"What shall you tell him?"

"I shall tell him," said Fauntleroy, glowing with enthusiasm, "that
you are the kindest man I ever heard of. And you are always thinking of
other people, and making them happy and--and I hope when I grow up, I
shall be just like you."

"Just like me!" repeated his lordship, looking at the little kindling
face. And a dull red crept up under his withered skin, and he suddenly
turned his eyes away and looked out of the carriage window at the great
beech-trees, with the sun shining on their glossy, red-brown leaves.

"JUST like you," said Fauntleroy, adding modestly, "if I can. Perhaps
I'm not good enough, but I'm going to try."

The carriage rolled on down the stately avenue under the beautiful,
broad-branched trees, through the spaces of green shade and lanes of
golden sunlight. Fauntleroy saw again the lovely places where the ferns
grew high and the bluebells swayed in the breeze; he saw the deer,
standing or lying in the deep grass, turn their large, startled eyes as
the carriage passed, and caught glimpses of the brown rabbits as they
scurried away. He heard the whir of the partridges and the calls and
songs of the birds, and it all seemed even more beautiful to him than
before. All his heart was filled with pleasure and happiness in the
beauty that was on every side. But the old Earl saw and heard very
different things, though he was apparently looking out too. He saw
a long life, in which there had been neither generous deeds nor kind
thoughts; he saw years in which a man who had been young and strong and
rich and powerful had used his youth and strength and wealth and power