smiled. She was always grave and

strict. She was so very good herself, I

thought, that the badness of other people made her frown all her life. I

felt so different from her, even making every allowance for the

differences between a child and a woman; I felt so poor, so trifling, and

so far off that I never could be unrestrained with her—no, could never

even love her as I wished. It made me very sorry to consider how good

she was and how unworthy of her I was, and I used ardently to hope that

I might have a better heart; and I talked it over very often with the dear

old doll, but I never loved my godmother as I ought to have loved her

and as I felt I must have loved her if I had been a better girl.

This made me, I dare say, more timid and retiring than I naturally

was and cast me upon Dolly as the only friend with whom I felt at ease.

But something happened when I was still quite a little thing that helped

it very much.

I had never heard my mama spoken of. I had never heard of my papa

either, but I felt more interested about my mama. I had never worn a

black frock, that I could recollect. I had never been shown my mama’s

grave. I had never been told where it was. Yet I had never been taught to

pray for any relation but my godmother. I had more than once

approached this subject of my thoughts with Mrs. Rachael, our only

servant, who took my light away when I was in bed (another very good

woman, but austere to me), and she had only said, Esther, good night!” ‟

and gone away and left me.

Although there were seven girls at the neighbouring school where I

was a day boarder, and although they called me little Esther Summerson,

I knew none of them at home. All of them were older than I, to be sure (I

was the youngest there by a good deal), but there seemed to be some

other separation between us besides that, and besides their being far

more clever than I was and knowing much more than I did. One of them

in the first week of my going to the school (I remember it very well)

invited me home to a little party, to my great joy. But my godmother

wrote a stiff letter declining for me, and I never went. I never went out at

all.

It was my birthday. There were holidays at school on other birthdays

—none on mine. There were rejoicings at home on other birthdays, as I

knew from what I heard the girls relate to one another—there were none

on mine. My birthday was the most melancholy day at home in the

whole year.

I have mentioned that unless my vanity should deceive me (as I know

it may, for I may be very vain without suspecting it, though indeed I

don’t), my comprehension is quickened when my affection is. My

disposition is very affectionate, and perhaps I might still feel such a

wound if such a wound could be received more than once with the

quickness of that birthday.

Dinner was over, and my godmother and I were sitting at the table

before the fire. The clock ticked, the fire clicked; not another sound had

been heard in the room or in the house for I don’t know how long. I

happened to look timidly up from my stitching, across the table at my

godmother, and I saw in her face, looking gloomily at me, It would have ‟

been far better, little Esther, that you had had no birthday, that you had

never been born!”

I broke out crying and sobbing, and I said, Oh, dear godmother, tell ‟

me, pray do tell me, did Mama die on my birthday?”

No,” she returned. Ask me no more, child!” ‟ ‟

‟Oh, do pray tell me something of her. Do now, at last, dear

godmother, if you please! What did I do to her? How did I lose her? Why

am I so different from other children, and why is it my fault, dear

godmother? No, no, no, don’t go away. Oh, speak to me!”

I was in a kind of fright beyond my grief, and I caught hold of her

dress and was kneeling to her. She had been saying all the while, Let me ‟

go!” But now she stood still.

Her darkened face had such power over me that it stopped me in the