us!" he cried. "To live with us always!"

The Earl looked at Mrs. Errol, and Mrs. Errol looked at the Earl.

His lordship was entirely in earnest. He had made up his mind to waste
no time in arranging this matter. He had begun to think it would suit
him to make friends with his heir's mother.

"Are you quite sure you want me?" said Mrs. Errol, with her soft, pretty
smile.

"Quite sure," he said bluntly. "We have always wanted you, but we were
not exactly aware of it. We hope you will come."

XV

Ben took his boy and went back to his cattle ranch in California, and
he returned under very comfortable circumstances. Just before his going,
Mr. Havisham had an interview with him in which the lawyer told him that
the Earl of Dorincourt wished to do something for the boy who might have
turned out to be Lord Fauntleroy, and so he had decided that it would
be a good plan to invest in a cattle ranch of his own, and put Ben in
charge of it on terms which would make it pay him very well, and which
would lay a foundation for his son's future. And so when Ben went away,
he went as the prospective master of a ranch which would be almost as
good as his own, and might easily become his own in time, as indeed it
did in the course of a few years; and Tom, the boy, grew up on it into
a fine young man and was devotedly fond of his father; and they were so
successful and happy that Ben used to say that Tom made up to him for
all the troubles he had ever had.

But Dick and Mr. Hobbs--who had actually come over with the others to
see that things were properly looked after--did not return for some
time. It had been decided at the outset that the Earl would provide for
Dick, and would see that he received a solid education; and Mr. Hobbs
had decided that as he himself had left a reliable substitute in charge
of his store, he could afford to wait to see the festivities which were
to celebrate Lord Fauntleroy's eighth birthday. All the tenantry were
invited, and there were to be feasting and dancing and games in the
park, and bonfires and fire-works in the evening.

"Just like the Fourth of July!" said Lord Fauntleroy. "It seems a pity
my birthday wasn't on the Fourth, doesn't it? For then we could keep
them both together."

It must be confessed that at first the Earl and Mr. Hobbs were not as
intimate as it might have been hoped they would become, in the interests
of the British aristocracy. The fact was that the Earl had known ve