Oldal 168 [168]
148 LITTLE LORD FAUNTLEROY.
—EE —— — = = — _ me
but she never did, because the Earl had been in a bad humor when
he went back to Dorincourt, and had forbidden him evér to go to
Lorridaile Park again. But Lady Lorridaile had always remem¬
bered him tenderly, and though she teared he had made a rash mar¬
riage in America, she had been very angry when she heard how he
had been cast off by his father and that no one really knew where
or how he lived. At last there came a rumor of his death, and then
Bevis had been thrown from his horse and killed; and Maurice had
died in Rome of the fever; and soon after came the story of the
American child who was to be found and brought home as Lord
Fauntleroy.
‘Probably to be ruined as the others were,” she said to her hus¬
band, " unless his mother is good enough and has a will of her own
to help her to take care of him.”
But when she heard that Cedric’s mother had been parted from
him she was almost too indignant for words.
‘It 1s disgraceful, Harry!” she said. ‘Fancy a child of that
age being taken from his mother, and made the companion of a man
like my brother! He will either be brutal to the boy or indulge
him until he is a little monster. If I thought it would do any good
to write :
‘It would n't, Constantia,” said Sir Harry.
“T know it would nt, she answered. ‘1 know his lordship the
Earl of Dorincourt too well;—but it is outrageous.”
Not only the poor people and farmers heard about little Lord
Fauntleroy; others knew him. He was talked about so much and
there were so many stories of him—of his beauty, his sweet temper,
his popularity, and his growing influence over the Earl, his grand¬
father — that rumors of him reached the gentry at their country
places and he was heard of in more than one county of England.
People talked about him at the dinner tables, ladies pitied his