"And how did little Tim behave [in church]?" asked Mrs. Cratchit, when she rallied Bob on his credulity and Bob had hugged his daughter to his heart's content.
"As good as gold," said Bob, "and better. Somehow he gets thoughtful, sitting by himself so much, and thinks the strangest things you ever heard. He told me, coming home, that he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember upon Christmas Day, who made lame beggars walk and blind men see [Jesus]."
Then Bob proposed:
"A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us!
Which all the family re-echoed.
"God bless us every one!" said Tiny Tim, the last of all.
--Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol (London: Chapman & Hall, 1843), 91, 95.
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