Stranica 156 [156]
OCR
136 LITTLE LORD FAUNTLEROY. a 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. Lhat 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; "1 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.”
