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LITTLE LORD FAUNTLEROY (Part 2)

CHAPTER VIII

Lord Dorincourt had occasion to wear his grim smile many a time as the days passed by. Indeed, as his acquaintance with his grandson progressed, he wore the smile so often that there were moments when it almost lost its grimness. There is no denying that before Lord Fauntleroy had appeared on the scene, the old man had been growing very tired of his loneliness and his gout and his seventy years. After so long a life of excitement and amusement, it was not agreeable to sit alone even in the most splendid room, with one foot on a gout-stool, and with no other diversion than flying into a rage, and shouting at a frightened footman who hated the sight of him. The old Earl was too clever a man not to know perfectly well that his servants detested him, and that even if he had visitors, they did not come for love of him—though some found a sort of amusement in his sharp, sarcastic talk, which spared no one. So long as he had been strong and well, he had gone from one place to another, pretending to amuse himself, though he had not really enjoyed it; and when his health began to fail, he felt tired of everything and shut himself up at Dorincourt, with his gout and his newspapers and his books. But he could not read all the time, and he became more and more “bored,” as he called it. He hated the long nights and days, and he grew more and more savage and irritable. And then Fauntleroy came; and when the Earl saw him, fortunately for the little fellow, the secret pride of the grandfather was gratified at the outset. If Cedric had been a less handsome little fellow, the old man might have taken so strong a dislike to him that he would not have given himself the chance to see his grandson’s finer qualities. But he chose to think that Cedric’s beauty and fearless spirit were the results of the Dorincourt blood and a credit to the Dorincourt rank. And then when he heard the lad talk, and saw what a well-bred little fellow he was, notwithstanding his boyish ignorance of all that his new position meant, the old Earl liked his grandson more, and actually began to find himself rather entertained. It had amused him to give into those childish hands the power to bestow a benefit on poor Higgins. My lord cared nothing for poor Higgins, but it pleased him a little to think that his grandson would be talked about by the country people and would begin to be popular with the tenantry, even in his childhood. Then it had gratified him to drive to church with Cedric and to see the excitement and interest caused by the arrival. He knew how the people would speak of the beauty of the little lad; of his fine, strong, straight body; of his erect bearing, his handsome face, and his bright hair, and how they would say (as the Earl had heard one woman exclaim to another) that the boy was “every inch a lord.” My lord of Dorincourt was an arrogant old man, proud of his name, proud of his rank, and therefore proud to show the world that at last the House of Dorincourt had an heir who was worthy of the position he was to fill.

The morning the new pony had been tried, the Earl had been so pleased that he had almost forgotten his gout. When the groom had brought out the pretty creature, which arched its brown, glossy neck and tossed its fine head in the sun, the Earl had sat at the open window of the library and had looked on while Fauntleroy took his first riding lesson. He wondered if the boy would show signs of timidity. It was not a very small pony, and he had often seen children lose courage in making their first essay at riding.

Fauntleroy mounted in great delight. He had never been on a pony before, and he was in the highest spirits. Wilkins, the groom, led the animal by the bridle up and down before the library window.

“He’s a well plucked un, he is,” Wilkins remarked in the stable afterward with many grins. “It weren’t no trouble to put him up. An’ a old un wouldn’t ha’ sat any straighter when he were up. He ses—ses he to me, ‘Wilkins,’ he ses, ‘am I sitting up straight? They sit up straight at the circus,’ ses he. An’ I ses, ‘As straight as a arrer, your lordship!’—an’ he laughs, as pleased as could be, an’ he ses, ‘That’s right,’ he ses, ‘you tell me if I don’t sit up straight, Wilkins!’”

But sitting up straight and being led at a walk were not altogether and completely satisfactory. After a few minutes, Fauntleroy spoke to his grandfather—watching him from the window:

“Can’t I go by myself?” he asked; “and can’t I go faster? The boy on Fifth Avenue used to trot and canter!”

“Do you think you could trot and canter?” said the Earl.

“I should like to try,” answered Fauntleroy.

His lordship made a sign to Wilkins, who at the signal brought up his own horse and mounted it and took Fauntleroy’s pony by the leading-rein.

“Now,” said the Earl, “let him trot.”

The next few minutes were rather exciting to the small equestrian. He found that trotting was not so easy as walking, and the faster the pony trotted, the less easy it was.

“It j-jolts a g-goo-good deal—do-doesn’t it?” he said to Wilkins. “D-does it j-jolt y-you?”

“No, my lord,” answered Wilkins. “You’ll get used to it in time. Rise in your stirrups.”

“I’m ri-rising all the t-time,” said Fauntleroy.

He was both rising and falling rather uncomfortably and with many shakes and bounces. He was out of breath and his face grew red, but he held on with all his might, and sat as straight as he could. The Earl could see that from his window. When the riders came back within speaking distance, after they had been hidden by the trees a few minutes, Fauntleroy’s hat was off, his cheeks were like poppies, and his lips were set, but he was still trotting manfully.

“Stop a minute!” said his grandfather. “Where’s your hat?”

Wilkins touched his. “It fell off, your lordship,” he said, with evident enjoyment. “Wouldn’t let me stop to pick it up, my lord.”

“Not much afraid, is he?” asked the Earl dryly.

“Him, your lordship!” exclaimed Wilkins. “I shouldn’t say as he knowed what it meant. I’ve taught young gen’lemen to ride afore, an’ I never see one stick on more determinder.”

“Tired?” said the Earl to Fauntleroy. “Want to get off?”

“It jolts you more than you think it will,” admitted his young lordship frankly. “And it tires you a little, too; but I don’t want to get off. I want to learn how. As soon as I’ve got my breath I want to go back for the hat.”

The cleverest person in the world, if he had undertaken to teach Fauntleroy how to please the old man who watched him, could not have taught him anything which would have succeeded better. As the pony trotted off again toward the avenue, a faint color crept up in the fierce old face, and the eyes, under the shaggy brows, gleamed with a pleasure such as his lordship had scarcely expected to know again. And he sat and watched quite eagerly until the sound of the horses’ hoofs returned. When they did come, which was after some time, they came at a faster pace. Fauntleroy’s hat was still off; Wilkins was carrying it for him; his cheeks were redder than before, and his hair was flying about his ears, but he came at quite a brisk canter.

“There!” he panted, as they drew up, “I c-cantered. I didn’t do it as well as the boy on Fifth Avenue, but I did it, and I staid on!”

He and Wilkins and the pony were close friends after that. Scarcely a day passed in which the country people did not see them out together, cantering gayly on the highroad or through the green lanes. The children in the cottages would run to the door to look at the proud little brown pony with the gallant little figure sitting so straight in the saddle, and the young lord would snatch off his cap and swing it at them, and shout, “Hullo! Good-morning!” in a very unlordly manner, though with great heartiness. Sometimes he would stop and talk with the children, and once Wilkins came back to the castle with a story of how Fauntleroy had insisted on dismounting near the village school, so that a boy who was lame and tired might ride home on his pony.

“An’ I’m blessed,” said Wilkins, in telling the story at the stables,—“I’m blessed if he’d hear of anything else! He wouldn’t let me get down, because he said the boy mightn’t feel comfortable on a big horse. An’ ses he, ‘Wilkins,’ ses he, ‘that boy’s lame and I’m not, and I want to talk to him, too.’ And up the lad has to get, and my lord trudges alongside of him with his hands in his pockets, and his cap on the back of his head, a-whistling and talking as easy as you please! And when we come to the cottage, an’ the boy’s mother come out all in a taking to see what’s up, he whips off his cap an’ ses he, ‘I’ve brought your son home, ma’am,’ ses he, ‘because his leg hurt him, and I don’t think that stick is enough for him to lean on; and I’m going to ask my grandfather to have a pair of crutches made for him.’ An’ I’m blessed if the woman wasn’t struck all of a heap, as well she might be! I thought I should ’a’ hex-plodid, myself!”

When the Earl heard the story he was not angry, as Wilkins had been half afraid that he would be; on the contrary, he laughed outright, and called Fauntleroy up to him, and made him tell all about the matter from beginning to end, and then he laughed again. And actually, a few days later, the Dorincourt carriage stopped in the green lane before the cottage where the lame boy lived, and Fauntleroy jumped out and walked up to the door, carrying a pair of strong, light, new crutches shouldered like a gun, and presented them to Mrs. Hartle (the lame boy’s name was Hartle) with these words: “My grandfather’s compliments, and if you please, these are for your boy, and we hope he will get better.”

“I said your compliments,” he explained to the Earl when he returned to the carriage. “You didn’t tell me to, but I thought perhaps you forgot. That was right, wasn’t it?”

And the Earl laughed again, and did not say it was not. In fact, the two were becoming more intimate every day, and every day Fauntleroy’s faith in his lordship’s benevolence and virtue increased. He had no doubt whatever that his grandfather was the most amiable and generous of elderly gentlemen. Certainly, he himself found his wishes gratified almost before they were uttered; and such gifts and pleasures were lavished upon him, that he was sometimes almost bewildered by his own possessions. Apparently, he was to have everything he wanted, and to do everything he wished to do. And though this would certainly not have been a very wise plan to pursue with all small boys, his young lordship bore it amazingly well. Perhaps, notwithstanding his sweet nature, he might have been somewhat spoiled by it, if it had not been for the hours he spent with his mother at Court Lodge. That “best friend” of his watched over him ever closely and tenderly. The two had many long talks together, and he never went back to the Castle with her kisses on his cheeks without carrying in his heart some simple, pure words worth remembering.

There was one thing, it is true, which puzzled the little fellow very much. He thought over the mystery of it much oftener than any one supposed; even his mother did not know how often he pondered on it; the Earl for a long time never suspected that he did so at all. But, being quick to observe, the little boy could not help wondering why it was that his mother and grandfather never seemed to meet. He had noticed that they never did meet. When the Dorincourt carriage stopped at Court Lodge, the Earl never alighted, and on the rare occasions of his lordship’s going to church, Fauntleroy was always left to speak to his mother in the porch alone, or perhaps to go home with her. And yet, every day, fruit and flowers were sent to Court Lodge from the hot-houses at the Castle. But the one virtuous action of the Earl’s which had set him upon the pinnacle of perfection in Cedric’s eyes, was what he had done soon after that first Sunday when Mrs. Errol had walked home from church unattended. About a week later, when Cedric was going one day to visit his mother, he found at the door, instead of the large carriage and prancing pair, a pretty little brougham and a handsome bay horse.

“That is a present from you to your mother,” the Earl said abruptly. “She can not go walking about the country. She needs a carriage. The man who drives will take charge of it. It is a present from you.”

Fauntleroy’s delight could but feebly express itself. He could scarcely contain himself until he reached the lodge. His mother was gathering roses in the garden. He flung himself out of the little brougham and flew to her.

“Dearest!” he cried, “could you believe it? This is yours! He says it is a present from me. It is your own carriage to drive everywhere in!”

He was so happy that she did not know what to say. She could not have borne to spoil his pleasure by refusing to accept the gift even though it came from the man who chose to consider himself her enemy. She was obliged to step into the carriage, roses and all, and let herself be taken to drive, while Fauntleroy told her stories of his grandfather’s goodness and amiability. They were such innocent stories that sometimes she could not help laughing a little, and then she would draw her little boy closer to her side and kiss him, feeling glad that he could see only good in the old man, who had so few friends.

The very next day after that, Fauntleroy wrote to Mr. Hobbs. He wrote quite a long letter, and after the first copy was written, he brought it to his grandfather to be inspected.

“Because,” he said, “it’s so uncertain about the spelling. And if you’ll tell me the mistakes, I’ll write it out again.”

This was what he had written:

“My dear mr hobbs i want to tell you about my granfarther he is the best earl you ever new it is a mistake about earls being tirents he is not a tirent at all i wish you new him you would be good friends i am sure you would he has the gout in his foot and is a grate sufrer but he is so pashent i love him more every day becaus no one could help loving an earl like that who is kind to every one in this world i wish you could talk to him he knows everything in the world you can ask him any question but he has never plaid base ball he has given me a pony and a cart and my mamma a bewtifle cariage and I have three rooms and toys of all kinds it would serprise you you would like the castle and the park it is such a large castle you could lose yourself wilkins tells me wilkins is my groom he says there is a dungon under the castle it is so pretty everything in the park would serprise you there are such big trees and there are deers and rabbits and games flying about in the cover my granfarther is very rich but he is not proud and orty as you thought earls always were i like to be with him the people are so polite and kind they take of their hats to you and the women make curtsies and sometimes say god bless you i can ride now but at first it shook me when i troted my granfarther let a poor man stay on his farm when he could not pay his rent and mrs mellon went to take wine and things to his sick children i should like to see you and i wish dearest could live at the castle but i am very happy when i dont miss her too much and i love my granfarther every one does plees write soon.

“your afechshnet old frend

“Cedric Errol

“p s no one is in the dungon my granfarfher never had any one langwishin in there.

“p s he is such a good earl he reminds me of you he is a unerversle favrit”

“Do you miss your mother very much?” asked the Earl when he had finished reading this.

“Yes,” said Fauntleroy, “I miss her all the time.”

He went and stood before the Earl and put his hand on his knee, looking up at him.

“You don’t miss her, do you?” he said.

“I don’t know her,” answered his lordship rather crustily.

