me we must part, and told me
why; and we condoled with one another, in all sincerity.

As to me or my future, not a word was said, or a step taken. Happy
they would have been, I dare say, if they could have dismissed me at a
month's warning too. I mustered courage once, to ask Miss Murdstone when
I was going back to school; and she answered dryly, she believed I was
not going back at all. I was told nothing more. I was very anxious to
know what was going to be done with me, and so was Peggotty; but neither
she nor I could pick up any information on the subject.

There was one change in my condition, which, while it relieved me of
a great deal of present uneasiness, might have made me, if I had been
capable of considering it closely, yet more uncomfortable about the
future. It was this. The constraint that had been put upon me, was quite
abandoned. I was so far from being required to keep my dull post in
the parlour, that on several occasions, when I took my seat there, Miss
Murdstone frowned to me to go away. I was so far from being warned off
from Peggotty's society, that, provided I was not in Mr. Murdstone's, I
was never sought out or inquired for. At first I was in daily dread of
his taking my education in hand again, or of Miss Murdstone's
devoting herself to it; but I soon began to think that such fears were
groundless, and that all I had to anticipate was neglect.

I do not conceive that this discovery gave me much pain then. I was
still giddy with the shock of my mother's death, and in a kind of
stunned state as to all tributary things. I can recollect, indeed, to
have speculated, at odd times, on the possibility of my not being taught
any more, or cared for any more; and growing up to be a shabby, moody
man, lounging an idle life away, about the village; as well as on the
feasibility of my getting rid of this picture by going away somewhere,
like the hero in a story, to seek my fortune: but these were transient
visions, daydreams I sat looking at sometimes, as if they were faintly
painted or written on the wall of my room, and which, as they melted
away, left the wall blank again.

'Peggotty,' I said in a thoughtful whisper, one evening, when I was
warming my hands at the kitchen fire, 'Mr. Murdstone likes me less than
he used to. He never liked me much, Peggotty; but he would rather not
even see me now, if he can help it.'

'Perhaps it's his sorrow,' said Peggotty, stroking my hair.

'I am sure, Peggott