OUR BOYS & GIRLS.

New Zealand Mail, 22 April 1887, Page 5

OUR BOYS & GIRLS.

LITTLE LORD FAUNTLEROY,

By Frances Hodgson Burnett. CHAPTER X. (Continued.) No sooner had the last guest left the room, than Mr Havisham turned from his place by the fire, and steped nearer the sofa, where he stood looking down at the sleeping occupant. Little Lord Fauntleroy was taking bis ease luxuriously. One leg crossed the other and swung over the edge of the sofa; one arm was flung easily above his head ; the warm flush of healthful, happy, childish sleep was on his quiet face ; his waving tangle of bright hair strayed over the yellow satin cushion. He made a picture well worth looking at. As Mr Havisham looked at it, he put his hand up and rubbed his shaven chin, with a harassed countenance. ‘Well, Havisham,’ said the Earl’s harsh voice behind him. ‘What is it? It is evident that something has happened. What was the extraordinary event, if I may ask ? ’ Mr Havisham turned from the sofa, still rubbing his chin. ‘ Ifc was bad news,’ he answered, ‘ distressing news, my lord—the worst of news. I am sorry to be the bearer of it.’ The Earl had been uneasy for some time during the evening, as he glanced at Mr Havisham, and when he was uneasy he was always ill-tempered. ‘ Why do you look so at the boy I ’ he exclaimed irritably. ‘ You have been looking at him all the afternoon as if—See here now, why should you look at the boy, Havisham, and hang over him like some bird of illomen ! What has your news to do with Lord Fauntleroy ?’ ‘ My lord,’ said Mr Havishair, ‘ I will waste no words. My news has everything to do with Lord Fauntleroy. And if we are to believe it—it is not Lord Eauntleroy who lies sleeping before us, but only the son of Captain Errol. And the present Lord Fauntleroy is the son of your son Bevis, and is at this moment in a lodging-house in London.’ The Earl clutched the arms of the chair with both hi 3 hands until the veins stood out upon them; the veins stood out on his forehead too; his fierce old face was almost livid. ‘ What do you mean ! ’ he cried out You are mad 1 Whose lie is this ?’ ‘ If it is a lie,’ answered Mr Havisham, it is painfully like the truth. A woman came to my chambers this morning. She said your sou Bevis married her about six years ago in London. She showed me her marriage certificate. They quarreled a year after the marriage, and he paid her to keep away from him. She has a son five year 3 old. She is an American of the lower classes, an ignorant person, —and until lately she did not fully understand what her son could claim. She consulted a lawyer and found out that the boy was really Lord Fauntleroy and the heir to the earldom of Dorincourt; and she, of course, insists on his claims being acknowledged.’ There was a movement of the curly head on the yellow satin cushion. A soft, long, sleepy sigh came from the parted lips, and the little boy stirred in his sleep, but not at all restless or uneasily. Not at all as if his slumber were disturbed by the fact that he was being proved a small imposter and that he was not Lord Fauntleroy at all and never would be the Earl of Dorincourt. He only turned his rosy face more on its side as if to enable the old man who stared at it so solemnly to see it better. The handsome, grim old face was ghastly. A bitter smile fixed itself upon it. «I should refuse to believe a word of it, ’ he said, ‘if it were not such a low, scound relly piece of business that it becomes quite possible in connection with the name of" my son Bevis. It is quite like Bevis. He was always a disgrace to us. Always a weak, untruthful, vicious young brute with low tastes—my son and heir, Bevis, Lord Fauntleroy. The woman ia an ignorant, vulgar person you say ? ’ ... ‘lam obliged to admit that she can scarcely spell her own name,’ answered the lawyer. ‘ She is absolutely uneducated and openly mercenary. She cares for nothing but the money. She is very handsome in a coarse way, but ’ The fastidious old lawyer stopped speaking and gave a sort of shudder. The veins on the old Earl’s forehead stood out like purple chords. Something else stood out upon it too—cold drops of moisture. He took out his handkerchief and swept them 1 away. His smile grew even more bitter. ‘And I,’ he said, ‘I objected to—to the other woman, the mother of this child ’ pointing to the sleeping form on the sofa); ‘ I refused to recognise her. And yet sha could spell her own name. I suppose this is retribution.’ Suddenly he sprang up from his chair and began to walk up and down the room. Fierce and terrible words poured forth from his lips. His rage and hatred and cruel disappointment shook him as a storm shakes a tree. His violence was something dreadful to see, and yet Mr Havisham noticed that at the very worst of liis wrath he never seemed to forget the little sleeping figure on the yellow satin cushions, and that he never onco spoke Joud enongh to awaken it. ‘I might have known it,’ he said. They were a disgrace to me from their first hour ! I hated them both ; and they hated me ! Bevis was the worse of the two. _ I will not believe this yet, though ! I will contend

