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shining face as she said this, her skin so pale and her eyes so bright! It is my weakness, I know, but I cannot help it. But there! I have composed myself again now, and can go on with my story.
    It seems to me now that I had very little time with my mother, after this. I remember strange women in the house I had never seen before, and the sound of cries that seemed to go on through a whole night and the following day. The women looked at each other when they thought I could not see, and one of them took something away wrapped in a coverlet that I never saw again. It was that day, I think, that one of the women clasped me by the hand and led me upstairs to my bedroom under the eaves, bidding me to be as quiet as a little mouse, and give my mother no further cause for distress. I was terrified to think that anything I had done could have brought about such turmoil and wretchedness, and lay awake the whole night pondering all my petty and unconfessed misdemeanours, which now lay as heavy on my soul as mortal sins.
    I do not remember how long this went on – ages and ages it seemed to me then. Days of whispering and bewilderment, and the women casting such stern looks upon me that I knew all this misery was indeed my own fault, and I deserved no better.
    â€˜Where is Mother?’ I asked at last in my childish way. ‘Why does she not let me see her?’
    â€˜Your mother is in a Better Place,’ said one of the women, pronouncing the words in so serious and awful a tone that I was quite overwhelmed. I could not understand why mymother should have gone on a journey and left me behind, or how anywhere could be better or happier than our own little home that she loved so much. The woman was one of our neighbours and not, I think, unkind, and seeing my eyes fill with tears she drew me on her knee and explained as best she could that my mother had gone before me to Heaven, and if I was good, and dutiful, and said my prayers every day, and went to church every Sunday, I might hope to meet her in the Hereafter. I did not know if this was the Better Place she had spoken of; but I did comprehend – albeit dimly – that I was not to see my mother again, not for many and many a year, and that all that waste of empty time must be filled with good deeds, and good works, and self-sacrifice. I wept alone in my little bed that night, and for many a night after that, gripping my Dolly tight in my arms and wondering what was to become of me. It was a long time indeed before I was able to quiet my sobs by recalling what Mrs Millard had said, and telling myself firmly that this was no way to be going on. ‘Hester,’ I would say to myself, ‘this will not do! Duty and diligence are to be your lot, and it is through duty and diligence that you will see your mother again.’
    They put me in a black frock and sent me for some days to lodge with our neighbour and her husband, a big, close-lipped religious man who looked grimly upon me, and quoted verses from the Bible as if they applied chiefly and particularly to me. ‘ You shall not bow yourself down to them, nor serve them,’ he would intone in his booming voice. ‘ For I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the sons to the third and fourth generation .’
    My mother had read from the Gospels many times, telling me stories about our Saviour, and talking to me always of God’s love for his children, so I hardly knew what to make of thedour and vengeful Jehovah Mr Millard talked of. All I did know was that I was very sinful, and very wicked, and very much in the way.
    One dark and rainy afternoon I came home from school with my books and satchel, hoping, if possible, to slip upstairs before Mr Millard saw me, but his wife had clearly been looking out for my return, and came towards me as soon as I closed the door behind me. She took me by the hand and led me into the best parlour – a room I was never