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LITILE LORD FAUNTLEROY. 21
—
more like a young girl than the mother of a boy of seven. She had
a pretty, sorrowful, young face, and a very tender, innocent look in
her large brown eyes,— the sorrowful look that had never quite left
her face since her husband had died. Cedric was used to seeing it
there; the only times he had ever seen it fade out had been when
he was playing with her or talking to her, and had said some old¬
fashioned thing, or used some long word he had picked up out of
the newspapers or in his conversations with Mr. Hobbs. He was
fond of using long words, and he was always pleased when they
made her laugh, though he could not understand why they were
laughable ; they were quite serious matters with him. The lawyer's
experience taught him to read peoples characters very shrewdly,
and as soon as he saw Cedric’s mother he knew that the old Earl
had made a great mistake in thinking her a vulgar, mercenary
woman. Mr. Havisham had never been married, he had never
even been in love, but he divined that this pretty young creature
with the sweet voice and sad eyes had married Captain Errol
only because she loved him with all her affectionate heart, and that
she had never once thought it an advantage that he was an earl’s son.
And he saw he should have no trouble with her, and he began to
feel that perhaps little Lord Fauntleroy might not be such a trial
to his noble family, after all. The Captain had been a handsome
fellow, and the young mother was very pretty, and perhaps the boy
might be well enough to look at.
When he first told Mrs. Errol what he had come for, she turned
very pale.
“Oh!” she said; ‘will he have to be taken away from me?
We love each other so much! He is sucha happiness to me! He
is all I have. I have tried to be a good mother to him.” And her
sweet young voice trembled, and the tears rushed into her eyes.
‘You do not know what he has been to me!” she said.