St. Nicholas, Vol. 13, No. 12, October 1886Various
General
St. Nicholas, Vol. 13, No. 12, October 1886
Various
Children's literature -- Periodicals; Children's periodicals, American
There was some one else who was happy, too,—an old man, who, though he
had been rich and noble all his life, had not often been very honestly
happy. Perhaps, indeed, I shall tell you that I think it was because he
was rather better than he had been that he was rather happier. He had
not, indeed, suddenly become as good as Fauntleroy thought him; but, at
least, he had begun to love something, and he had several times found a
sort of pleasure in doing the kind things which the innocent, kind little
heart of a child had suggested,—and that was a beginning. And every day
he had been more pleased with his son’s wife. It was true, as the people
said, that he was beginning to like her too. He liked to hear her sweet
voice and to see her sweet face; and as he sat in his armchair, he used
to watch her and listen as she talked to her boy; and he heard loving,
gentle words which were new to him, and he began to see why the little
fellow who had lived in a New York side street and known grocery-men and
made friends with boot-blacks, was still so well-bred and manly a little
fellow that he made no one ashamed of him, even when fortune changed him
into the heir to an English earldom, living in an English castle.
It was really a very simple thing, after all,—it was only that he had
lived near a kind and gentle heart, and had been taught to think kind
thoughts always and to care for others. It is a very little thing,
perhaps, but it is the best thing of all. He knew nothing of earls and
castles; he was quite ignorant of all grand and splendid things; but he
was always lovable because he was simple and loving. To be so is like
being born a king.
As the old Earl of Dorincourt looked at him that day, moving about the
park among the people, talking to those he knew and making his ready
little bow when any one greeted him, entertaining his friends Dick and
Mr. Hobbs, or standing near his mother or Miss Herbert listening to their
conversation, the old nobleman was very well satisfied with him. And he
had never been better satisfied than he was when they went down to the
biggest tent, where the more important tenants of the Dorincourt estate
were sitting down to the grand collation of the day.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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