Oldal 162 [162]
142 LITTLE LORD FAUNTLEROY.
luxury and ease and beauty. And a bold thought came in her wise
little mother-heart. Gradually she had begun to see, as had others,
that it had been her boy’s good fortune to please the Earl very
much, and that he would scarcely be likely to be denied anything
for which he expressed a desire.
“The Earl would give him anything,” she said to Mr. Mordaunt.
“He would indulge his every whim. Why should not that indul¬
gence be used for the good of others? It is for me to see that this
shall come to pass.”
She knew she could trust the kind, childish heart; so she told
the little fellow the story of Earl’s Court, feeling sure that he would
speak of it to his grandfather, and hoping that some good results
would follow.
And strange as it appeared to every one, good results did
follow. The fact was that the strongest power to influence the Earl
was his grandson's perfect confidence in him—the fact that Cedric
always believed that his grandfather was going to do what was right
and generous. He could not quite make up his mind to let him
discover that he had no inclination to be generous at all, and that
he wanted his own way on all occasions, whether it was right or
wrong. It was such a novelty to be regarded with admiration as a
benefactor of the entire human race, and the soul of nobility, that
he did not enjoy the idea of looking into the affectionate brown eyes,
and saying: “lam a violent, selfish old rascal; I never did a gen¬
erous thing in my life, and I don’t care about Earl’s Court or the
poor people”—or something which would amount to the same thing.
He actually had learned to be fond enough of that small boy with
the mop of yellow love-locks, to feel that he himself would prefer to
be guilty of an amiable action now and then. And so—though he
laughed at himself—after some reflection, he sent for Newick, and
had quite a long interview with him on the subject of the Court, and