE AND MAY BE FOUND OF IMPORTANCE IN THIS HISTORY It was no unfit messanger of death who had disturbed the quiet of the matron s room. Her body was bent by age her limbs trembled with palsy her face distorted into a mumbling leer resembled more the grotesque shaping of some wild pencil than the work of Nature s hand. Alas How few of Nature s faces are left alone to gladden us with their beauty The cares and sorrows and hungerings of the world change them as they change hearts and it is only when those passions sleep and have lost their hold for ever that the troubled clouds pass off and leave Heaven s surface clear. It is a common thing for the countenances of the dead even in that fixed and rigid state to subside into the long-forgotten expression of sleeping infancy and settle into the very look of early life so calm so peaceful do they grow again that those who knew them in their happy childhood kneel by the coffin s side in awe and see the Angel even upon earth. The old crone tottered alone the passages and up the stairs muttering some indistinct answers to the chidings of her companion being at length compelled to pause for breath she gave the light into her hand and remained behind to follow as she might while the more nimble superior made her way to the room where the sick woman lay. It was a bare garret-room with a dim light burning at the farther end. There was another old woman watching by the bed the parish apothecary s apprentice was standing by the fire making a toothpick out of a quill. Cold night Mrs. Corney said this young gentleman as the matron entered. Very cold indeed sir replied the mistress in her most civil tones and dropping a curtsey as she spoke. You should get better coals out of your contractors said the apothecary s deputy breaking a lump on the top of the fire with the rusty poker these are not at all the sort of thing for a cold night. They re the