“I know that,” said Fauntleroy, “and that’s what makes me wonder. She told me not to ask you any questions, and—and I won’t, but sometimes I can’t help thinking, you know, and it makes me all puzzled. But I’m not going to ask any questions. And when I miss her very much, I go and look out of my window to where I see her light shine for me every night through an open place in the trees. It is a long way off, but she puts it in her window as soon as it is dark, and I can see it twinkle far away, and I know what it says.”

“What does it say?” asked my lord.

“It says, ‘Good-night, God keep you all the night!’—just what she used to say when we were together. Every night she used to say that to me, and every morning she said, ‘God bless you all the day!’ So you see I am quite safe all the time—”

“Quite, I have no doubt,” said his lordship dryly. And he drew down his beetling eyebrows and looked at the little boy so fixedly and so long that Fauntleroy wondered what he could be thinking of.

CHAPTER IX

The fact was, his lordship the Earl of Dorincourt thought in those days, of many things of which he had never thought before, and all his thoughts were in one way or another connected with his grandson. His pride was the strongest part of his nature, and the boy gratified it at every point. Through this pride he began to find a new interest in life. He began to take pleasure in showing his heir to the world. The world had known of his disappointment in his sons; so there was an agreeable touch of triumph in exhibiting this new Lord Fauntleroy, who could disappoint no one. He wished the child to appreciate his own power and to understand the splendor of his position; he wished that others should realize it too. He made plans for his future.

Sometimes in secret he actually found himself wishing that his own past life had been a better one, and that there had been less in it that this pure, childish heart would shrink from if it knew the truth. It was not agreeable to think how the beautiful, innocent face would look if its owner should be made by any chance to understand that his grandfather had been called for many a year “the wicked Earl of Dorincourt.” The thought even made him feel a trifle nervous. He did not wish the boy to find it out. Sometimes in this new interest he forgot his gout, and after a while his doctor was surprised to find his noble patient’s health growing better than he had expected it ever would be again. Perhaps the Earl grew better because the time did not pass so slowly for him, and he had something to think of beside his pains and infirmities.

One fine morning, people were amazed to see little Lord Fauntleroy riding his pony with another companion than Wilkins. This new companion rode a tall, powerful gray horse, and was no other than the Earl himself. It was, in fact, Fauntleroy who had suggested this plan. As he had been on the point of mounting his pony, he had said rather wistfully to his grandfather:

“I wish you were going with me. When I go away I feel lonely because you are left all by yourself in such a big castle. I wish you could ride too.”

And the greatest excitement had been aroused in the stables a few minutes later by the arrival of an order that Selim was to be saddled for the Earl. After that, Selim was saddled almost every day; and the people became accustomed to the sight of the tall gray horse carrying the tall gray old man, with his handsome, fierce, eagle face, by the side of the brown pony which bore little Lord Fauntleroy. And in their rides together through the green lanes and pretty country roads, the two riders became more intimate than ever. And gradually the old man heard a great deal about “Dearest” and her life. As Fauntleroy trotted by the big horse he chatted gayly. There could not well have been a brighter little comrade, his nature was so happy. It was he who talked the most. The Earl often was silent, listening and watching the joyous, glowing face. Sometimes he would tell his young companion to set the pony off at a gallop, and when the little fellow dashed off, sitting so straight and fearless, he would watch him with a gleam of pride and pleasure in his eyes; and when, after such a dash, Fauntleroy came back waving his cap with a laughing shout, he always felt that he and his grandfather were very good friends indeed.

One thing that the Earl discovered was that his son’s wife did not lead an idle life. It was not long before he learned that the poor people knew her very well indeed. When there was sickness or sorrow or poverty in any house, the little brougham often stood before the door.

“Do you know,” said Fauntleroy once, “they all say, ‘God bless you!’ when they see her, and the children are glad. There are some who go to her house to be taught to sew. She says she feels so rich now that she wants to help the poor ones.”

It had not displeased the Earl to find that the mother of his heir had a beautiful young face and looked as much like a lady as if she had been a duchess; and in one way it did not displease him to know that she was popular and beloved by the poor. And yet he was often conscious of a hard, jealous pang when he saw how she filled her child’s heart and how the boy clung to her as his best beloved. The old man would have desired to stand first himself and have no rival.

That same morning he drew up his horse on an elevated point of the moor over which they rode, and made a gesture with his whip, over the broad, beautiful landscape spread before them.

“Do you know that all that land belongs to me?” he said to Fauntleroy.

“Does it?” answered Fauntleroy. “How much it is to belong to one person, and how beautiful!”

“Do you know that some day it will all belong to you—that and a great deal more?”

“To me!” exclaimed Fauntleroy in rather an awe-stricken voice. “When?”

“When I am dead,” his grandfather answered.

“Then I don’t want it,” said Fauntleroy; “I want you to live always.”

“That’s kind,” answered the Earl in his dry way; “nevertheless, some day it will all be yours—some day you will be the Earl of Dorincourt.”

Little Lord Fauntleroy sat very still in his saddle for a few moments. He looked over the broad moors, the green farms, the beautiful copses, the cottages in the lanes, the pretty village, and over the trees to where the turrets of the great castle rose, gray and stately. Then he gave a queer little sigh.

“What are you thinking of?” asked the Earl.

“I am thinking,” replied Fauntleroy, “what a little boy I am! and of what Dearest said to me.”

“What was it?” inquired the Earl.

“She said that perhaps it was not so easy to be very rich; that if any one had so many things always, one might sometimes forget that every one else was not so fortunate, and that one who is rich should always be careful and try to remember. I was talking to her about how good you were, and she said that was such a good thing, because an earl had so much power, and if he cared only about his own pleasure and never thought about the people who lived on his lands, they might have trouble that he could help—and there were so many people, and it would be such a hard thing. And I was just looking at all those houses, and thinking how I should have to find out about the people, when I was an earl. How did you find out about them?”

As his lordship’s knowledge of his tenantry consisted in finding out which of them paid their rent promptly, and in turning out those who did not, this was rather a hard question. “Newick finds out for me,” he said, and he pulled his great gray mustache, and looked at his small questioner rather uneasily. “We will go home now,” he added; “and when you are an earl, see to it that you are a better earl than I have been!”

He was very silent as they rode home. He felt it to be almost incredible that he who had never really loved any one in his life, should find himself growing so fond of this little fellow,—as without doubt he was. At first he had only been pleased and proud of Cedric’s beauty and bravery, but there was something more than pride in his feeling now. He laughed a grim, dry laugh all to himself sometimes, when he thought how he liked to have the boy near him, how he liked to hear his voice, and how in secret he really wished to be liked and thought well of by his small grandson.

“I’m an old fellow in my dotage, and I have nothing else to think of,” he would say to himself; and yet he knew it was not that altogether. And if he had allowed himself to admit the truth, he would perhaps have found himself obliged to own that the very things which attracted him, in spite of himself, were the qualities he had never possessed—the frank, true, kindly nature, the affectionate trustfulness which could never think evil.

It was only about a week after that ride when, after a visit to his mother, Fauntleroy came into the library with a troubled, thoughtful face. He sat down in that high-backed chair in which he had sat on the evening of his arrival, and for a while he looked at the embers on the hearth. The Earl watched him in silence, wondering what was coming. It was evident that Cedric had something on his mind. At last he looked up. “Does Newick know all about the people?” he asked.

“It is his business to know about them,” said his lordship. “Been neglecting it—has he?”

Contradictory as it may seem, there was nothing which entertained and edified him more than the little fellow’s interest in his tenantry. He had never taken any interest in them himself, but it pleased him well enough that, with all his childish habits of thought and in the midst of all his childish amusements and high spirits, there should be such a quaint seriousness working in the curly head.

“There is a place,” said Fauntleroy, looking up at him with wide-open, horror-stricken eye—“Dearest has seen it; it is at the other end of the village. The houses are close together, and almost falling down; you can scarcely breathe; and the people are so poor, and everything is dreadful! Often they have fever, and the children die; and it makes them wicked to live like that, and be so poor and miserable! It is worse than Michael and Bridget! The rain comes in at the roof! Dearest went to see a poor woman who lived there. She would not let me come near her until she had changed all her things. The tears ran down her cheeks when she told me about it!”

The tears had come into his own eyes, but he smiled through them.

“I told her you didn’t know, and I would tell you,” he said. He jumped down and came and leaned against the Earl’s chair. “You can make it all right,” he said, “just as you made it all right for Higgins. You always make it all right for everybody. I told her you would, and that Newick must have forgotten to tell you.”

The Earl looked down at the hand on his knee. Newick had not forgotten to tell him; in fact, Newick had spoken to him more than once of the desperate condition of the end of the village known as Earl’s Court. He knew all about the tumble-down, miserable cottages, and the bad drainage, and the damp walls and broken windows and leaking roofs, and all about the poverty, the fever, and the misery. Mr. Mordaunt had painted it all to him in the strongest words he could use, and his lordship had used violent language in response; and, when his gout had been at the worst, he said that the sooner the people of Earl’s Court died and were buried by the parish the better it would be,—and there was an end of the matter. And yet, as he looked at the small hand on his knee, and from the small hand to the honest, earnest, frank-eyed face, he was actually a little ashamed both of Earl’s Court and himself.

“What!” he said; “you want to make a builder of model cottages of me, do you?” And he positively put his own hand upon the childish one and stroked it.

“Those must be pulled down,” said Fauntleroy, with great eagerness. “Dearest says so. Let us—let us go and have them pulled down tomorrow. The people will be so glad when they see you! They’ll know you have come to help them!” And his eyes shone like stars in his glowing face.

The Earl rose from his chair and put his hand on the child’s shoulder. “Let us go out and take our walk on the terrace,” he said, with a short laugh; “and we can talk it over.”

And though he laughed two or three times again, as they walked to and fro on the broad stone terrace, where they walked together almost every fine evening, he seemed to be thinking of something which did not displease him, and still he kept his hand on his small companion’s shoulder.

CHAPTER X

The truth was that Mrs. Errol had found a great many sad things in the course of her work among the poor of the little village that appeared so picturesque when it was seen from the moor-sides. Everything was not as picturesque, when seen near by, as it looked from a distance. She had found idleness and poverty and ignorance where there should have been comfort and industry. And she had discovered, after a while, that Erleboro was considered to be the worst village in that part of the country. Mr. Mordaunt had told her a great many of his difficulties and discouragements, and she had found out a great deal by herself. The agents who had managed the property had always been chosen to please the Earl, and had cared nothing for the degradation and wretchedness of the poor tenants. Many things, therefore, had been neglected which should have been attended to, and matters had gone from bad to worse.

As to Earl’s Court, it was a disgrace, with its dilapidated houses and miserable, careless, sickly people. When first Mrs. Errol went to the place, it made her shudder. Such ugliness and slovenliness and want seemed worse in a country place than in a city. It seemed as if there it might be helped. And as she looked at the squalid, uncared-for children growing up in the midst of vice and brutal indifference, she thought of her own little boy spending his days in the great, splendid castle, guarded and served like a young prince, having no wish ungratified, and knowing nothing but luxury and ease and beauty. And a bold thought came in her wise little mother-heart. Gradually she had begun to see, as had others, that it had been her boy’s good fortune to please the Earl very much, and that he would scarcely be likely to be denied anything for which he expressed a desire.

“The Earl would give him anything,” she said to Mr. Mordaunt. “He would indulge his every whim. Why should not that indulgence be used for the good of others? It is for me to see that this shall come to pass.”

She knew she could trust the kind, childish heart; so she told the little fellow the story of Earl’s Court, feeling sure that he would speak of it to his grandfather, and hoping that some good results would follow.

And strange as it appeared to every one, good results did follow.

The fact was that the strongest power to influence the Earl was his grandson’s perfect confidence in him—the fact that Cedric always believed that his grandfather was going to do what was right and generous. He could not quite make up his mind to let him discover that he had no inclination to be generous at all, and that he wanted his own way on all occasions, whether it was right or wrong. It was such a novelty to be regarded with admiration as a benefactor of the entire human race, and the soul of nobility, that he did not enjoy the idea of looking into the affectionate brown eyes, and saying: “I am a violent, selfish old rascal; I never did a generous thing in my life, and I don’t care about Earl’s Court or the poor people”—or something which would amount to the same thing. He actually had learned to be fond enough of that small boy with the mop of yellow love-locks, to feel that he himself would prefer to be guilty of an amiable action now and then. And so—though he laughed at himself—after some reflection, he sent for Newick, and had quite a long interview with him on the subject of the Court, and it was decided that the wretched hovels should be pulled down and new houses should be built.

“It is Lord Fauntleroy who insists on it,” he said dryly; “he thinks it will improve the property. You can tell the tenants that it’s his idea.” And he looked down at his small lordship, who was lying on the hearth-rug playing with Dougal. The great dog was the lad’s constant companion, and followed him about everywhere, stalking solemnly after him when he walked, and trotting majestically behind when he rode or drove.

Of course, both the country people and the town people heard of the proposed improvement. At first, many of them would not believe it; but when a small army of workmen arrived and commenced pulling down the crazy, squalid cottages, people began to understand that little Lord Fauntleroy had done them a good turn again, and that through his innocent interference the scandal of Earl’s Court had at last been removed. If he had only known how they talked about him and praised him everywhere, and prophesied great things for him when he grew up, how astonished he would have been! But he never suspected it. He lived his simple, happy, child life,—frolicking about in the park; chasing the rabbits to their burrows; lying under the trees on the grass, or on the rug in the library, reading wonderful books and talking to the Earl about them, and then telling the stories again to his mother; writing long letters to Dick and Mr. Hobbs, who responded in characteristic fashion; riding out at his grandfather’s side, or with Wilkins as escort. As they rode through the market town, he used to see the people turn and look, and he noticed that as they lifted their hats their faces often brightened very much; but he thought it was all because his grandfather was with him.

