on, my lord," said the housekeeper with a smile.
"She is used to being called Dawson."

"MISS Dawson, or MRS. Dawson?" inquired his lordship.

"Just Dawson, my lord," said Dawson herself, beaming all over. "Neither
Miss nor Missis, bless your little heart! Will you get up now, and let
Dawson dress you, and then have your breakfast in the nursery?"

"I learned to dress myself many years ago, thank you," answered
Fauntleroy. "Dearest taught me. 'Dearest' is my mamma. We had only Mary
to do all the work,--washing and all,--and so of course it wouldn't do
to give her so much trouble. I can take my bath, too, pretty well if
you'll just be kind enough to 'zamine the corners after I'm done."

Dawson and the housekeeper exchanged glances.

"Dawson will do anything you ask her to," said Mrs. Mellon.

"That I will, bless him," said Dawson, in her comforting, good-humored
voice. "He shall dress himself if he likes, and I'll stand by, ready to
help him if he wants me."

"Thank you," responded Lord Fauntleroy; "it's a little hard sometimes
about the buttons, you know, and then I have to ask somebody."

He thought Dawson a very kind woman, and before the bath and the
dressing were finished they were excellent friends, and he had found out
a great deal about her. He had discovered that her husband had been a
soldier and had been killed in a real battle, and that her son was a
sailor, and was away on a long cruise, and that he had seen pirates and
cannibals and Chinese people and Turks, and that he brought home strange
shells and pieces of coral which Dawson was ready to show at any moment,
some of them being in her trunk. All this was very interesting. He also
found out that she had taken care of little children all her life, and
that she had just come from a great house in another part of England,
where she had been taking care of a beautiful little girl whose name was
Lady Gwyneth Vaughn.

"And she is a sort of relation of your lordship's," said Dawson. "And
perhaps sometime you may see her."

"Do you think I shall?" said Fauntleroy. "I should like that. I never
knew any little girls, but I always like to look at them."

When he went into the adjoining room to take his breakfast, and saw
what a great room it was, and found there was another adjoining it which
Dawson told him was his also, the feeling that he was very small indeed
came over him again so strongly that he confided it to Dawson, as he sat
down to the table o