? ? ? ? I trembled without distinctly knowing why, and still looked at her earnestly, making no attempt to answer.
? ? ? ? 'Because,' said she, 'I grieve to tell you that I hear this morning your mama is very ill.'
? ? ? ? A mist rose between Mrs. Creakle and me, and her figure seemed to move in it for an instant. Then I felt the burning tears run down my face, and it was steady again.
? ? ? ? 'She is very dangerously ill,' she added.
? ? ? ? I knew all now.
? ? ? ? 'She is dead.'
? ? ? ? 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.
? ? ? ? She was very kind to me. She kept me there all day, and left me alone sometimes; and I cried, and wore myself to sleep, and awoke and cried again. When I could cry no more, I began to think; and then the oppression on my breast was heaviest, and my grief a dull pain that there was no ease for.
? ? ? ? And yet my thoughts were idle; not intent on the calamity that weighed upon my heart, but idly loitering near it. I thought of our house shut up and hushed. I thought of the little baby, who, Mrs. Creakle said, had been pining away for some time, and who, they believed, would die too.
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