“They are so fond of you,” he once said, looking up at his lordship with a bright smile. “Do you see how glad they are when they see you? I hope they will some day be as fond of me. It must be nice to have everybody like you.” And he felt quite proud to be the grandson of so greatly admired and beloved an individual.

When the cottages were being built, the lad and his grandfather used to ride over to Earl’s Court together to look at them, and Fauntleroy was full of interest. He would dismount from his pony and go and make acquaintance with the workmen, asking them questions about building and bricklaying, and telling them things about America. After two or three such conversations, he was able to enlighten the Earl on the subject of brick-making, as they rode home.

“I always like to know about things like those,” he said, “because you never know what you are coming to.”

When he left them, the workmen used to talk him over among themselves, and laugh at his odd, innocent speeches; but they liked him, and liked to see him stand among them, talking away, with his hands in his pockets, his hat pushed back on his curls, and his small face full of eagerness. “He’s a rare un,” they used to say. “An’ a noice little outspoken chap, too. Not much o’ th’ bad stock in him.” And they would go home and tell their wives about him, and the women would tell each other, and so it came about that almost every one talked of, or knew some story of, little Lord Fauntleroy; and gradually almost every one knew that the “wicked Earl” had found something he cared for at last—something which had touched and even warmed his hard, bitter old heart.

But no one knew quite how much it had been warmed, and how day by day the old man found himself caring more and more for the child, who was the only creature that had ever trusted him. He found himself looking forward to the time when Cedric would be a young man, strong and beautiful, with life all before him, but having still that kind heart and the power to make friends everywhere, and the Earl wondered what the lad would do, and how he would use his gifts. Often as he watched the little fellow lying upon the hearth, conning some big book, the light shining on the bright young head, his old eyes would gleam and his cheek would flush.

“The boy can do anything,” he would say to himself, “anything!”

He never spoke to any one else of his feeling for Cedric; when he spoke of him to others it was always with the same grim smile. But Fauntleroy soon knew that his grandfather loved him and always liked him to be near—near to his chair if they were in the library, opposite to him at table, or by his side when he rode or drove or took his evening walk on the broad terrace.

“Do you remember,” Cedric said once, looking up from his book as he lay on the rug, “do you remember what I said to you that first night about our being good companions? I don’t think any people could be better companions than we are, do you?”

“We are pretty good companions, I should say,” replied his lordship. “Come here.”

Fauntleroy scrambled up and went to him.

“Is there anything you want,” the Earl asked; “anything you have not?”

The little fellow’s brown eyes fixed themselves on his grandfather with a rather wistful look.

“Only one thing,” he answered.

“What is that?” inquired the Earl.

Fauntleroy was silent a second. He had not thought matters over to himself so long for nothing.

“What is it?” my lord repeated.

Fauntleroy answered.

“It is Dearest,” he said.

The old Earl winced a little.

“But you see her almost every day,” he said. “Is not that enough?”

“I used to see her all the time,” said Fauntleroy. “She used to kiss me when I went to sleep at night, and in the morning she was always there, and we could tell each other things without waiting.”

The old eyes and the young ones looked into each other through a moment of silence. Then the Earl knitted his brows.

“Do you never forget about your mother?” he said.

“No,” answered Fauntleroy, “never; and she never forgets about me. I shouldn’t forget about you, you know, if I didn’t live with you. I should think about you all the more.”

“Upon my word,” said the Earl, after looking at him a moment longer, “I believe you would!”

The jealous pang that came when the boy spoke so of his mother seemed even stronger than it had been before; it was stronger because of this old man’s increasing affection for the boy.

But it was not long before he had other pangs, so much harder to face that he almost forgot, for the time, he had ever hated his son’s wife at all. And in a strange and startling way it happened. One evening, just before the Earl’s Court cottages were completed, there was a grand dinner party at Dorincourt. There had not been such a party at the Castle for a long time. A few days before it took place, Sir Harry Lorridaile and Lady Lorridaile, who was the Earl’s only sister, actually came for a visit—a thing which caused the greatest excitement in the village and set Mrs. Dibble’s shop-bell tinkling madly again, because it was well known that Lady Lorridaile had only been to Dorincourt once since her marriage, thirty-five years before. She was a handsome old lady with white curls and dimpled, peachy cheeks, and she was as good as gold, but she had never approved of her brother any more than did the rest of the world, and having a strong will of her own and not being at all afraid to speak her mind frankly, she had, after several lively quarrels with his lordship, seen very little of him since her young days.

She had heard a great deal of him that was not pleasant through the years in which they had been separated. She had heard about his neglect of his wife, and of the poor lady’s death; and of his indifference to his children; and of the two weak, vicious, unprepossessing elder boys who had been no credit to him or to any one else. Those two elder sons, Bevis and Maurice, she had never seen; but once there had come to Lorridaile Park a tall, stalwart, beautiful young fellow about eighteen years old, who had told her that he was her nephew Cedric Errol, and that he had come to see her because he was passing near the place and wished to look at his Aunt Constantia of whom he had heard his mother speak. Lady Lorridaile’s kind heart had warmed through and through at the sight of the young man, and she had made him stay with her a week, and petted him, and made much of him and admired him immensely. He was so sweet-tempered, light-hearted, spirited a lad, that when he went away, she had hoped to see him often again; but she never did, because the Earl had been in a bad humor when he went back to Dorincourt, and had forbidden him ever to go to Lorridaile Park again. But Lady Lorridaile had always remembered him tenderly, and though she feared he had made a rash marriage in America, she had been very angry when she heard how he had been cast off by his father and that no one really knew where or how he lived. At last there came a rumor of his death, and then Bevis had been thrown from his horse and killed, and Maurice had died in Rome of the fever; and soon after came the story of the American child who was to be found and brought home as Lord Fauntleroy.

“Probably to be ruined as the others were,” she said to her husband, “unless his mother is good enough and has a will of her own to help her to take care of him.”

But when she heard that Cedric’s mother had been parted from him she was almost too indignant for words.

“It is disgraceful, Harry!” she said. “Fancy a child of that age being taken from his mother, and made the companion of a man like my brother! He will either be brutal to the boy or indulge him until he is a little monster. If I thought it would do any good to write—”

“It wouldn’t, Constantia,” said Sir Harry.

“I know it wouldn’t,” she answered. “I know his lordship the Earl of Dorincourt too well;—but it is outrageous.”

Not only the poor people and farmers heard about little Lord Fauntleroy; others knew him. He was talked about so much and there were so many stories of him—of his beauty, his sweet temper, his popularity, and his growing influence over the Earl, his grandfather—that rumors of him reached the gentry at their country places and he was heard of in more than one county of England. People talked about him at the dinner tables, ladies pitied his young mother, and wondered if the boy were as handsome as he was said to be, and men who knew the Earl and his habits laughed heartily at the stories of the little fellow’s belief in his lordship’s amiability. Sir Thomas Asshe of Asshawe Hall, being in Erleboro one day, met the Earl and his grandson riding together, and stopped to shake hands with my lord and congratulate him on his change of looks and on his recovery from the gout. “And, d’ ye know,” he said, when he spoke of the incident afterward, “the old man looked as proud as a turkey-cock; and upon my word I don’t wonder, for a handsomer, finer lad than his grandson I never saw! As straight as a dart, and sat his pony like a young trooper!”

And so by degrees Lady Lorridaile, too, heard of the child; she heard about Higgins and the lame boy, and the cottages at Earl’s Court, and a score of other things,—and she began to wish to see the little fellow. And just as she was wondering how it might be brought about, to her utter astonishment, she received a letter from her brother inviting her to come with her husband to Dorincourt.

“It seems incredible!” she exclaimed. “I have heard it said that the child has worked miracles, and I begin to believe it. They say my brother adores the boy and can scarcely endure to have him out of sight. And he is so proud of him! Actually, I believe he wants to show him to us.” And she accepted the invitation at once.

When she reached Dorincourt Castle with Sir Harry, it was late in the afternoon, and she went to her room at once before seeing her brother. Having dressed for dinner, she entered the drawing-room. The Earl was there standing near the fire and looking very tall and imposing; and at his side stood a little boy in black velvet, and a large Vandyke collar of rich lace—a little fellow whose round bright face was so handsome, and who turned upon her such beautiful, candid brown eyes, that she almost uttered an exclamation of pleasure and surprise at the sight.

As she shook hands with the Earl, she called him by the name she had not used since her girlhood.

“What, Molyneux!” she said, “is this the child?”

“Yes, Constantia,” answered the Earl, “this is the boy. Fauntleroy, this is your grand-aunt, Lady Lorridaile.”

“How do you do, Grand-Aunt?” said Fauntleroy.

Lady Lorridaile put her hand on his shoulders, and after looking down into his upraised face a few seconds, kissed him warmly.

“I am your Aunt Constantia,” she said, “and I loved your poor papa, and you are very like him.”

“It makes me glad when I am told I am like him,” answered Fauntleroy, “because it seems as if every one liked him,—just like Dearest, eszackly,—Aunt Constantia” (adding the two words after a second’s pause).

Lady Lorridaile was delighted. She bent and kissed him again, and from that moment they were warm friends.

“Well, Molyneux,” she said aside to the Earl afterward, “it could not possibly be better than this!”

“I think not,” answered his lordship dryly. “He is a fine little fellow. We are great friends. He believes me to be the most charming and sweet-tempered of philanthropists. I will confess to you, Constantia,—as you would find it out if I did not,—that I am in some slight danger of becoming rather an old fool about him.”

“What does his mother think of you?” asked Lady Lorridaile, with her usual straightforwardness.

“I have not asked her,” answered the Earl, slightly scowling.

“Well,” said Lady Lorridaile, “I will be frank with you at the outset, Molyneux, and tell you I don’t approve of your course, and that it is my intention to call on Mrs. Errol as soon as possible; so if you wish to quarrel with me, you had better mention it at once. What I hear of the young creature makes me quite sure that her child owes her everything. We were told even at Lorridaile Park that your poorer tenants adore her already.”

“They adore him,” said the Earl, nodding toward Fauntleroy. “As to Mrs. Errol, you’ll find her a pretty little woman. I’m rather in debt to her for giving some of her beauty to the boy, and you can go to see her if you like. All I ask is that she will remain at Court Lodge and that you will not ask me to go and see her,” and he scowled a little again.

“But he doesn’t hate her as much as he used to, that is plain enough to me,” her ladyship said to Sir Harry afterward. “And he is a changed man in a measure, and, incredible as it may seem, Harry, it is my opinion that he is being made into a human being, through nothing more nor less than his affection for that innocent, affectionate little fellow. Why, the child actually loves him—leans on his chair and against his knee. His own children would as soon have thought of nestling up to a tiger.”

The very next day she went to call upon Mrs. Errol. When she returned, she said to her brother:

“Molyneux, she is the loveliest little woman I ever saw! She has a voice like a silver bell, and you may thank her for making the boy what he is. She has given him more than her beauty, and you make a great mistake in not persuading her to come and take charge of you. I shall invite her to Lorridaile.”

“She’ll not leave the boy,” replied the Earl.

“I must have the boy too,” said Lady Lorridaile, laughing.

But she knew Fauntleroy would not be given up to her, and each day she saw more clearly how closely those two had grown to each other, and how all the proud, grim old man’s ambition and hope and love centered themselves in the child, and how the warm, innocent nature returned his affection with most perfect trust and good faith.

She knew, too, that the prime reason for the great dinner party was the Earl’s secret desire to show the world his grandson and heir, and to let people see that the boy who had been so much spoken of and described was even a finer little specimen of boyhood than rumor had made him.

“Bevis and Maurice were such a bitter humiliation to him,” she said to her husband. “Every one knew it. He actually hated them. His pride has full sway here.” Perhaps there was not one person who accepted the invitation without feeling some curiosity about little Lord Fauntleroy, and wondering if he would be on view.

And when the time came he was on view.

“The lad has good manners,” said the Earl. “He will be in no one’s way. Children are usually idiots or bores,—mine were both,—but he can actually answer when he’s spoken to, and be silent when he is not. He is never offensive.”

But he was not allowed to be silent very long. Every one had something to say to him. The fact was they wished to make him talk. The ladies petted him and asked him questions, and the men asked him questions too, and joked with him, as the men on the steamer had done when he crossed the Atlantic. Fauntleroy did not quite understand why they laughed so sometimes when he answered them, but he was so used to seeing people amused when he was quite serious, that he did not mind. He thought the whole evening delightful. The magnificent rooms were so brilliant with lights, there were so many flowers, the gentlemen seemed so gay, and the ladies wore such beautiful, wonderful dresses, and such sparkling ornaments in their hair and on their necks. There was one young lady who, he heard them say, had just come down from London, where she had spent the “season”; and she was so charming that he could not keep his eyes from her. She was a rather tall young lady with a proud little head, and very soft dark hair, and large eyes the color of purple pansies, and the color on her cheeks and lips was like that of a rose. She was dressed in a beautiful white dress, and had pearls around her throat. There was one strange thing about this young lady. So many gentlemen stood near her, and seemed anxious to please her, that Fauntleroy thought she must be something like a princess. He was so much interested in her that without knowing it he drew nearer and nearer to her, and at last she turned and spoke to him.

“Come here, Lord Fauntleroy,” she said, smiling; “and tell me why you look at me so.”