against it to the last. But it is like Bevis—’it is like him 1 ’ And then be raged again and asked questions about the woman, about her proofs, and pacing the room, turned first white and then purple in his repressed fury. When at last he had learned all there was to be told, and knew the worst, Mr Havisham looked at him with a feeling of anxiety. He looked broken and haggard and changed. His rages had always been bad for him, but this one had been worse than the rest because there had been something more than rage in it. He came slowly back to the sofa, at last, and stood near it. ‘lf any one had told me I could be fond of a child,’ he said, his harsh voice low and unsteady, ‘ I should not have believed them. I always detested children—my-own more than the rest. lam fond of this one ; be ia fond of me,’ (with a bitter smile.) ‘I am not popular ; I never was. But he is fond of me. He never was afraid of me—he always trusted me. He would have filled my place better than I have filled it. I know that. He would have been an honor to the name.’ He bent down and stayed a minute or two looking at the happy, sleeping face. His shaggy eyebrows were knitted fiercely, and vet somehow he did not seem fierce at all. He put up his hand, pushed the bright hair back from the forehead, and then turned awayhnd rang the hell. When the largest footman appeared he pointed to the sofa. ‘Take’—he said, and then his voice changed a little—‘Take Lord Fauntleroy to his room.’ CHAPTER XI. When Mr Hobbs’s young friend left him to go to Dorincourt Castle and become Lord Fauntleroy, and the grocery-man had time to realize that the Atlantic Ocean lay between himself and the small companion who had spent so many agreeable hours in his society, he really began to feel very lonely indeed. The fact was, Mr Hobbs was not a clever man nor even a bright one ; he was, indeed, rather a slow and heavy person, and he hadmever made many acquaintances. He was not mentally energetic enough to know how to amuse himself, and in truth he never did anything of an entertaining nature but read the newspapers and add up his accounts. It was not very easy for him to add up his accounts, and sometimes it took him a long time to bring them out right; and in the old days little Lord Fauntleroy, who had learned how to add up quite nicely with his fingers and a slate and pencil, had sometimes e ven gone,to the length of trying to help him ; and, then too, he had been so good a listener and had, taken such an interest in what the newspaper said, and he and Mr Hobbs had held such long conversations about the Revolution and,the British and the elections and the Republican party,' that it was no wonder his going left a blank in the grocery store. At first it seemed to Mr Hobbs that Cedric was not really far away, and would come back again ; that some day he would look up from his paper and see the lad standing in the doorway, in his white suit and red stockings and with his straw hat on the back of his head, and would hoar him say in his cheerful little voice : ‘ Hello, Mr Hobbs 1 This is a hot day—isn’t it ?’ But a 3 the days passed on and this did not happen, Mr Hobbs felt very dull and uneasy, fie did not even enjoy his newspaper as much as he used to He would put the paper down on his knee after readiug it, and sit and stare at the high stool for a long time. There were some marks on the long legs which made him feel quite dejected and melancholy. They were marks made by the heels of the next Earl of Dorincourt, when he kicked and talked at the same time. It seems that even youthful earls kick the legs of things they sit on ; noble blood aud lofty lineage do not prevent it. After looking at those marks, Mr Hobbs would take.out his gold watch and open it and stare at the inscription: * From his oldest friend, Lord Fauntleroy, to Mr Hobbs. When this you see, remember me.’ And after staring at it awhile, would shut it up with a loud snap, and sigh and get up and go and stand in the doorway - between the box of potatoes and the barrel of apples —and look up the street. At night, when the store was closed, he would light his pipe and walk slowly along the pavement until he reached the house Jwhere Cedric bad lived, on which there was a sign that read, * This House to Letand he would stop near ifc and look up and shake his head, and puff afc his pipe very hard, and after a while walk mournfully back again. This went bn for two or three weeks before any new idea came to him. Being slow and ponderous,' it always took him a long time to reach a new idea. As a rule, he did not like new ideas, but preferred old ones. After two or three weeks, however, during which, instead of getting better, matters really grew worse, a novel plan slowly and deliberately dawned upon him, He would go to see Dick. He smoked a great many pipes before be arrived at the conclusion, but finally he did arrive at it. He would go to see Dick. He knew all about Dick. Cedric had told him, and his idea was that perhaps Dick might be some comfort to him in the way of talking things over. So one day when Dick was very hard afc work blacking a customer’s boots, a short, stout man with a heavy face and a bald head, stopped on the pavement and stared for two or three minutes at the bootblack’s sign, which read : ■ * Professor Dick Tipton Can’t be beat.’ He stared afc it so long that Dick began to take a lively interest iu him, and when he had put the-finishing touch to his customer’s boots, he said : * Want a shine, sir 1 The stout man came forward deliberately and put his foot on the rest. * Ye?,’ he said. Then when Dick fell to work, the stout man looked from Dick to the sign and from the sigu to Dick. ‘ Where did you get that ?’ he asked. ‘From a friend o’ mine,’ said Dick, —‘a little feller. He guv’ me the whole outfit. He was the best little feller ye ever saw. He’s in England now. Cone to be one o’ those lords.’ ‘Lord—Lord— ’ asked Mr Hobbs, with ponderous slowness, ‘Lord Fauntleroy— Coin’ to be Earl of Dorincourt V

