"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 every day," 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 should n't forget about you, you know, if I did n'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.