“I was thinking how beautiful you are,” his young lordship replied.

Then all the gentlemen laughed outright, and the young lady laughed a little too, and the rose color in her cheeks brightened.

“Ah, Fauntleroy,” said one of the gentlemen who had laughed most heartily, “make the most of your time! When you are older you will not have the courage to say that.”

“But nobody could help saying it,” said Fauntleroy sweetly. “Could you help it? Don’t you think she is pretty, too?”

“We are not allowed to say what we think,” said the gentleman, while the rest laughed more than ever.

But the beautiful young lady—her name was Miss Vivian Herbert—put out her hand and drew Cedric to her side, looking prettier than before, if possible.

“Lord Fauntleroy shall say what he thinks,” she said; “and I am much obliged to him. I am sure he thinks what he says.” And she kissed him on his cheek.

“I think you are prettier than any one I ever saw,” said Fauntleroy, looking at her with innocent, admiring eyes, “except Dearest. Of course, I couldn’t think any one quite as pretty as Dearest. I think she is the prettiest person in the world.”

“I am sure she is,” said Miss Vivian Herbert. And she laughed and kissed his cheek again.

She kept him by her side a great part of the evening, and the group of which they were the center was very gay. He did not know how it happened, but before long he was telling them all about America, and the Republican Rally, and Mr. Hobbs and Dick, and in the end he proudly produced from his pocket Dick’s parting gift,—the red silk handkerchief.

“I put it in my pocket tonight because it was a party,” he said. “I thought Dick would like me to wear it at a party.”

And queer as the big, flaming, spotted thing was, there was a serious, affectionate look in his eyes, which prevented his audience from laughing very much.

“You see, I like it,” he said, “because Dick is my friend.”

But though he was talked to so much, as the Earl had said, he was in no one’s way. He could be quiet and listen when others talked, and so no one found him tiresome. A slight smile crossed more than one face when several times he went and stood near his grandfather’s chair, or sat on a stool close to him, watching him and absorbing every word he uttered with the most charmed interest. Once he stood so near the chair’s arm that his cheek touched the Earl’s shoulder, and his lordship, detecting the general smile, smiled a little himself. He knew what the lookers-on were thinking, and he felt some secret amusement in their seeing what good friends he was with this youngster, who might have been expected to share the popular opinion of him.

Mr. Havisham had been expected to arrive in the afternoon, but, strange to say, he was late. Such a thing had really never been known to happen before during all the years in which he had been a visitor at Dorincourt Castle. He was so late that the guests were on the point of rising to go in to dinner when he arrived. When he approached his host, the Earl regarded him with amazement. He looked as if he had been hurried or agitated; his dry, keen old face was actually pale.

“I was detained,” he said, in a low voice to the Earl, “by—an extraordinary event.”

It was as unlike the methodic old lawyer to be agitated by anything as it was to be late, but it was evident that he had been disturbed. At dinner he ate scarcely anything, and two or three times, when he was spoken to, he started as if his thoughts were far away. At dessert, when Fauntleroy came in, he looked at him more than once, nervously and uneasily. Fauntleroy noted the look and wondered at it. He and Mr. Havisham were on friendly terms, and they usually exchanged smiles. The lawyer seemed to have forgotten to smile that evening.

The fact was, he forgot everything but the strange and painful news he knew he must tell the Earl before the night was over—the strange news which he knew would be so terrible a shock, and which would change the face of everything. As he looked about at the splendid rooms and the brilliant company,—at the people gathered together, he knew, more that they might see the bright-haired little fellow near the Earl’s chair than for any other reason,—as he looked at the proud old man and at little Lord Fauntleroy smiling at his side, he really felt quite shaken, notwithstanding that he was a hardened old lawyer. What a blow it was that he must deal them!

He did not exactly know how the long, superb dinner ended. He sat through it as if he were in a dream, and several times he saw the Earl glance at him in surprise.

But it was over at last, and the gentlemen joined the ladies in the drawing-room. They found Fauntleroy sitting on the sofa with Miss Vivian Herbert,—the great beauty of the last London season; they had been looking at some pictures, and he was thanking his companion as the door opened.

“I’m ever so much obliged to you for being so kind to me!” he was saying; “I never was at a party before, and I’ve enjoyed myself so much!”

He had enjoyed himself so much that when the gentlemen gathered about Miss Herbert again and began to talk to her, as he listened and tried to understand their laughing speeches, his eyelids began to droop. They drooped until they covered his eyes two or three times, and then the sound of Miss Herbert’s low, pretty laugh would bring him back, and he would open them again for about two seconds. He was quite sure he was not going to sleep, but there was a large, yellow satin cushion behind him and his head sank against it, and after a while his eyelids drooped for the last time. They did not even quite open when, as it seemed a long time after, some one kissed him lightly on the cheek. It was Miss Vivian Herbert, who was going away, and she spoke to him softly.

“Good-night, little Lord Fauntleroy,” she said. “Sleep well.”

And in the morning he did not know that he had tried to open his eyes and had murmured sleepily, “Good-night—I’m so—glad—I saw you—you are so—pretty—”

He only had a very faint recollection of hearing the gentlemen laugh again and of wondering why they did it.

No sooner had the last guest left the room, than Mr. Havisham turned from his place by the fire, and stepped nearer the sofa, where he stood looking down at the sleeping occupant. Little Lord Fauntleroy was taking his ease luxuriously. One leg crossed the other and swung over the edge of the sofa; one arm was flung easily above his head; the warm flush of healthful, happy, childish sleep was on his quiet face; his waving tangle of bright hair strayed over the yellow satin cushion. He made a picture well worth looking at.

As Mr. Havisham looked at it, he put his hand up and rubbed his shaven chin, with a harassed countenance.

“Well, Havisham,” said the Earl’s harsh voice behind him. “What is it? It is evident something has happened. What was the extraordinary event, if I may ask?”

Mr. Havisham turned from the sofa, still rubbing his chin.

“It was bad news,” he answered, “distressing news, my lord—the worst of news. I am sorry to be the bearer of it.”

The Earl had been uneasy for some time during the evening, as he glanced at Mr. Havisham, and when he was uneasy he was always ill-tempered.

“Why do you look so at the boy!” he exclaimed irritably. “You have been looking at him all the evening as if—See here now, why should you look at the boy, Havisham, and hang over him like some bird of ill-omen! What has your news to do with Lord Fauntleroy?”

“My lord,” said Mr. Havisham, “I will waste no words. My news has everything to do with Lord Fauntleroy. And if we are to believe it—it is not Lord Fauntleroy who lies sleeping before us, but only the son of Captain Errol. And the present Lord Fauntleroy is the son of your son Bevis, and is at this moment in a lodging-house in London.”

The Earl clutched the arms of his chair with both his hands until the veins stood out upon them; the veins stood out on his forehead too; his fierce old face was almost livid.

“What do you mean!” he cried out. “You are mad! Whose lie is this?”

“If it is a lie,” answered Mr. Havisham, “it is painfully like the truth. A woman came to my chambers this morning. She said your son Bevis married her six years ago in London. She showed me her marriage certificate. They quarrelled a year after the marriage, and he paid her to keep away from him. She has a son five years old. She is an American of the lower classes,—an ignorant person,—and until lately she did not fully understand what her son could claim. She consulted a lawyer and found out that the boy was really Lord Fauntleroy and the heir to the earldom of Dorincourt; and she, of course, insists on his claims being acknowledged.”

There was a movement of the curly head on the yellow satin cushion. A soft, long, sleepy sigh came from the parted lips, and the little boy stirred in his sleep, but not at all restlessly or uneasily. Not at all as if his slumber were disturbed by the fact that he was being proved a small impostor and that he was not Lord Fauntleroy at all and never would be the Earl of Dorincourt. He only turned his rosy face more on its side, as if to enable the old man who stared at it so solemnly to see it better.

The handsome, grim old face was ghastly. A bitter smile fixed itself upon it.

“I should refuse to believe a word of it,” he said, “if it were not such a low, scoundrelly piece of business that it becomes quite possible in connection with the name of my son Bevis. It is quite like Bevis. He was always a disgrace to us. Always a weak, untruthful, vicious young brute with low tastes—my son and heir, Bevis, Lord Fauntleroy. The woman is an ignorant, vulgar person, you say?”

“I am obliged to admit that she can scarcely spell her own name,” answered the lawyer. “She is absolutely uneducated and openly mercenary. She cares for nothing but the money. She is very handsome in a coarse way, but—”

The fastidious old lawyer ceased speaking and gave a sort of shudder.

The veins on the old Earl’s forehead stood out like purple cords.

Something else stood out upon it too—cold drops of moisture. He took out his handkerchief and swept them away. His smile grew even more bitter.

“And I,” he said, “I objected to—to the other woman, the mother of this child” (pointing to the sleeping form on the sofa); “I refused to recognize her. And yet she could spell her own name. I suppose this is retribution.”

Suddenly he sprang up from his chair and began to walk up and down the room. Fierce and terrible words poured forth from his lips. His rage and hatred and cruel disappointment shook him as a storm shakes a tree. His violence was something dreadful to see, and yet Mr. Havisham noticed that at the very worst of his wrath he never seemed to forget the little sleeping figure on the yellow satin cushion, and that he never once spoke loud enough to awaken it.

“I might have known it,” he said. “They were a disgrace to me from their first hour! I hated them both; and they hated me! Bevis was the worse of the two. I will not believe this yet, though! I will contend against it to the last. But it is like Bevis—it is like him!”

And then he raged again and asked questions about the woman, about her proofs, and pacing the room, turned first white and then purple in his repressed fury.

When at last he had learned all there was to be told, and knew the worst, Mr. Havisham looked at him with a feeling of anxiety. He looked broken and haggard and changed. His rages had always been bad for him, but this one had been worse than the rest because there had been something more than rage in it.

He came slowly back to the sofa, at last, and stood near it.

“If any one had told me I could be fond of a child,” he said, his harsh voice low and unsteady, “I should not have believed them. I always detested children—my own more than the rest. I am fond of this one; he is fond of me” (with a bitter smile). “I am not popular; I never was. But he is fond of me. He never was afraid of me—he always trusted me. He would have filled my place better than I have filled it. I know that. He would have been an honor to the name.”

He bent down and stood a minute or so looking at the happy, sleeping face. His shaggy eyebrows were knitted fiercely, and yet somehow he did not seem fierce at all. He put up his hand, pushed the bright hair back from the forehead, and then turned away and rang the bell.

When the largest footman appeared, he pointed to the sofa.

“Take”—he said, and then his voice changed a little—“take Lord Fauntleroy to his room.”

CHAPTER XI

When Mr. Hobbs’s young friend left him to go to Dorincourt Castle and become Lord Fauntleroy, and the grocery-man had time to realize that the Atlantic Ocean lay between himself and the small companion who had spent so many agreeable hours in his society, he really began to feel very lonely indeed. The fact was, Mr. Hobbs was not a clever man nor even a bright one; he was, indeed, rather a slow and heavy person, and he had never made many acquaintances. He was not mentally energetic enough to know how to amuse himself, and in truth he never did anything of an entertaining nature but read the newspapers and add up his accounts. It was not very easy for him to add up his accounts, and sometimes it took him a long time to bring them out right; and in the old days, little Lord Fauntleroy, who had learned how to add up quite nicely with his fingers and a slate and pencil, had sometimes even gone to the length of trying to help him; and, then too, he had been so good a listener and had taken such an interest in what the newspaper said, and he and Mr. Hobbs had held such long conversations about the Revolution and the British and the elections and the Republican party, that it was no wonder his going left a blank in the grocery store. At first it seemed to Mr. Hobbs that Cedric was not really far away, and would come back again; that some day he would look up from his paper and see the little lad standing in the door-way, in his white suit and red stockings, and with his straw hat on the back of his head, and would hear him say in his cheerful little voice: “Hello, Mr. Hobbs! This is a hot day—isn’t it?” But as the days passed on and this did not happen, Mr. Hobbs felt very dull and uneasy. He did not even enjoy his newspaper as much as he used to. He would put the paper down on his knee after reading it, and sit and stare at the high stool for a long time. There were some marks on the long legs which made him feel quite dejected and melancholy. They were marks made by the heels of the next Earl of Dorincourt, when he kicked and talked at the same time. It seems that even youthful earls kick the legs of things they sit on;—noble blood and lofty lineage do not prevent it. After looking at those marks, Mr. Hobbs would take out his gold watch and open it and stare at the inscription: “From his oldest friend, Lord Fauntleroy, to Mr. Hobbs. When this you see, remember me.” And after staring at it awhile, he would shut it up with a loud snap, and sigh and get up and go and stand in the door-way—between the box of potatoes and the barrel of apples—and look up the street. At night, when the store was closed, he would light his pipe and walk slowly along the pavement until he reached the house where Cedric had lived, on which there was a sign that read, “This House to Let”; and he would stop near it and look up and shake his head, and puff at his pipe very hard, and after a while walk mournfully back again.

This went on for two or three weeks before any new idea came to him. Being slow and ponderous, it always took him a long time to reach a new idea. As a rule, he did not like new ideas, but preferred old ones. After two or three weeks, however, during which, instead of getting better, matters really grew worse, a novel plan slowly and deliberately dawned upon him. He would go to see Dick. He smoked a great many pipes before he arrived at the conclusion, but finally he did arrive at it. He would go to see Dick. He knew all about Dick. Cedric had told him, and his idea was that perhaps Dick might be some comfort to him in the way of talking things over.

