the castle it is so pretty everything in the park would serprise you there are such big trees and there are deers and rabbits and games flying about in the cover my granfarther is very rich but he is not proud and orty as you thought earls always were i like to be with him the people are so polite and kind they take of their hats to you and the women make curtsies and sometimes say god bless you i can ride now but at first it shook me when i troted my granfarther let a poor man stay on his farm when he could not pay his rent and mrs mellon went to take wine and things to his sick children i should like to see you and i wish dearest could live at the castle but i am very happy when i dont miss her too much and i love my granfarther every one does plees write soon

“your afechshnet old frend

“Cedric Errol

“p s no one is in the dungon my granfarfher never had any one langwishin in there.

“p s he is such a good earl he reminds me of you he is 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.