e week
that followed; there was never so strange or so unreal a week. In the
first place, the story his mamma told him was a very curious one. He was
obliged to hear it two or three times before he could understand it. He
could not imagine what Mr. Hobbs would think of it. It began with earls:
his grandpapa, whom he had never seen, was an earl; and his eldest
uncle, if he had not been killed by a fall from his horse, would have
been an earl, too, in time; and after his death, his other uncle would
have been an earl, if he had not died suddenly, in Rome, of a fever.
After that, his own papa, if he had lived, would have been an earl, but,
since they all had died and only Cedric was left, it appeared that HE
was to be an earl after his grandpapa's death--and for the present he
was Lord Fauntleroy.

He turned quite pale when he was first told of it.

"Oh! Dearest!" he said, "I should rather not be an earl. None of the
boys are earls. Can't I NOT be one?"

But it seemed to be unavoidable. And when, that evening, they sat
together by the open window looking out into the shabby street, he
and his mother had a long talk about it. Cedric sat on his footstool,
clasping one knee in his favorite attitude and wearing a bewildered
little face rather red from the exertion of thinking. His grandfather
had sent for him to come to England, and his mamma thought he must go.

"Because," she said, looking out of the window with sorrowful eyes, "I
know your papa would wish it to be so, Ceddie. He loved his home very
much; and there are many things to be thought of that a little boy can't
quite understand. I should be a selfish little mother if I did not send
you. When you are a man, you will see why."

Ceddie shook his head mournfully.

"I shall be very sorry to leave Mr. Hobbs," he said. "I'm afraid he'll
miss me, and I shall miss him. And I shall miss them all."

When Mr. Havisham--who was the family lawyer of the Earl of Dorincourt,
and who had been sent by him to bring Lord Fauntleroy to England--came
the next day, Cedric heard many things. But, somehow, it did not console
him to hear that he was to be a very rich man when he grew up, and that
he would have castles here and castles there, and great parks and deep
mines and grand estates and tenantry. He was troubled about his friend,
Mr. Hobbs, and he went to see him at the store soon after breakfast, in
great anxiety of mind.

He found him reading the morning paper, and he appr