So one day when Dick was very hard at work blacking a customer’s boots, a short, stout man with a heavy face and a bald head stopped on the pavement and stared for two or three minutes at the bootblack’s sign, which read:

“PROFESSOR DICK TIPTON CAN’T BE BEAT.”

He stared at it so long that Dick began to take a lively interest in him, and when he had put the finishing touch to his customer’s boots, he said:

“Want a shine, sir?”

The stout man came forward deliberately and put his foot on the rest.

“Yes,” he said.

Then when Dick fell to work, the stout man looked from Dick to the sign and from the sign to Dick.

“Where did you get that?” he asked.

“From a friend o’ mine,” said Dick,—“a little feller. He guv’ me the whole outfit. He was the best little feller ye ever saw. He’s in England now. Gone to be one o’ them lords.”

“Lord—Lord—” asked Mr. Hobbs, with ponderous slowness, “Lord Fauntleroy—Goin’ to be Earl of Dorincourt?”

Dick almost dropped his brush.

“Why, boss!” he exclaimed, “d’ ye know him yerself?”

“I’ve known him,” answered Mr. Hobbs, wiping his warm forehead, “ever since he was born. We was lifetime acquaintances—that’s what we was.”

It really made him feel quite agitated to speak of it. He pulled the splendid gold watch out of his pocket and opened it, and showed the inside of the case to Dick.

“‘When this you see, remember me,’” he read. “That was his parting keepsake to me. ‘I don’t want you to forget me’—those was his words—I’d ha’ remembered him,” he went on, shaking his head, “if he hadn’t given me a thing an’ I hadn’t seen hide nor hair on him again. He was a companion as any man would remember.”

“He was the nicest little feller I ever see,” said Dick. “An’ as to sand—I never seen so much sand to a little feller. I thought a heap o’ him, I did,—an’ we was friends, too—we was sort o’ chums from the fust, that little young un an’ me. I grabbed his ball from under a stage fur him, an’ he never forgot it; an’ he’d come down here, he would, with his mother or his nuss and he’d holler: ‘Hello, Dick!’ at me, as friendly as if he was six feet high, when he warn’t knee high to a grasshopper, and was dressed in gal’s clo’es. He was a gay little chap, and when you was down on your luck, it did you good to talk to him.”

“That’s so,” said Mr. Hobbs. “It was a pity to make a earl out of him. He would have shone in the grocery business—or dry goods either; he would have shone!” And he shook his head with deeper regret than ever.

It proved that they had so much to say to each other that it was not possible to say it all at one time, and so it was agreed that the next night Dick should make a visit to the store and keep Mr. Hobbs company. The plan pleased Dick well enough. He had been a street waif nearly all his life, but he had never been a bad boy, and he had always had a private yearning for a more respectable kind of existence. Since he had been in business for himself, he had made enough money to enable him to sleep under a roof instead of out in the streets, and he had begun to hope he might reach even a higher plane, in time. So, to be invited to call on a stout, respectable man who owned a corner store, and even had a horse and wagon, seemed to him quite an event.

“Do you know anything about earls and castles?” Mr. Hobbs inquired. “I’d like to know more of the particklars.”

“There’s a story about some on ’em in the Penny Story Gazette,” said Dick. “It’s called the Crime of a Coronet; or, The Revenge of the Countess May. It’s a boss thing, too. Some of us boys’re takin’ it to read.”

“Bring it up when you come,” said Mr. Hobbs, “an’ I’ll pay for it. Bring all you can find that have any earls in ’em. If there aren’t earls, markises’ll do, or dooks—though he never made mention of any dooks or markises. We did go over coronets a little, but I never happened to see any. I guess they don’t keep ’em ’round here.”

“Tiffany’d have ’em if anybody did,” said Dick, “but I don’t know as I’d know one if I saw it.”

Mr. Hobbs did not explain that he would not have known one if he saw it. He merely shook his head ponderously.

“I s’pose there is very little call for ’em,” he said, and that ended the matter.

This was the beginning of quite a substantial friendship. When Dick went up to the store, Mr. Hobbs received him with great hospitality. He gave him a chair tilted against the door, near a barrel of apples, and after his young visitor was seated, he made a jerk at them with the hand in which he held his pipe, saying:

“Help yerself.”

Then he looked at the story papers, and after that they read and discussed the British aristocracy; and Mr. Hobbs smoked his pipe very hard and shook his head a great deal. He shook it most when he pointed out the high stool with the marks on its legs.

“There’s his very kicks,” he said impressively; “his very kicks. I sit and look at ’em by the hour. This is a world of ups an’ it’s a world of downs. Why, he’d set there, an’ eat crackers out of a box, an’ apples out of a barrel, an’ pitch his cores into the street; an’ now he’s a lord a-livin’ in a castle. Them’s a lord’s kicks; they’ll be a earl’s kicks some day. Sometimes I says to myself, says I, ‘Well, I’ll be jiggered!’”

He seemed to derive a great deal of comfort from his reflections and Dick’s visit. Before Dick went home, they had a supper in the small back-room; they had crackers and cheese and sardines, and other canned things out of the store, and Mr. Hobbs solemnly opened two bottles of ginger ale, and pouring out two glasses, proposed a toast.

“Here’s to him!” he said, lifting his glass, “an’ may he teach ’em a lesson—earls an’ markises an’ dooks an’ all!”

After that night, the two saw each other often, and Mr. Hobbs was much more comfortable and less desolate. They read the Penny Story Gazette, and many other interesting things, and gained a knowledge of the habits of the nobility and gentry which would have surprised those despised classes if they had realized it. One day Mr. Hobbs made a pilgrimage to a book store down town, for the express purpose of adding to their library. He went to the clerk and leaned over the counter to speak to him.

“I want,” he said, “a book about earls.”

“What!” exclaimed the clerk.

“A book,” repeated the grocery-man, “about earls.”

“I’m afraid,” said the clerk, looking rather queer, “that we haven’t what you want.”

“Haven’t?” said Mr. Hobbs, anxiously. “Well, say markises then—or dooks.”

“I know of no such book,” answered the clerk.

Mr. Hobbs was much disturbed. He looked down on the floor,—then he looked up.

“None about female earls?” he inquired.

“I’m afraid not,” said the clerk with a smile.

“Well,” exclaimed Mr. Hobbs, “I’ll be jiggered!”

He was just going out of the store, when the clerk called him back and asked him if a story in which the nobility were chief characters would do. Mr. Hobbs said it would—if he could not get an entire volume devoted to earls. So the clerk sold him a book called “The Tower of London,” written by Mr. Harrison Ainsworth, and he carried it home.

When Dick came they began to read it. It was a very wonderful and exciting book, and the scene was laid in the reign of the famous English queen who is called by some people Bloody Mary. And as Mr. Hobbs heard of Queen Mary’s deeds and the habit she had of chopping people’s heads off, putting them to the torture, and burning them alive, he became very much excited. He took his pipe out of his mouth and stared at Dick, and at last he was obliged to mop the perspiration from his brow with his red pocket handkerchief.

“Why, he ain’t safe!” he said. “He ain’t safe! If the women folks can sit up on their thrones an’ give the word for things like that to be done, who’s to know what’s happening to him this very minute? He’s no more safe than nothing! Just let a woman like that get mad, an’ no one’s safe!”

“Well,” said Dick, though he looked rather anxious himself; “ye see this ’ere un isn’t the one that’s bossin’ things now. I know her name’s Victory, an’ this un here in the book, her name’s Mary.”

“So it is,” said Mr. Hobbs, still mopping his forehead; “so it is. An’ the newspapers are not sayin’ anything about any racks, thumb-screws, or stake-burnin’s,—but still it doesn’t seem as if ’t was safe for him over there with those queer folks. Why, they tell me they don’t keep the Fourth o’ July!”

He was privately uneasy for several days; and it was not until he received Fauntleroy’s letter and had read it several times, both to himself and to Dick, and had also read the letter Dick got about the same time, that he became composed again.

But they both found great pleasure in their letters. They read and re-read them, and talked them over and enjoyed every word of them. And they spent days over the answers they sent and read them over almost as often as the letters they had received.

It was rather a labor for Dick to write his. All his knowledge of reading and writing he had gained during a few months, when he had lived with his elder brother, and had gone to a night-school; but, being a sharp boy, he had made the most of that brief education, and had spelled out things in newspapers since then, and practiced writing with bits of chalk on pavements or walls or fences. He told Mr. Hobbs all about his life and about his elder brother, who had been rather good to him after their mother died, when Dick was quite a little fellow. Their father had died some time before. The brother’s name was Ben, and he had taken care of Dick as well as he could, until the boy was old enough to sell newspapers and run errands. They had lived together, and as he grew older Ben had managed to get along until he had quite a decent place in a store.

“And then,” exclaimed Dick with disgust, “blest if he didn’t go an’ marry a gal! Just went and got spoony an’ hadn’t any more sense left! Married her, an’ set up housekeepin’ in two back rooms. An’ a hefty un she was,—a regular tiger-cat. She’d tear things to pieces when she got mad,—and she was mad all the time. Had a baby just like her,—yell day ’n’ night! An’ if I didn’t have to ’tend it! an’ when it screamed, she’d fire things at me. She fired a plate at me one day, an’ hit the baby—cut its chin. Doctor said he’d carry the mark till he died. A nice mother she was! Crackey! but didn’t we have a time—Ben ’n’ mehself ’n’ the young un. She was mad at Ben because he didn’t make money faster; ’n’ at last he went out West with a man to set up a cattle ranch. An’ hadn’t been gone a week ’fore one night, I got home from sellin’ my papers, ’n’ the rooms wus locked up ’n’ empty, ’n’ the woman o’ the house, she told me Minna’d gone—shown a clean pair o’ heels. Some un else said she’d gone across the water to be nuss to a lady as had a little baby, too. Never heard a word of her since—nuther has Ben. If I’d ha’ bin him, I wouldn’t ha’ fretted a bit—’n’ I guess he didn’t. But he thought a heap o’ her at the start. Tell you, he was spoons on her. She was a daisy-lookin’ gal, too, when she was dressed up ’n’ not mad. She’d big black eyes ’n’ black hair down to her knees; she’d make it into a rope as big as your arm, and twist it ’round ’n’ ’round her head; ’n’ I tell you her eyes’d snap! Folks used to say she was part Itali-un—said her mother or father’d come from there, ’n’ it made her queer. I tell ye, she was one of ’em—she was!”

He often told Mr. Hobbs stories of her and of his brother Ben, who, since his going out West, had written once or twice to Dick.

Ben’s luck had not been good, and he had wandered from place to place; but at last he had settled on a ranch in California, where he was at work at the time when Dick became acquainted with Mr. Hobbs.

“That gal,” said Dick one day, “she took all the grit out o’ him. I couldn’t help feelin’ sorry for him sometimes.”

They were sitting in the store door-way together, and Mr. Hobbs was filling his pipe.

“He oughtn’t to ’ve married,” he said solemnly, as he rose to get a match. “Women—I never could see any use in ’em myself.”

As he took the match from its box, he stopped and looked down on the counter.

“Why!” he said, “if here isn’t a letter! I didn’t see it before. The postman must have laid it down when I wasn’t noticin’, or the newspaper slipped over it.”

He picked it up and looked at it carefully.

“It’s from him!” he exclaimed. “That’s the very one it’s from!”

He forgot his pipe altogether. He went back to his chair quite excited and took his pocket-knife and opened the envelope.

“I wonder what news there is this time,” he said.

And then he unfolded the letter and read as follows:

“DORINCOURT CASTLE

‘My dear Mr. Hobbs

“I write this in a great hury becaus i have something curous to tell you i know you will be very mutch suprised my dear frend when i tel you. It is all a mistake and i am not a lord and i shall not have to be an earl there is a lady whitch was marid to my uncle bevis who is dead and she has a little boy and he is lord fauntleroy becaus that is the way it is in England the earls eldest sons little boy is the earl if every body else is dead i mean if his farther and grandfarther are dead my grandfarther is not dead but my uncle bevis is and so his boy is lord Fauntleroy and i am not becaus my papa was the youngest son and my name is Cedric Errol like it was when i was in New York and all the things will belong to the other boy i thought at first i should have to give him my pony and cart but my grandfarther says i need not my grandfarther is very sorry and i think he does not like the lady but preaps he thinks dearest and i are sorry because i shall not be an earl i would like to be an earl now better than i thout i would at first becaus this is a beautifle castle and i like every body so and when you are rich you can do so many things i am not rich now becaus when your papa is only the youngest son he is not very rich i am going to learn to work so that i can take care of dearest i have been asking Wilkins about grooming horses preaps i might be a groom or a coachman. The lady brought her little boy to the castle and my grandfarther and Mr. Havisham talked to her i think she was angry she talked loud and my grandfarther was angry too i never saw him angry before i wish it did not make them all mad i thort i would tell you and Dick right away becaus you would be intrusted so no more at present with love from

“your old frend

“CEDRIC ERROL (Not lord Fauntleroy).”

Mr. Hobbs fell back in his chair, the letter dropped on his knee, his pen-knife slipped to the floor, and so did the envelope.

“Well!” he ejaculated, “I am jiggered!”

He was so dumfounded that he actually changed his exclamation. It had always been his habit to say, “I will be jiggered,” but this time he said, “I am jiggered.” Perhaps he really was jiggered. There is no knowing.

“Well,” said Dick, “the whole thing’s bust up, hasn’t it?”

