Summary Chapter 3
Sensing that her life is deprived of a happiness granted other children (her birthday is never celebrated), Esther Summerson, who has never known her parents, asks her godmother whether her mother had died while giving birth to her. Despite Esther's anguish, the godmother refuses to answer the child and assures her that she will know everything that there is to know in due time. One day, Esther is summoned by her godmother who is entertaining a guest, a portly pleasant-looking gentleman dressed all in black. Esther is asked to remove her bonnet so that the gentleman may have a good look at her. Esther obliges. She is then dismissed. Two years later, when Esther is about 14 years old, Esther is reading aloud from the Bible when Esther's godmother suddenly collapses on account of the Bible
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