child."

So Cedric only knew that there was some mysterious reason for the
arrangement, some reason which he was not old enough to understand, but
which would be explained when he was older. He was puzzled; but, after
all, it was not the reason he cared about so much; and after many talks
with his mother, in which she comforted him and placed before him the
bright side of the picture, the dark side of it gradually began to fade
out, though now and then Mr. Havisham saw him sitting in some queer
little old-fashioned attitude, watching the sea, with a very grave face,
and more than once he heard an unchildish sigh rise to his lips.

"I don't like it," he said once as he was having one of his almost
venerable talks with the lawyer. "You don't know how much I don't like
it; but there are a great many troubles in this world, and you have
to bear them. Mary says so, and I've heard Mr. Hobbs say it too. And
Dearest wants me to like to live with my grandpapa, because, you see,
all his children are dead, and that's very mournful. It makes you
sorry for a man, when all his children have died--and one was killed
suddenly."

One of the things which always delighted the people who made the
acquaintance of his young lordship was the sage little air he wore
at times when he gave himself up to conversation;--combined with his
occasionally elderly remarks and the extreme innocence and seriousness
of his round childish face, it was irresistible. He was such a handsome,
blooming, curly-headed little fellow, that, when he sat down and nursed
his knee with his chubby hands, and conversed with much gravity, he was
a source of great entertainment to his hearers. Gradually Mr. Havisham
had begun to derive a great deal of private pleasure and amusement from