lesser
recollections, and to exist alone.

It is even difficult for me to believe there was a gap of full two
months between my return to Salem House and the arrival of that
birthday. I can only understand that the fact was so, because I know it
must have been so; otherwise I should feel convinced there was no
interval, and that the one occasion trod upon the other's heels.

How well I recollect the kind of day it was! I smell the fog that hung
about the place; I see the hoar-frost ghostly, through it; I feel my
rimy hair fall clammy on my cheek; I look along the dim perspective of
the schoolroom, with a spluttering candle here and there to light up the
foggy morning, and the breath of the boys wreathing and smoking in the
raw cold as they blow upon their fingers, and tap their feet upon the
floor.

It was after breakfast, and we had been summoned in from the playground,
when Mr. Sharp entered and said, "David Copperfield is to go into the
parlor."

I expected a hamper from home, and brightened at the order. Some of the
boys about me put in their claim not to be forgotten in the distribution
of the good things, as I got out of my seat with great alacrity.

"Don't hurry, David," said Mr. Sharp. "There's time enough, my boy,
don't hurry."

I might have been surprised by the feeling tone in which he spoke, if I
had given it a thought; but I gave it none until afterward. I hurried
away to the parlor; and there I found Mr. Creakle, sitting at his
breakfast with the cane and newspaper before him, and Mrs. Creakle with
an opened letter in her hand. But no hamper.

"David Copperfield," said Mrs. Creakle, leading me to a sofa, and
sitting down beside me, "I want to speak to you very particularly. I
have something to tell you, my child."

Mr. Creakle, at whom of course I looked, shook his head without looking
at me, and stopped up a sigh with a very large piece of buttered toast.

"You are too young to know how the world changes every day," said Mrs.
Creakle, "and how the people in it pass away. But we all have to learn
it, David; some of us when we are young, some of us when we are old,
some of us at all times of our lives."

I looked at her earnestly.

"When you came away from home at the end of the vacation," said Mrs.
Creakle, after a pause, "were they all well?" After another pause, "Was
your mamma well?"

I trembled without distinctly knowing why, and still looked at her
earnestly, making no attempt to answ