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LITILE LORD FAUNTLEROY. 37
EC aS SS S/ = aa Sa ae
“Oh!” cried his mother. ‘ And he is such a little boy —a very
little boy. How can I teach him to use it well? It makes me half
afraid. My pretty little Ceddie!” —
The lawyer slightly cleared his throat. It touched his worldly,
hard old heart to see the tender, timid look in her brown eyes.
“T think, madam,” he said, ‘‘that if Í may judge from my inter¬
view with Lord Fauntleroy this morning, the next Earl of Dorin¬
court will think for others as well as for his noble self. He is only a
child yet, but I think he may be trusted.”
Then his mother went for Cedric and brought him back into the
parlor. Mr. Havisham heard him talking before he entered the room.
“It’s infam-natory rheumatism,’ he was saying, "and that’s a
kind of rheumatism that ’s dreadful. And he thinks about the rent
not being paid, and Bridget says that makes the inf’ammation worse.
And Pat could get a place in a store if he had some clothes.”
His little face looked quite anxious when he came in. He was
very sorry for Bridget.
‘Dearest said you wanted me,” he said to Mr. Havisham. ‘I’ve
been talking to Bridget.”
Mr. Havisham looked down at hima moment. He felt a little
awkward and undecided. As Cedrics mother had said, he was a
very little boy.
“The Earl of Dorincourt
involuntarily at Mrs. Errol.
Little Lord Fauntleroy’s mother suddenly kneeled down by him
. and put both her tender arms around his childish body.
‘“Ceddie,” she said, "the Earl is your grandpapa, your own
papas father. He is very, very kind, and he loves you and wishes
you to love him, because the sons who were his little boys are dead.
He wishes you to be happy and to make other people happy. He is
very rich, and he wishes you to have everything you would like to
" he began, and then he glanced