I looked
back, and she stood at the garden-gate, looking intently at me.
So I lost her. So I saw her afterwards, in my sleep at school,--a silent
presence near my bed--looking at me with the same intent face,--and the
vision is still a constant blessing to me.
From then I pass over all that happened at Salem House until my birthday
in March. On the morning of that day I was summoned into Mr. Creakle's
august presence. Mrs. Creakle was in the room too, and somehow they broke
it to me that my mother was very ill. I knew all now!
"She is dead," they said.
There was no need to tell me so. I had already broken out into a desolate
cry, and felt an orphan in the wide world. If ever child were stricken
with sincere grief, I was. But I remember even so, that my sorrow was a
kind of satisfaction to me, when I walked in the playground, while the
boys were in school, and saw them glancing at me out of the windows, and
because of my grief I felt distinguished, and of vast importance. We had
no story-telling that night, and Traddles insisted on lending me his
pillow as a guarantee of his sympathy, which I understood and accepted.
I left Salem House upon noon the next day, stopping in Yarmouth to be
measured for my suit of black.
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