"OF HUMAN BONDAGE" - читать интересную книгу автора (Maugham W. Somerset)

"Am I to come home?" he asked. "Yes, I've come to fetch you."

"You've got a new dress on."

It was in eighteen-eighty-five, and she wore a bustle. Her gown
was of black velvet, with tight sleeves and sloping shoulders,
and the skirt had three large flounces. She wore a black bonnet
with velvet strings. She hesitated. The question she had
expected did not come, and so she could not give the answer she
had prepared.

"Aren't you going to ask how your mamma is?" she said at length.

"Oh, I forgot. How is mamma?"

Now she was ready.

"Your mamma is quite well and happy."

"Oh, I am glad."

"Your mamma's gone away. You won't ever see her any more."
Philip did not know what she meant.

"Why not?"

"Your mamma's in heaven."

She began to cry, and Philip, though he did not quite under-
stand, cried too. Emma was a tall, big-boned woman, with fair
hair and large features. She came from Devonshire and,
notwithstanding her many years of service in London, had never
lost the breadth of her accent. Her tears increased her emotion,
and she pressed the little boy to her heart. She felt vaguely
the pity of that child deprived of the only love in the world
that is quite unselfish. It seemed dreadful that he must be
handed over to strangers. But in a little while she pulled
herself together.

"Your Uncle William is waiting in to see you," she said. "Go and
say good-bye to Miss Watkin, and we'll go home."

"I don't want to say good-bye," he answered, instinctively
anxious to hide his tears.

"Very well, run upstairs and get your hat."

He fetched it, and when he came down Emma was waiting for him in
the hall. He heard the sound of voices in the study behind the