a unerversle
favrit"

"Do you miss your mother very much?" asked the Earl when he had finished
reading this.

"Yes," said Fauntleroy, "I miss her all the time."

He went and stood before the Earl and put his hand on his knee, looking
up at him.

"YOU don't miss her, do you?" he said.

"I don't know her," answered his lordship rather crustily.

"I know that," said Fauntleroy, "and that's what makes me wonder. She
told me not to ask you any questions, and--and I won't, but sometimes I
can't help thinking, you know, and it makes me all puzzled. But I'm not
going to ask any questions. And when I miss her very much, I go and
look out of my window to where I see her light shine for me every night
through an open place in the trees. It is a long way off, but she puts
it in her window as soon as it is dark, and I can see it twinkle far
away, and I know what it says."

"What does it say?" asked my lord.

"It says, 'Good-night, God keep you all the night!'--just what she used
to say when we were together. Every night she used to say that to me,
and every morning she said, 'God bless you all the day!' So you see I am
quite safe all the time----"

"Quite, I have no doubt," said his lordship dryly. And he drew down his
beetling eyebrows and looked at the little boy so fixedly and so long
that Fauntleroy wondered what he could be thinking of.

IX

The fact was, his lordship the Earl of Dorincourt thought in those
days, of many things of which he had never thought before, and all his
thoughts were in one way or another connected with his grandson. His
pride was the strongest part of his nature, and the boy gratified it at
every point. Through this pride he began to find a new interest in life.
He began to take pleasure in showing his heir to the world. The world
had known of his disappointment in his sons; so there was an agreeable
touch of triumph in exhibiting this new Lord Fauntleroy, who could
disappoint no one. He wished the child to appreciate his own power and
to understand the splendor of his position; he wished that others should
realize it too. He made plans for his future.

Sometimes in secret he actually found himself wishing that his own past
life had been a better one, and that there had been less in it that this
pure, childish heart would shrink from if it knew the truth. It was not
agreeable to think how the beautiful, innocent face would look if its
owner should be made by any chance to unders