"You MUST go and see your mother this afternoon?" asked the Earl. "You
think you can't put it off?"

"Why," said Fauntleroy, "she has been thinking about me all the morning,
and I have been thinking about her!"

"Oh!" said the Earl. "You have, have you? Ring the bell."

As they drove down the avenue, under the arching trees, he was rather
silent. But Fauntleroy was not. He talked about the pony. What color was
it? How big was it? What was its name? What did it like to eat best? How
old was it? How early in the morning might he get up and see it?

"Dearest will be so glad!" he kept saying. "She will be so much obliged
to you for being so kind to me! She knows I always liked ponies so much,
but we never thought I should have one. There was a little boy on Fifth
Avenue who had one, and he used to ride out every morning and we used to
take a walk past his house to see him."

He leaned back against the cushions and regarded the Earl with rapt
interest for a few minutes and in entire silence.

"I think you must be the best person in the world," he burst forth at
last. "You are always doing good, aren't you?--and thinking about other
people. Dearest says that is the best kind of goodness; not to think
about yourself, but to think about other people. That is just the way
you are, isn't it?"

His lordship was so dumfounded to find himself presented in such
agreeable colors, that he did not know exactly what to say. He felt that