But , from the time of her recoveryrecoveryto the date of her letter to your Ladyship , I had never heard that she manifested any desire to be made acquainted with the circumstances which attended the deathdeathof Lady Belmont , and the birthbirthof her helpless child .
Always to be presented with the date of her own birthbirthand see no marriage follow but that of a youngest sister , made the book an evil ; and more than once , when her father had left it open on the table near her , had she closed it , with averted eyes , and pushed it away .
In consideration of the day and hour of my birthbirth, it was declareddeclareby the nurse , and by some sage women in the neighbourhood who had taken a lively interest in me several months before there was any possibility of our becoming personally acquainted , first , that I was destined to be unlucky in life ; and secondly , that I was privileged to see ghosts and spirits ; both these gifts inevitably attaching , as they believed , to all unlucky infants of either gender , born towards the small hours on a Friday night .
I dare not hesitate at a request from Mrs. Mirvan ; yet , in complyingcomplywith it , I shall , for her own sake , be as concise as I possibly can ; since the cruel transactions which preceded the birthbirthof my ward can afford no entertainment to a mind so humane as her 's .
CHAPTER I TREATS OF THE PLACE WHERE OLIVER TWIST WAS BORNbearAND OF THE CIRCUMSTANCES ATTENDING HIS BIRTHbirthAmong other public buildings in a certain town , which for many reasons it will be prudent to refrain from mentioning , and to which I will assign no fictitious name , there is one anciently common to most towns , great or small : to wit , a workhouse ; and in this workhouse was born ; on a day and date which I need not trouble myself to repeat , inasmuch as it can be of no possible consequence to the reader , in this stage of the business at all events ; the item of mortality whose name is prefixed to the head of this chapter .
Yet her sufferings were too acute for her slender frame ; and the same moment that gave birthbirthto her infant , put an endendat once to the sorrows and the life of its mother .
BOOK I. CONTAINING AS MUCH OF THE BIRTHbirthOF THE FOUNDLING AS IS NECESSARY OR PROPER TO ACQUAINT THE READER WITH IN THE BEGINNING OF THIS HISTORY .
Precisely such had the paragraph originally stood from the printer 's hands ; but Sir Walter had improvedimproveit by addingadd, for the information of himself and his family , these words , after the date of Mary 's birthbirth-- " Marriedmarry, December 16 , 1810 , Charles , son and heir of Charles Musgrove , Esq. of Uppercross , in the county of Somerset , " and by insertinginsertmost accurately the day of the month on which he had lostlosehis wife .