“Bust!” said Mr. Hobbs. “It’s my opinion it’s a put-up job o’ the British ristycrats to rob him of his rights because he’s an American. They’ve had a spite agin us ever since the Revolution, an’ they’re takin’ it out on him. I told you he wasn’t safe, an’ see what’s happened! Like as not, the whole gover’ment’s got together to rob him of his lawful ownin’s.”

He was very much agitated. He had not approved of the change in his young friend’s circumstances at first, but lately he had become more reconciled to it, and after the receipt of Cedric’s letter he had perhaps even felt some secret pride in his young friend’s magnificence. He might not have a good opinion of earls, but he knew that even in America money was considered rather an agreeable thing, and if all the wealth and grandeur were to go with the title, it must be rather hard to lose it.

“They’re trying to rob him!” he said, “that’s what they’re doing, and folks that have money ought to look after him.”

And he kept Dick with him until quite a late hour to talk it over, and when that young man left, he went with him to the corner of the street; and on his way back he stopped opposite the empty house for some time, staring at the “To Let,” and smoking his pipe, in much disturbance of mind.

CHAPTER XII

A very few days after the dinner party at the Castle, almost everybody in England who read the newspapers at all knew the romantic story of what had happened at Dorincourt. It made a very interesting story when it was told with all the details. There was the little American boy who had been brought to England to be Lord Fauntleroy, and who was said to be so fine and handsome a little fellow, and to have already made people fond of him; there was the old Earl, his grandfather, who was so proud of his heir; there was the pretty young mother who had never been forgiven for marrying Captain Errol; and there was the strange marriage of Bevis, the dead Lord Fauntleroy, and the strange wife, of whom no one knew anything, suddenly appearing with her son, and saying that he was the real Lord Fauntleroy and must have his rights. All these things were talked about and written about, and caused a tremendous sensation. And then there came the rumor that the Earl of Dorincourt was not satisfied with the turn affairs had taken, and would perhaps contest the claim by law, and the matter might end with a wonderful trial.

There never had been such excitement before in the county in which Erleboro was situated. On market-days, people stood in groups and talked and wondered what would be done; the farmers’ wives invited one another to tea that they might tell one another all they had heard and all they thought and all they thought other people thought. They related wonderful anecdotes about the Earl’s rage and his determination not to acknowledge the new Lord Fauntleroy, and his hatred of the woman who was the claimant’s mother. But, of course, it was Mrs. Dibble who could tell the most, and who was more in demand than ever.

“An’ a bad lookout it is,” she said. “An’ if you were to ask me, ma’am, I should say as it was a judgment on him for the way he’s treated that sweet young cre’tur’ as he parted from her child,—for he’s got that fond of him an’ that set on him an’ that proud of him as he’s a’most drove mad by what’s happened. An’ what’s more, this new one’s no lady, as his little lordship’s ma is. She’s a bold-faced, black-eyed thing, as Mr. Thomas says no gentleman in livery ’u’d bemean hisself to be gave orders by; and let her come into the house, he says, an’ he goes out of it. An’ the boy don’t no more compare with the other one than nothin’ you could mention. An’ mercy knows what’s goin’ to come of it all, an’ where it’s to end, an’ you might have knocked me down with a feather when Jane brought the news.”

In fact there was excitement everywhere at the Castle: in the library, where the Earl and Mr. Havisham sat and talked; in the servants’ hall, where Mr. Thomas and the butler and the other men and women servants gossiped and exclaimed at all times of the day; and in the stables, where Wilkins went about his work in a quite depressed state of mind, and groomed the brown pony more beautifully than ever, and said mournfully to the coachman that he “never taught a young gen’leman to ride as took to it more nat’ral, or was a better-plucked one than he was. He was a one as it were some pleasure to ride behind.”

But in the midst of all the disturbance there was one person who was quite calm and untroubled. That person was the little Lord Fauntleroy who was said not to be Lord Fauntleroy at all. When first the state of affairs had been explained to him, he had felt some little anxiousness and perplexity, it is true, but its foundation was not in baffled ambition.

While the Earl told him what had happened, he had sat on a stool holding on to his knee, as he so often did when he was listening to anything interesting; and by the time the story was finished he looked quite sober.

“It makes me feel very queer,” he said; “it makes me feel—queer!”

The Earl looked at the boy in silence. It made him feel queer, too—queerer than he had ever felt in his whole life. And he felt more queer still when he saw that there was a troubled expression on the small face which was usually so happy.

“Will they take Dearest’s house from her—and her carriage?” Cedric asked in a rather unsteady, anxious little voice.

“No!” said the Earl decidedly—in quite a loud voice, in fact. “They can take nothing from her.”

“Ah!” said Cedric, with evident relief. “Can’t they?”

Then he looked up at his grandfather, and there was a wistful shade in his eyes, and they looked very big and soft.

“That other boy,” he said rather tremulously—“he will have to—to be your boy now—as I was—won’t he?”

“No!” answered the Earl—and he said it so fiercely and loudly that Cedric quite jumped.

“No?” he exclaimed, in wonderment. “Won’t he? I thought—”

He stood up from his stool quite suddenly.

“Shall I be your boy, even if I’m not going to be an earl?” he said. “Shall I be your boy, just as I was before?” And his flushed little face was all alight with eagerness.

How the old Earl did look at him from head to foot, to be sure! How his great shaggy brows did draw themselves together, and how queerly his deep eyes shone under them—how very queerly!

“My boy!” he said—and, if you’ll believe it, his very voice was queer, almost shaky and a little broken and hoarse, not at all what you would expect an Earl’s voice to be, though he spoke more decidedly and peremptorily even than before,—“Yes, you’ll be my boy as long as I live; and, by George, sometimes I feel as if you were the only boy I had ever had.”

Cedric’s face turned red to the roots of his hair; it turned red with relief and pleasure. He put both his hands deep into his pockets and looked squarely into his noble relative’s eyes.

“Do you?” he said. “Well, then, I don’t care about the earl part at all. I don’t care whether I’m an earl or not. I thought—you see, I thought the one that was going to be the Earl would have to be your boy, too, and—and I couldn’t be. That was what made me feel so queer.”

The Earl put his hand on his shoulder and drew him nearer.

“They shall take nothing from you that I can hold for you,” he said, drawing his breath hard. “I won’t believe yet that they can take anything from you. You were made for the place, and—well, you may fill it still. But whatever comes, you shall have all that I can give you—all!”

It scarcely seemed as if he were speaking to a child, there was such determination in his face and voice; it was more as if he were making a promise to himself—and perhaps he was.

He had never before known how deep a hold upon him his fondness for the boy and his pride in him had taken. He had never seen his strength and good qualities and beauty as he seemed to see them now. To his obstinate nature it seemed impossible—more than impossible—to give up what he had so set his heart upon. And he had determined that he would not give it up without a fierce struggle.

Within a few days after she had seen Mr. Havisham, the woman who claimed to be Lady Fauntleroy presented herself at the Castle, and brought her child with her. She was sent away. The Earl would not see her, she was told by the footman at the door; his lawyer would attend to her case. It was Thomas who gave the message, and who expressed his opinion of her freely afterward, in the servants’ hall. He “hoped,” he said, “as he had wore livery in ’igh famblies long enough to know a lady when he see one, an’ if that was a lady he was no judge o’ females.”

“The one at the Lodge,” added Thomas loftily, “’Merican or no ’Merican, she’s one o’ the right sort, as any gentleman ’u’d reckinize with all a heye. I remarked it myself to Henery when fust we called there.”

The woman drove away; the look on her handsome, common face half frightened, half fierce. Mr. Havisham had noticed, during his interviews with her, that though she had a passionate temper, and a coarse, insolent manner, she was neither so clever nor so bold as she meant to be; she seemed sometimes to be almost overwhelmed by the position in which she had placed herself. It was as if she had not expected to meet with such opposition.

“She is evidently,” the lawyer said to Mrs. Errol, “a person from the lower walks of life. She is uneducated and untrained in everything, and quite unused to meeting people like ourselves on any terms of equality. She does not know what to do. Her visit to the Castle quite cowed her. She was infuriated, but she was cowed. The Earl would not receive her, but I advised him to go with me to the Dorincourt Arms, where she is staying. When she saw him enter the room, she turned white, though she flew into a rage at once, and threatened and demanded in one breath.”

The fact was that the Earl had stalked into the room and stood, looking like a venerable aristocratic giant, staring at the woman from under his beetling brows, and not condescending a word. He simply stared at her, taking her in from head to foot as if she were some repulsive curiosity. He let her talk and demand until she was tired, without himself uttering a word, and then he said:

“You say you are my eldest son’s wife. If that is true, and if the proof you offer is too much for us, the law is on your side. In that case, your boy is Lord Fauntleroy. The matter will be sifted to the bottom, you may rest assured. If your claims are proved, you will be provided for. I want to see nothing of either you or the child so long as I live. The place will unfortunately have enough of you after my death. You are exactly the kind of person I should have expected my son Bevis to choose.”

And then he turned his back upon her and stalked out of the room as he had stalked into it.

Not many days after that, a visitor was announced to Mrs. Errol, who was writing in her little morning room. The maid, who brought the message, looked rather excited; her eyes were quite round with amazement, in fact, and being young and inexperienced, she regarded her mistress with nervous sympathy.

“It’s the Earl hisself, ma’am!” she said in tremulous awe.

When Mrs. Errol entered the drawing-room, a very tall, majestic-looking old man was standing on the tiger-skin rug. He had a handsome, grim old face, with an aquiline profile, a long white mustache, and an obstinate look.

“Mrs. Errol, I believe?” he said.

“Mrs. Errol,” she answered.

“I am the Earl of Dorincourt,” he said.

He paused a moment, almost unconsciously, to look into her uplifted eyes. They were so like the big, affectionate, childish eyes he had seen uplifted to his own so often every day during the last few months, that they gave him a quite curious sensation.

“The boy is very like you,” he said abruptly.

“It has been often said so, my lord,” she replied, “but I have been glad to think him like his father also.”

As Lady Lorridaile had told him, her voice was very sweet, and her manner was very simple and dignified. She did not seem in the least troubled by his sudden coming.

“Yes,” said the Earl, “he is like—my son—too.” He put his hand up to his big white mustache and pulled it fiercely. “Do you know,” he said, “why I have come here?”

“I have seen Mr. Havisham,” Mrs. Errol began, “and he has told me of the claims which have been made—”

“I have come to tell you,” said the Earl, “that they will be investigated and contested, if a contest can be made. I have come to tell you that the boy shall be defended with all the power of the law. His rights—”

The soft voice interrupted him.

“He must have nothing that is not his by right, even if the law can give it to him,” she said.

“Unfortunately the law can not,” said the Earl. “If it could, it should. This outrageous woman and her child—”

“Perhaps she cares for him as much as I care for Cedric, my lord,” said little Mrs. Errol. “And if she was your eldest son’s wife, her son is Lord Fauntleroy, and mine is not.”

She was no more afraid of him than Cedric had been, and she looked at him just as Cedric would have looked, and he, having been an old tyrant all his life, was privately pleased by it. People so seldom dared to differ from him that there was an entertaining novelty in it.

“I suppose,” he said, scowling slightly, “that you would much prefer that he should not be the Earl of Dorincourt.”

Her fair young face flushed.

“It is a very magnificent thing to be the Earl of Dorincourt, my lord,” she said. “I know that, but I care most that he should be what his father was—brave and just and true always.”

“In striking contrast to what his grandfather was, eh?” said his lordship sardonically.

“I have not had the pleasure of knowing his grandfather,” replied Mrs. Errol, “but I know my little boy believes—” She stopped short a moment, looking quietly into his face, and then she added, “I know that Cedric loves you.”

“Would he have loved me,” said the Earl dryly, “if you had told him why I did not receive you at the Castle?”

“No,” answered Mrs. Errol, “I think not. That was why I did not wish him to know.”

“Well,” said my lord brusquely, “there are few women who would not have told him.”

He suddenly began to walk up and down the room, pulling his great mustache more violently than ever.

“Yes, he is fond of me,” he said, “and I am fond of him. I can’t say I ever was fond of anything before. I am fond of him. He pleased me from the first. I am an old man, and was tired of my life. He has given me something to live for. I am proud of him. I was satisfied to think of his taking his place some day as the head of the family.”

He came back and stood before Mrs. Errol.

“I am miserable,” he said. “Miserable!”

He looked as if he was. Even his pride could not keep his voice steady or his hands from shaking. For a moment it almost seemed as if his deep, fierce eyes had tears in them. “Perhaps it is because I am miserable that I have come to you,” he said, quite glaring down at her. “I used to hate you; I have been jealous of you. This wretched, disgraceful business has changed that. After seeing that repulsive woman who calls herself the wife of my son Bevis, I actually felt it would be a relief to look at you. I have been an obstinate old fool, and I suppose I have treated you badly. You are like the boy, and the boy is the first object in my life. I am miserable, and I came to you merely because you are like the boy, and he cares for you, and I care for him. Treat me as well as you can, for the boy’s sake.”

He said it all in his harsh voice, and almost roughly, but somehow he seemed so broken down for the time that Mrs. Errol was touched to the heart. She got up and moved an arm-chair a little forward.

“I wish you would sit down,” she said in a soft, pretty, sympathetic way. “You have been so much troubled that you are very tired, and you need all your strength.”

