Mobbs moved slowly towards the desk, rubbing his eyes in anticipation of good cause for doing so; and he soon afterwards retired, with as good cause as a boy need have. This business dispatched, a few slovenly lessons were performed, and Squeers retired to his fireside, leaving Nicholas to take care of the boys in the school-room which was very cold, and where a meal of bread was served out shortly after dark. There was a small stove at that corner of the room which was nearest the master's desk, and by it Nicholas sat down, depressed and self-degraded. As he was absorbed in his meditations, he all at once encountered the upturned face of Smike, who was on his knees before the stove, picking a few stray cinders from the hearth and planting them on the fire. He had paused to steal a look at Nicholas, and when he saw that he was observed, shrank back, as if expecting a blow. "You need not fear me. Are you cold?" "N-n-o." "You are shivering." "I'm not cold. I'm used to it." There was such an obvious fear of giving offense in his manner, and he was such a timid, broken-spirited creature, that Nicholas could not help exclaiming, "Poor fellow!" "Oh dear, oh dear! my heart will break. It will, it will!" said Smike. "Hush! Be a man; you are nearly one by years. God help you!" "By years! Oh dear, dear, how many of them! How many of them since I was a little child, younger than any that are here now! Where are they all?" "Of whom do you speak? Tell me." "My friends, myself--my--oh! what sufferings mine have been!" "There is always hope." "No, no; none for me. Do you remember the boy that died here?" "I was not here, you know." "Why, I was with him at night, and when it was all silent, he cried no more for friends he wished to come and sit with him, but began to see faces round his bed that came from home. He said they smiled, and talked to him; and he died at last lifting his head to kiss them. Do you hear?" "Yes, yes," rejoined Nicholas. "What faces will smile on me when I die? Who will talk to me in those long nights? They cannot come from home; they would frighten me if they did, for I shouldn't know them. Pain and fear, pain and fear for me, alive or dead. No hope, no hope!" The bell rang to bed; and the boy, subsiding at the sound into his usual listless state, crept away as if anxious to avoid notice. It was with a heavy heart that Nicholas soon afterwards--no, not retired, there was no retirement there--followed to his dirty and crowded dormitory. FOOTNOTE: [13] Adapted by E. P. Trueblood from "Nicholas Nickleby." THE SECRET OF DEATH EDWIN ARNOLD "She is dead!" they said to him; "come away; Kiss her and leave her,--thy love is clay!" They smoothed her tresses of dark-brown hair; On her forehead of stone they laid it fair; Over her eyes, that gazed too much, They drew the lids with a gentle touch;