"Do you remember," Cedric said once, looking up from his book as he lay on the rug, "do you remember what I said to you that first night about our being good companions? I don't think any people could be better companions than we are, do you?" "We are pretty good companions, I should say," replied his lordship. "Come here." Fauntleroy scrambled up and went to him. "Is there anything you want," the Earl asked; "anything you have not?" The little fellow's brown eyes fixed themselves on his grandfather with a rather wistful look. "Only one thing," he answered. "What is that?" inquired the Earl. Fauntleroy was silent a second. He had not thought matters over to himself so long for nothing. "What is it?" my lord repeated. Fauntleroy answered. "It is Dearest," he said. The old Earl winced a little. "But you see her almost everyday," he said. "Is not that enough?" "I used to see her all the time," said Fauntleroy. "She used to kiss me when I went to sleep at night, and in the morning she was always there, and we could tell each other things without waiting." The old eyes and the young ones looked into each other through a moment of silence. Then the Earl knitted his brows. "Do you _never_ forget about your mother?" he said. "No," answered Fauntleroy, "never; and she never forgets about me. I shouldn't forget about _you_, you know, if I didn't live with you. I should think about you all the more." "Upon my word," said the Earl, after looking at him a moment longer, "I believe you would!" The jealous pang that came when the boy spoke so of his mother seemed even stronger than it had been before--it was stronger because of this old man's increasing affection for the boy. But it was not long before he had other pangs, so much harder to face that he almost forgot, for the time, he had ever hated his son's wife at all. And in a strange and startling way it happened. One evening, just before the Earl's Court cottages were completed, there was a grand dinner party at Dorincourt. There had not been such a party at the Castle for a long time. A few days before it took place, Sir Harry Lorridaile and Lady Lorridaile, who was the Earl's only sister, actually came for a visit--a thing which caused the greatest excitement in the village and set Mrs. Dibble's shop-bell tingling madly again, because it was well known that Lady Lorridaile had only been to Dorincourt once since her marriage, thirty-five years before. She was a handsome old lady with white curls and dimpled, peachy cheeks, and she was as good as gold, but she had never approved of her brother any more than did the rest of the world, and having a strong will of her own and not being at all afraid to speak her mind frankly, she had, after several lively quarrels with his lordship, seen very little of him since her young days.