Page 300 - david-copperfield

bed is ready, we’ll take him up to it.’
Janet reporting it to be quite ready, I was taken up to it;
kindly, but in some sort like a prisoner; my aunt going in
front and Janet bringing up the rear. The only circumstance
which gave me any new hope, was my aunt’s stopping on
the stairs to inquire about a smell of fire that was preva-
lent there; and janet’s replying that she had been making
tinder down in the kitchen, of my old shirt. But there were
no other clothes in my room than the odd heap of things
I wore; and when I was left there, with a little taper which
my aunt forewarned me would burn exactly five minutes,
I heard them lock my door on the outside. Turning these
things over in my mind I deemed it possible that my aunt,
who could know nothing of me, might suspect I had a habit
of running away, and took precautions, on that account, to
have me in safe keeping.
The room was a pleasant one, at the top of the house, over-
looking the sea, on which the moon was shining brilliantly.
After I had said my prayers, and the candle had burnt out,
I remember how I still sat looking at the moonlight on the
water, as if I could hope to read my fortune in it, as in a
bright book; or to see my mother with her child, coming
from Heaven, along that shining path, to look upon me as
she had looked when I last saw her sweet face. I remem-
ber how the solemn feeling with which at length I turned
my eyes away, yielded to the sensation of gratitude and rest
which the sight of the white-curtained bed - and how much
more the lying softly down upon it, nestling in the snow-
white sheets! - inspired. I remember how I thought of all the