Dick almost dropped his brush, ‘ Why, boss !’ he exclaimed, ‘d’ye know him yerself?’ ‘l’ve known him,’ answered Mr Hobbs, wiping his warm forehead, * ever since he was born. We were lifetime acquaintances —that’s what we were.’ ' It really made him feel quite agitated to speak of it. He pulled the splendid gold watch out of his pocket and opened it, and showed the inside of the case to Dick. * “ When this you see, remember me,’’ ’ he read. ‘That was his parting keepsake to me. “ I don’t want you to forget me ” those were his words— I’d ha’ remembered him,’ he went on, shaking his head, ‘if he hadn’t given me a thing, an’ I hadn't seen hide nor hair on him again. He was a companion as any man would remember.’ ‘ He was the nicest little feller I ever see,’ said Dick. • An’ as to sand —I never ha’ seen so much sand to a little feller. I thought a heap o’ him, I (did, —an’ we was friends, too—we was sort o’ chums from the fust, that little young un an’ me. _ I grabbed his ball from under a stage fur him, an’ he never forgot it; an’ he’d come down here, he would, with his mother or his nuss an’ he d holler: “ Hello, Dick !” at me, as friendly as if he was six feet high, when he warn’t knee high to a grasshopper, and was dressed 4n gal’s clo’es. He was a gay little chap, and when yoa was down on your luck, it did you good to talk to him.’ ‘ That’s so.’ said Mr Hobbs. *lt was a pity to make an earl out of him. He would have shone in the grocery business—or dry goods either ; he would have shone !’ And he shook his head with deeper regret than ever. It proved that they had so much to say to each other that it was not possible to say it all at one time, and so it was agreed that the next night Dick should make a visit to the store and keep Mr Hobbs company. The plan pleased Dick well enough. He had been a street waif nearly all his life, but he had never been a bad boy; and be had always bad a private yearning for a more respectable kind of existence. Sioce he had. been in business tor himself, he had made enough money to enable him to sleep under a roof instead of out in the streets, and he had begun to hope he might reach even a higher plane, in time. So, to he invited to call on a stout respectable man who owned a corner store, and even had a horse and waggon, seemed to him quite an event. ‘Do you know anything aboDt earls and castles ?’ Mr Hobbs inquired. * I’d like to know more of the particklars." ‘ There’s a story about some on ’em in the Penny Story Gazette,’ said Dick. * It's called the “ Crime of a Coronet; or, the Revenge of the Countess May.” It’s a boss thing too. Some of ns hoys ’re takin’ it to read.’ ‘Bring it up when you come,’ said Mr Hobbs, ‘ an’ I’ll pay for it. Bring all you can find that have any earls in ’em. If there aren’t earls, markises ’ll do, or dooks though he never made mention of any dooks or markises. We did go over coronets a little, but I never happened to see any. I guess they don’t keep ’em ’round here.’ ‘Tiffany’d have ’em if anybody did,’ said Dick, ‘ but I don’t know as I’d know one if I saw it.’ Mr Hobbs did not explain that he would not have known one if he saw it. He merely shook his head ponderously. ‘ I s’pose there is very little call for ’em,’ he said, and that ended the matter. (To be continued.)