The Earl looked down at the hand on his knee.  Newick had not forgotten to tell him; in fact, Newick had spoken to him more than once of the desperate condition of the end of the village known as Earl’s Court.  He knew all about the tumble-down, miserable cottages, and the bad drainage, and the damp walls and broken windows and leaking roofs, and all about the poverty, the fever, and the misery.  Mr. Mordaunt had painted it all to him in the strongest words he could use, and his lordship had used violent language in response; and, when his gout had been at the worst, he said that the sooner the people of Earl’s Court died and were buried by the parish the better it would be,—­and there was an end of the matter.  And yet, as he looked at the small hand on his knee, and from the small hand to the honest, earnest, frank-eyed face, he was actually a little ashamed both of Earl’s Court and himself.

“What!” he said; “you want to make a builder of model cottages of me, do you?” And he positively put his own hand upon the childish one and stroked it.

“Those must be pulled down,” said Fauntleroy, with great eagerness.  “Dearest says so.  Let us—­let us go and have them pulled down to-morrow.  The people will be so glad when they see you!  They’ll know you have come to help them!” And his eyes shone like stars in his glowing face.

The Earl rose from his chair and put his hand on the child’s shoulder.  “Let us go out and take our walk on the terrace,” he said, with a short laugh; “and we can talk it over.”

And though he laughed two or three times again, as they walked to and fro on the broad stone terrace, where they walked together almost every fine evening, he seemed to be thinking of something which did not displease him, and still he kept his hand on his small companion’s shoulder.

X

The truth was that Mrs. Errol had found a great many sad things in the course of her work among the poor of the little village that appeared so picturesque when it was seen from the moor-sides.  Everything was not as picturesque, when seen near by, as it looked from a distance.  She had found idleness and poverty and ignorance where there should have been comfort and industry.  And she had discovered, after a while, that Erleboro was considered to be the worst village in that part of the country.  Mr. Mordaunt had told her a great many of his difficulties and discouragements, and she had found out a great deal by herself.  The agents who had managed the property had always been chosen to please the Earl, and had cared nothing for the degradation and wretchedness of the poor tenants.  Many things, therefore, had been neglected which should have been attended to, and matters had gone from bad to worse.