"Oh! Ceddie!" she cried out, and ran to her little boy and caught him
in her arms and kissed him in a frightened, troubled way. "Oh! Ceddie,
darling!"

The tall old gentleman rose from his chair and looked at Cedric with his
sharp eyes. He rubbed his thin chin with his bony hand as he looked.

He seemed not at all displeased.

"And so," he said at last, slowly,--"and so this is little Lord
Fauntleroy."




II

There was never a more amazed little boy than Cedric during the week
that followed; there was never so strange or so unreal a week. In the
first place, the story his mamma told him was a very curious one. He was
obliged to hear it two or three times before he could understand it. He
could not imagine what Mr. Hobbs would think of it. It began with earls:
his grandpapa, whom he had never seen, was an earl; and his eldest
uncle, if he had not been killed by a fall from his horse, would have
been an earl, too, in time; and after his death, his other uncle would
have been an earl, if he had not died suddenly, in Rome, of a fever.
After that, his own papa, if he had lived, would have been an earl, but,
since they all had died and only Cedric was left, it appeared that HE
was to be an earl after his grandpapa's death--and for the present he