Oldal 157 [157]
LITTLE LORD FAUNTLEROY. 137
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.
“JT 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