And Lord Arden said, "Perhaps he does," with that sort of look that people have when they mean: "Not before the children! I'd rather talk about it afterwards if you don't mind." Then the three were sent out to play, and Dickie was shown the castle ruins, while Lord Arden and Lady Talbot walked up and down on the daisied grass, and talked for a long time. Dickie knew they were talking about him, but he did not mind. He had that feeling you sometimes have about grown-up people, that they really do understand, and are to be trusted. "You'll be too fine presently to speak to the likes of us, you nipper," said Beale, when a smart little pony cart had brought Dickie back to the cottage. "You an' your grand friends. Lord Arden indeed----" "They was as jolly as jolly," said Dickie; "nobody weren't never kinder to me nor what Lord Arden was an' Lady Talbot too--without it was you, farver." "Ah," said Beale to the old man, "'e knows how to get round his old father, don't 'e?" "What does he want to talk that way for?" the old man asked. "'E can talk like a little gentleman all right 'cause we 'eard 'im." "Oh, that's the way we talks up London way," said Dickie. "I learned to talk fine out o' books." Mr. Beale said nothing, but that night he actually read for nearly ten minutes in a bound volume of the _Wesleyan Magazine_. And he was asleep over the same entertaining work when Lord Arden came the next afternoon. You will be able to guess what he came about. And Dickie had a sort of feeling that perhaps Lord Arden might have seen by his face, as old Beale had, that he was an Arden. So neither he nor you will be much surprised. The person to be really surprised was Mr. Beale. "You might a-knocked me down with a pickaxe," said Beale later, "so help me three men and a boy you might. It's a rum go. My lord 'e says there's some woman been writing letters to 'im this long time saying she'd got 'old of 'is long-lost nephew or cousin or something, and a-wanting to get money out of him--though what for, goodness knows. An' 'e says you're a Arden by rights, you nipper you, an' 'e wants to take you and bring you up along of his kids--so there's an end of you and me, Dickie, old boy. I didn't understand more than 'arf of wot 'e was saying. But I tumbled to that much. It's all up with you and me and Amelia and the dogs and the little 'ome. You're a-goin' to be a gentleman, you are--an' I'll have to take to the road by meself and be a poor beast of a cadger again. That's what it'll come to, I know." "Don't you put yourself about," said Dickie calmly. "I ain't a-goin' to leave yer. Didn't Lady Talbot ask me to be her boy--and didn't I cut straight back to you? I'll play along o' them kids if Lord Arden'll let me. But I ain't a-goin' to leave you, not yet I ain't. So don't you go snivelling afore any one's 'urt yer, farver. See?" But that was before Lord Arden had his second talk with Mr. Beale. After that it was--