It was just as new to him to be spoken to and cared for in that gentle, simple way as it was to be contradicted. He was reminded of “the boy” again, and he actually did as she asked him. Perhaps his disappointment and wretchedness were good discipline for him; if he had not been wretched he might have continued to hate her, but just at present he found her a little soothing. Almost anything would have seemed pleasant by contrast with Lady Fauntleroy; and this one had so sweet a face and voice, and a pretty dignity when she spoke or moved. Very soon, through the quiet magic of these influences, he began to feel less gloomy, and then he talked still more.

“Whatever happens,” he said, “the boy shall be provided for. He shall be taken care of, now and in the future.”

Before he went away, he glanced around the room.

“Do you like the house?” he demanded.

“Very much,” she answered.

“This is a cheerful room,” he said. “May I come here again and talk this matter over?”

“As often as you wish, my lord,” she replied.

And then he went out to his carriage and drove away, Thomas and Henry almost stricken dumb upon the box at the turn affairs had taken.

CHAPTER XIII

Of course, as soon as the story of Lord Fauntleroy and the difficulties of the Earl of Dorincourt were discussed in the English newspapers, they were discussed in the American newspapers. The story was too interesting to be passed over lightly, and it was talked of a great deal. There were so many versions of it that it would have been an edifying thing to buy all the papers and compare them. Mr. Hobbs read so much about it that he became quite bewildered. One paper described his young friend Cedric as an infant in arms,—another as a young man at Oxford, winning all the honors, and distinguishing himself by writing Greek poems; one said he was engaged to a young lady of great beauty, who was the daughter of a duke; another said he had just been married; the only thing, in fact, which was not said was that he was a little boy between seven and eight, with handsome legs and curly hair. One said he was no relation to the Earl of Dorincourt at all, but was a small impostor who had sold newspapers and slept in the streets of New York before his mother imposed upon the family lawyer, who came to America to look for the Earl’s heir. Then came the descriptions of the new Lord Fauntleroy and his mother. Sometimes she was a gypsy, sometimes an actress, sometimes a beautiful Spaniard; but it was always agreed that the Earl of Dorincourt was her deadly enemy, and would not acknowledge her son as his heir if he could help it, and as there seemed to be some slight flaw in the papers she had produced, it was expected that there would be a long trial, which would be far more interesting than anything ever carried into court before. Mr. Hobbs used to read the papers until his head was in a whirl, and in the evening he and Dick would talk it all over. They found out what an important personage an Earl of Dorincourt was, and what a magnificent income he possessed, and how many estates he owned, and how stately and beautiful was the Castle in which he lived; and the more they learned, the more excited they became.

“Seems like somethin’ orter be done,” said Mr. Hobbs. “Things like them orter be held on to—earls or no earls.”

But there really was nothing they could do but each write a letter to Cedric, containing assurances of their friendship and sympathy. They wrote those letters as soon as they could after receiving the news; and after having written them, they handed them over to each other to be read.

This is what Mr. Hobbs read in Dick’s letter:

“DERE FREND: i got ure letter an Mr. Hobbs got his an we are sory u are down on ure luck an we say hold on as longs u kin an dont let no one git ahed of u. There is a lot of ole theves wil make al they kin of u ef u dont kepe ure i skined. But this is mosly to say that ive not forgot wot u did fur me an if there aint no better way cum over here an go in pardners with me. Biznes is fine an ile see no harm cums to u Enny big feler that trise to cum it over u wil hafter setle it fust with Perfessor Dick Tipton. So no more at present

“DICK.”

And this was what Dick read in Mr. Hobbs’s letter:

“DEAR SIR: Yrs received and wd say things looks bad. I believe its a put up job and them thats done it ought to be looked after sharp. And what I write to say is two things. Im going to look this thing up. Keep quiet and Ill see a lawyer and do all I can And if the worst happens and them earls is too many for us theres a partnership in the grocery business ready for you when yure old enough and a home and a friend in

“Yrs truly,

“SILAS HOBBS.”

“Well,” said Mr. Hobbs, “he’s pervided for between us, if he aint a earl.”

“So he is,” said Dick. “I’d ha’ stood by him. Blest if I didn’t like that little feller fust-rate.”

The very next morning, one of Dick’s customers was rather surprised. He was a young lawyer just beginning practice—as poor as a very young lawyer can possibly be, but a bright, energetic young fellow, with sharp wit and a good temper. He had a shabby office near Dick’s stand, and every morning Dick blacked his boots for him, and quite often they were not exactly water-tight, but he always had a friendly word or a joke for Dick.

That particular morning, when he put his foot on the rest, he had an illustrated paper in his hand—an enterprising paper, with pictures in it of conspicuous people and things. He had just finished looking it over, and when the last boot was polished, he handed it over to the boy.

“Here’s a paper for you, Dick,” he said; “you can look it over when you drop in at Delmonico’s for your breakfast. Picture of an English castle in it, and an English earl’s daughter-in-law. Fine young woman, too,—lots of hair,—though she seems to be raising rather a row. You ought to become familiar with the nobility and gentry, Dick. Begin on the Right Honorable the Earl of Dorincourt and Lady Fauntleroy. Hello! I say, what’s the matter?”

The pictures he spoke of were on the front page, and Dick was staring at one of them with his eyes and mouth open, and his sharp face almost pale with excitement.

“What’s to pay, Dick?” said the young man. “What has paralyzed you?”

Dick really did look as if something tremendous had happened. He pointed to the picture, under which was written:

“Mother of Claimant (Lady Fauntleroy).”

It was the picture of a handsome woman, with large eyes and heavy braids of black hair wound around her head.

“Her!” said Dick. “My, I know her better ’n I know you!”

The young man began to laugh.

“Where did you meet her, Dick?” he said. “At Newport? Or when you ran over to Paris the last time?”

Dick actually forgot to grin. He began to gather his brushes and things together, as if he had something to do which would put an end to his business for the present.

“Never mind,” he said. “I know her! An I’ve struck work for this mornin’.”

And in less than five minutes from that time he was tearing through the streets on his way to Mr. Hobbs and the corner store.

Mr. Hobbs could scarcely believe the evidence of his senses when he looked across the counter and saw Dick rush in with the paper in his hand. The boy was out of breath with running; so much out of breath, in fact, that he could scarcely speak as he threw the paper down on the counter.

“Hello!” exclaimed Mr. Hobbs. “Hello! What you got there?”

“Look at it!” panted Dick. “Look at that woman in the picture! That’s what you look at! she aint no ’ristocrat, she aint!” with withering scorn. “She’s no lord’s wife. You may eat me, if it aint Minna—Minna! I’d know her anywheres, an’ so’d Ben. Jest ax him.”

Mr. Hobbs dropped into his seat.

“I knowed it was a put-up job,” he said. “I knowed it; and they done it on account o’ him bein’ a ’Merican!”

“Done it!” cried Dick, with disgust. “She done it, that’s who done it. She was allers up to her tricks; an’ I’ll tell yer wot come to me, the minnit I saw her pictur. There was one o’ them papers we saw had a letter in it that said somethin’ ’bout her boy, an’ it said he had a scar on his chin. Put them two together—her ’n’ that there scar! Why, that there boy o’ hers aint no more a lord than I am! It’s Ben’s boy,—the little chap she hit when she let fly that plate at me.”

Professor Dick Tipton had always been a sharp boy, and earning his living in the streets of a big city had made him still sharper. He had learned to keep his eyes open and his wits about him, and it must be confessed he enjoyed immensely the excitement and impatience of that moment. If little Lord Fauntleroy could only have looked into the store that morning, he would certainly have been interested, even if all the discussion and plans had been intended to decide the fate of some other boy than himself.

Mr. Hobbs was almost overwhelmed by his sense of responsibility, and Dick was all alive and full of energy. He began to write a letter to Ben, and he cut out the picture and inclosed it to him, and Mr. Hobbs wrote a letter to Cedric and one to the Earl. They were in the midst of this letter-writing when a new idea came to Dick.

“Say,” he said, “the feller that give me the paper, he’s a lawyer. Let’s ax him what we’d better do. Lawyers knows it all.”

Mr. Hobbs was immensely impressed by this suggestion and Dick’s business capacity.

“That’s so!” he replied. “This here calls for lawyers.”

And leaving the store in the care of a substitute, he struggled into his coat and marched down-town with Dick, and the two presented themselves with their romantic story in Mr. Harrison’s office, much to that young man’s astonishment.

If he had not been a very young lawyer, with a very enterprising mind and a great deal of spare time on his hands, he might not have been so readily interested in what they had to say, for it all certainly sounded very wild and queer; but he chanced to want something to do very much, and he chanced to know Dick, and Dick chanced to say his say in a very sharp, telling sort of way.

“And,” said Mr. Hobbs, “say what your time’s worth a’ hour and look into this thing thorough, and I’ll pay the damage,—Silas Hobbs, corner of Blank street, Vegetables and Fancy Groceries.”

“Well,” said Mr. Harrison, “it will be a big thing if it turns out all right, and it will be almost as big a thing for me as for Lord Fauntleroy; and, at any rate, no harm can be done by investigating. It appears there has been some dubiousness about the child. The woman contradicted herself in some of her statements about his age, and aroused suspicion. The first persons to be written to are Dick’s brother and the Earl of Dorincourt’s family lawyer.”

And actually, before the sun went down, two letters had been written and sent in two different directions—one speeding out of New York harbor on a mail steamer on its way to England, and the other on a train carrying letters and passengers bound for California. And the first was addressed to T. Havisham, Esq., and the second to Benjamin Tipton.

And after the store was closed that evening, Mr. Hobbs and Dick sat in the back-room and talked together until midnight.

CHAPTER XIV

It is astonishing how short a time it takes for very wonderful things to happen. It had taken only a few minutes, apparently, to change all the fortunes of the little boy dangling his red legs from the high stool in Mr. Hobbs’s store, and to transform him from a small boy, living the simplest life in a quiet street, into an English nobleman, the heir to an earldom and magnificent wealth. It had taken only a few minutes, apparently, to change him from an English nobleman into a penniless little impostor, with no right to any of the splendors he had been enjoying. And, surprising as it may appear, it did not take nearly so long a time as one might have expected, to alter the face of everything again and to give back to him all that he had been in danger of losing.

It took the less time because, after all, the woman who had called herself Lady Fauntleroy was not nearly so clever as she was wicked; and when she had been closely pressed by Mr. Havisham’s questions about her marriage and her boy, she had made one or two blunders which had caused suspicion to be awakened; and then she had lost her presence of mind and her temper, and in her excitement and anger had betrayed herself still further. All the mistakes she made were about her child. There seemed no doubt that she had been married to Bevis, Lord Fauntleroy, and had quarreled with him and had been paid to keep away from him; but Mr. Havisham found out that her story of the boy’s being born in a certain part of London was false; and just when they all were in the midst of the commotion caused by this discovery, there came the letter from the young lawyer in New York, and Mr. Hobbs’s letters also.

What an evening it was when those letters arrived, and when Mr. Havisham and the Earl sat and talked their plans over in the library!

“After my first three meetings with her,” said Mr. Havisham, “I began to suspect her strongly. It appeared to me that the child was older than she said he was, and she made a slip in speaking of the date of his birth and then tried to patch the matter up. The story these letters bring fits in with several of my suspicions. Our best plan will be to cable at once for these two Tiptons,—say nothing about them to her,—and suddenly confront her with them when she is not expecting it. She is only a very clumsy plotter, after all. My opinion is that she will be frightened out of her wits, and will betray herself on the spot.”

And that was what actually happened. She was told nothing, and Mr. Havisham kept her from suspecting anything by continuing to have interviews with her, in which he assured her he was investigating her statements; and she really began to feel so secure that her spirits rose immensely and she began to be as insolent as might have been expected.

But one fine morning, as she sat in her sitting-room at the inn called “The Dorincourt Arms,” making some very fine plans for herself, Mr. Havisham was announced; and when he entered, he was followed by no less than three persons—one was a sharp-faced boy and one was a big young man and the third was the Earl of Dorincourt.

She sprang to her feet and actually uttered a cry of terror. It broke from her before she had time to check it. She had thought of these new-comers as being thousands of miles away, when she had ever thought of them at all, which she had scarcely done for years. She had never expected to see them again. It must be confessed that Dick grinned a little when he saw her.

“Hello, Minna!” he said.

The big young man—who was Ben—stood still a minute and looked at her.

“Do you know her?” Mr. Havisham asked, glancing from one to the other.

“Yes,” said Ben. “I know her and she knows me.” And he turned his back on her and went and stood looking out of the window, as if the sight of her was hateful to him, as indeed it was. Then the woman, seeing herself so baffled and exposed, lost all control over herself and flew into such a rage as Ben and Dick had often seen her in before. Dick grinned a trifle more as he watched her and heard the names she called them all and the violent threats she made, but Ben did not turn to look at her.

“I can swear to her in any court,” he said to Mr. Havisham, “and I can bring a dozen others who will. Her father is a respectable sort of man, though he’s low down in the world. Her mother was just like herself. She’s dead, but he’s alive, and he’s honest enough to be ashamed of her. He’ll tell you who she is, and whether she married me or not.”

Then he clenched his hand suddenly and turned on her.

“Where’s the child?” he demanded. “He’s going with me! He is done with you, and so am I!”

And just as he finished saying the words, the door leading into the bedroom opened a little, and the boy, probably attracted by the sound of the loud voices, looked in. He was not a handsome boy, but he had rather a nice face, and he was quite like Ben, his father, as any one could see, and there was the three-cornered scar on his chin.

