“Oh! come!” said Dawson, “you feel just a little strange at first, that’s all; but you’ll get over that very soon, and then you’ll like it here.  It’s such a beautiful place, you know.”

“It’s a very beautiful place, of course,” said Fauntleroy, with a little sigh; “but I should like it better if I didn’t miss Dearest so.  I always had my breakfast with her in the morning, and put the sugar and cream in her tea for her, and handed her the toast.  That made it very sociable, of course.”

“Oh, well!” answered Dawson, comfortingly, “you know you can see her every day, and there’s no knowing how much you’ll have to tell her.  Bless you! wait till you’ve walked about a bit and seen things,—­the dogs, and the stables with all the horses in them.  There’s one of them I know you’ll like to see——­”

“Is there?” exclaimed Fauntleroy; “I’m very fond of horses.  I was very fond of Jim.  He was the horse that belonged to Mr. Hobbs’ grocery wagon.  He was a beautiful horse when he wasn’t balky.”

“Well,” said Dawson, “you just wait till you’ve seen what’s in the stables.  And, deary me, you haven’t looked even into the very next room yet!”

“What is there?” asked Fauntleroy.

“Wait until you’ve had your breakfast, and then you shall see,” said Dawson.

At this he naturally began to grow curious, and he applied himself assiduously to his breakfast.  It seemed to him that there must be something worth looking at, in the next room; Dawson had such a consequential, mysterious air.

“Now, then,” he said, slipping off his seat a few minutes later; “I’ve had enough.  Can I go and look at it?”

Dawson nodded and led the way, looking more mysterious and important than ever.  He began to be very much interested indeed.

When she opened the door of the room, he stood upon the threshold and looked about him in amazement.  He did not speak; he only put his hands in his pockets and stood there flushing up to his forehead and looking in.

He flushed up because he was so surprised and, for the moment, excited.  To see such a place was enough to surprise any ordinary boy.

The room was a large one, too, as all the rooms seemed to be, and it appeared to him more beautiful than the rest, only in a different way.  The furniture was not so massive and antique as was that in the rooms he had seen downstairs; the draperies and rugs and walls were brighter; there were shelves full of books, and on the tables were numbers of toys,—­beautiful, ingenious things,—­such as he had looked at with wonder and delight through the shop windows in New York.

“It looks like a boy’s room,” he said at last, catching his breath a little.  “Whom do they belong to?”

“Go and look at them,” said Dawson.  “They belong to you!”

“To me!” he cried; “to me?  Why do they belong to me?  Who gave them to me?” And he sprang forward with a gay little shout.  It seemed almost too much to be believed.  “It was Grandpapa!” he said, with his eyes as bright as stars.  “I know it was Grandpapa!”