Oldal 37 [37]
LITILE LORD FAUNTLEROY. I7
He put his big hand on the little boys hair. This was more.
embarrassing than ever.
“Thank you,” said Ceddie; “I’m all right. There is nothing
the matter with my head. I’m sorry to say it s true, Mr. Hobbs.
That was what Mary came to take me home for. Mr. Havisham
was telling my mamma, and he ts a lawyer.”
Mr. Hobbs sank into his chair and mopped his forehead with
his handkerchief.
‘‘ One of us has got a sunstroke!” he exclaimed.
‘“ No,” returned Cedric, "we have nt. We shall have to make
the best of it, Mr. Hobbs. Mr. Havisham came all the way from
England to tell us about it. My grandpapa sent him.”
Mr. Hobbs stared wildly at the innocent, serious little face
before him.
‘Who is your grandfather?” he asked.
Cedric put his hand in his pocket and carefully drew out a piece
of paper, on which something was written in his own round, irregular
hand. |
‘T could nt easily remember it, so | wrote it down on this,” he
said. And he read aloud slowly: ‘ ‘John Arthur Molyneux Errol,
Earl of Dorincourt. That is his name, and he lives in a castle—in
two or three castles, I think. And my papa, who died, was his
youngest son; and I should nt have been a lord or an earl if my
papa had nt died; and my papa would nt have been an earl if his
two brothers had nt died. But they all died, and there is no one
but me,—no boy,—and so I have to be one; and my grandpapa has
sent for me to come to England.”
Mr. Hobbs seemed to grow hotter and hotter. He mopped
his forehead and his bald spot and breathed hard. He began to see
that something very remarkable had happened; but when he looked
at the little boy sitting on the cracker-box, with the innocent, anxious
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