Ben walked up to him and took his hand, and his own was trembling.

“Yes,” he said, “I could swear to him, too. Tom,” he said to the little fellow, “I’m your father; I’ve come to take you away. Where’s your hat?”

The boy pointed to where it lay on a chair. It evidently rather pleased him to hear that he was going away. He had been so accustomed to queer experiences that it did not surprise him to be told by a stranger that he was his father. He objected so much to the woman who had come a few months before to the place where he had lived since his babyhood, and who had suddenly announced that she was his mother, that he was quite ready for a change. Ben took up the hat and marched to the door.

“If you want me again,” he said to Mr. Havisham, “you know where to find me.”

He walked out of the room, holding the child’s hand and not looking at the woman once. She was fairly raving with fury, and the Earl was calmly gazing at her through his eyeglasses, which he had quietly placed upon his aristocratic, eagle nose.

“Come, come, my young woman,” said Mr. Havisham. “This won’t do at all. If you don’t want to be locked up, you really must behave yourself.”

And there was something so very business-like in his tones that, probably feeling that the safest thing she could do would be to get out of the way, she gave him one savage look and dashed past him into the next room and slammed the door.

“We shall have no more trouble with her,” said Mr. Havisham.

And he was right; for that very night she left the Dorincourt Arms and took the train to London, and was seen no more.

When the Earl left the room after the interview, he went at once to his carriage.

“To Court Lodge,” he said to Thomas.

“To Court Lodge,” said Thomas to the coachman as he mounted the box; “an’ you may depend on it, things are taking a uniggspected turn.”

When the carriage stopped at Court Lodge, Cedric was in the drawing-room with his mother.

The Earl came in without being announced. He looked an inch or so taller, and a great many years younger. His deep eyes flashed.

“Where,” he said, “is Lord Fauntleroy?”

Mrs. Errol came forward, a flush rising to her cheek.

“Is it Lord Fauntleroy?” she asked. “Is it, indeed!”

The Earl put out his hand and grasped hers.

“Yes,” he answered, “it is.”

Then he put his other hand on Cedric’s shoulder.

“Fauntleroy,” he said in his unceremonious, authoritative way, “ask your mother when she will come to us at the Castle.”

Fauntleroy flung his arms around his mother’s neck.

“To live with us!” he cried. “To live with us always!”

The Earl looked at Mrs. Errol, and Mrs. Errol looked at the Earl.

His lordship was entirely in earnest. He had made up his mind to waste no time in arranging this matter. He had begun to think it would suit him to make friends with his heir’s mother.

“Are you quite sure you want me?” said Mrs. Errol, with her soft, pretty smile.

“Quite sure,” he said bluntly. “We have always wanted you, but we were not exactly aware of it. We hope you will come.”

CHAPTER XV

Ben took his boy and went back to his cattle ranch in California, and he returned under very comfortable circumstances. Just before his going, Mr. Havisham had an interview with him in which the lawyer told him that the Earl of Dorincourt wished to do something for the boy who might have turned out to be Lord Fauntleroy, and so he had decided that it would be a good plan to invest in a cattle ranch of his own, and put Ben in charge of it on terms which would make it pay him very well, and which would lay a foundation for his son’s future. And so when Ben went away, he went as the prospective master of a ranch which would be almost as good as his own, and might easily become his own in time, as indeed it did in the course of a few years; and Tom, the boy, grew up on it into a fine young man and was devotedly fond of his father; and they were so successful and happy that Ben used to say that Tom made up to him for all the troubles he had ever had.

But Dick and Mr. Hobbs—who had actually come over with the others to see that things were properly looked after—did not return for some time. It had been decided at the outset that the Earl would provide for Dick, and would see that he received a solid education; and Mr. Hobbs had decided that as he himself had left a reliable substitute in charge of his store, he could afford to wait to see the festivities which were to celebrate Lord Fauntleroy’s eighth birthday. All the tenantry were invited, and there were to be feasting and dancing and games in the park, and bonfires and fire-works in the evening.

“Just like the Fourth of July!” said Lord Fauntleroy. “It seems a pity my birthday wasn’t on the Fourth, doesn’t it? For then we could keep them both together.”

It must be confessed that at first the Earl and Mr. Hobbs were not as intimate as it might have been hoped they would become, in the interests of the British aristocracy. The fact was that the Earl had known very few grocery-men, and Mr. Hobbs had not had many very close acquaintances who were earls; and so in their rare interviews conversation did not flourish. It must also be owned that Mr. Hobbs had been rather overwhelmed by the splendors Fauntleroy felt it his duty to show him.

The entrance gate and the stone lions and the avenue impressed Mr. Hobbs somewhat at the beginning, and when he saw the Castle, and the flower-gardens, and the hot-houses, and the terraces, and the peacocks, and the dungeon, and the armor, and the great staircase, and the stables, and the liveried servants, he really was quite bewildered. But it was the picture gallery which seemed to be the finishing stroke.

“Somethin’ in the manner of a museum?” he said to Fauntleroy, when he was led into the great, beautiful room.

“N—no—!” said Fauntleroy, rather doubtfully. “I don’t think it’s a museum. My grandfather says these are my ancestors.”

“Your aunt’s sisters!” ejaculated Mr. Hobbs. “All of ’em? Your great-uncle, he must have had a family! Did he raise ’em all?”

And he sank into a seat and looked around him with quite an agitated countenance, until with the greatest difficulty Lord Fauntleroy managed to explain that the walls were not lined entirely with the portraits of the progeny of his great-uncle.

He found it necessary, in fact, to call in the assistance of Mrs. Mellon, who knew all about the pictures, and could tell who painted them and when, and who added romantic stories of the lords and ladies who were the originals. When Mr. Hobbs once understood, and had heard some of these stories, he was very much fascinated and liked the picture gallery almost better than anything else; and he would often walk over from the village, where he staid at the Dorincourt Arms, and would spend half an hour or so wandering about the gallery, staring at the painted ladies and gentlemen, who also stared at him, and shaking his head nearly all the time.

“And they was all earls!” he would say, “er pretty nigh it! An’ he’s goin’ to be one of ’em, an’ own it all!”

Privately he was not nearly so much disgusted with earls and their mode of life as he had expected to be, and it is to be doubted whether his strictly republican principles were not shaken a little by a closer acquaintance with castles and ancestors and all the rest of it. At any rate, one day he uttered a very remarkable and unexpected sentiment:

“I wouldn’t have minded bein’ one of ’em myself!” he said—which was really a great concession.

What a grand day it was when little Lord Fauntleroy’s birthday arrived, and how his young lordship enjoyed it! How beautiful the park looked, filled with the thronging people dressed in their gayest and best, and with the flags flying from the tents and the top of the Castle! Nobody had staid away who could possibly come, because everybody was really glad that little Lord Fauntleroy was to be little Lord Fauntleroy still, and some day was to be the master of everything. Every one wanted to have a look at him, and at his pretty, kind mother, who had made so many friends. And positively every one liked the Earl rather better, and felt more amiably toward him because the little boy loved and trusted him so, and because, also, he had now made friends with and behaved respectfully to his heir’s mother. It was said that he was even beginning to be fond of her, too, and that between his young lordship and his young lordship’s mother, the Earl might be changed in time into quite a well-behaved old nobleman, and everybody might be happier and better off.

What scores and scores of people there were under the trees, and in the tents, and on the lawns! Farmers and farmers’ wives in their Sunday suits and bonnets and shawls; girls and their sweethearts; children frolicking and chasing about; and old dames in red cloaks gossiping together. At the Castle, there were ladies and gentlemen who had come to see the fun, and to congratulate the Earl, and to meet Mrs. Errol. Lady Lorredaile and Sir Harry were there, and Sir Thomas Asshe and his daughters, and Mr. Havisham, of course, and then beautiful Miss Vivian Herbert, with the loveliest white gown and lace parasol, and a circle of gentlemen to take care of her—though she evidently liked Fauntleroy better than all of them put together. And when he saw her and ran to her and put his arm around her neck, she put her arms around him, too, and kissed him as warmly as if he had been her own favorite little brother, and she said:

“Dear little Lord Fauntleroy! dear little boy! I am so glad! I am so glad!”

And afterward she walked about the grounds with him, and let him show her everything. And when he took her to where Mr. Hobbs and Dick were, and said to her, “This is my old, old friend Mr. Hobbs, Miss Herbert, and this is my other old friend Dick. I told them how pretty you were, and I told them they should see you if you came to my birthday,”—she shook hands with them both, and stood and talked to them in her prettiest way, asking them about America and their voyage and their life since they had been in England; while Fauntleroy stood by, looking up at her with adoring eyes, and his cheeks quite flushed with delight because he saw that Mr. Hobbs and Dick liked her so much.

“Well,” said Dick solemnly, afterward, “she’s the daisiest gal I ever saw! She’s—well, she’s just a daisy, that’s what she is, ’n’ no mistake!”

Everybody looked after her as she passed, and every one looked after little Lord Fauntleroy. And the sun shone and the flags fluttered and the games were played and the dances danced, and as the gayeties went on and the joyous afternoon passed, his little lordship was simply radiantly happy.

The whole world seemed beautiful to him.

There was some one else who was happy, too,—an old man, who, though he had been rich and noble all his life, had not often been very honestly happy. Perhaps, indeed, I shall tell you that I think it was because he was rather better than he had been that he was rather happier. He had not, indeed, suddenly become as good as Fauntleroy thought him; but, at least, he had begun to love something, and he had several times found a sort of pleasure in doing the kind things which the innocent, kind little heart of a child had suggested,—and that was a beginning. And every day he had been more pleased with his son’s wife. It was true, as the people said, that he was beginning to like her too. He liked to hear her sweet voice and to see her sweet face; and as he sat in his arm-chair, he used to watch her and listen as she talked to her boy; and he heard loving, gentle words which were new to him, and he began to see why the little fellow who had lived in a New York side street and known grocery-men and made friends with boot-blacks, was still so well-bred and manly a little fellow that he made no one ashamed of him, even when fortune changed him into the heir to an English earldom, living in an English castle.

It was really a very simple thing, after all,—it was only that he had lived near a kind and gentle heart, and had been taught to think kind thoughts always and to care for others. It is a very little thing, perhaps, but it is the best thing of all. He knew nothing of earls and castles; he was quite ignorant of all grand and splendid things; but he was always lovable because he was simple and loving. To be so is like being born a king.

As the old Earl of Dorincourt looked at him that day, moving about the park among the people, talking to those he knew and making his ready little bow when any one greeted him, entertaining his friends Dick and Mr. Hobbs, or standing near his mother or Miss Herbert listening to their conversation, the old nobleman was very well satisfied with him. And he had never been better satisfied than he was when they went down to the biggest tent, where the more important tenants of the Dorincourt estate were sitting down to the grand collation of the day.

They were drinking toasts; and, after they had drunk the health of the Earl, with much more enthusiasm than his name had ever been greeted with before, they proposed the health of “Little Lord Fauntleroy.” And if there had ever been any doubt at all as to whether his lordship was popular or not, it would have been settled that instant. Such a clamor of voices, and such a rattle of glasses and applause! They had begun to like him so much, those warm-hearted people, that they forgot to feel any restraint before the ladies and gentlemen from the castle, who had come to see them. They made quite a decent uproar, and one or two motherly women looked tenderly at the little fellow where he stood, with his mother on one side and the Earl on the other, and grew quite moist about the eyes, and said to one another:

“God bless him, the pretty little dear!”

Little Lord Fauntleroy was delighted. He stood and smiled, and made bows, and flushed rosy red with pleasure up to the roots of his bright hair.

“Is it because they like me, Dearest?” he said to his mother. “Is it, Dearest? I’m so glad!”

And then the Earl put his hand on the child’s shoulder and said to him:

“Fauntleroy, say to them that you thank them for their kindness.”

Fauntleroy gave a glance up at him and then at his mother.

“Must I?” he asked just a trifle shyly, and she smiled, and so did Miss Herbert, and they both nodded. And so he made a little step forward, and everybody looked at him—such a beautiful, innocent little fellow he was, too, with his brave, trustful face!—and he spoke as loudly as he could, his childish voice ringing out quite clear and strong.

“I’m ever so much obliged to you!” he said, “and—I hope you’ll enjoy my birthday—because I’ve enjoyed it so much—and—I’m very glad I’m going to be an earl; I didn’t think at first I should like it, but now I do—and I love this place so, and I think it is beautiful—and—and—and when I am an earl, I am going to try to be as good as my grandfather.”

And amid the shouts and clamor of applause, he stepped back with a little sigh of relief, and put his hand into the Earl’s and stood close to him, smiling and leaning against his side.

And that would be the very end of my story; but I must add one curious piece of information, which is that Mr. Hobbs became so fascinated with high life and was so reluctant to leave his young friend that he actually sold his corner store in New York, and settled in the English village of Erlesboro, where he opened a shop which was patronized by the Castle and consequently was a great success. And though he and the Earl never became very intimate, if you will believe me, that man Hobbs became in time more aristocratic than his lordship himself, and he read the Court news every morning, and followed all the doings of the House of Lords! And about ten years after, when Dick, who had finished his education and was going to visit his brother in California, asked the good grocer if he did not wish to return to America, he shook his head seriously.

“Not to live there,” he said. “Not to live there; I want to be near him, an’ sort o’ look after him. It’s a good enough country for them that’s young an’ stirrin’—but there’s faults in it. There’s not an auntsister among ’em—nor an earl!”