MRS. BURNETTS FAMOUS JUVENILES. 
 
 ICCINO, AND OTHER CHILD STORIES. 
 
 SQUARE 8vo, $1.50. 
 
 " The history of Pice ino s two days is as delicate as one of the anemones that spring in the rock walls 
 facing Ficcino s Mediterranean a study rather than a story of child-life. . . . The other stories in 
 l!u book have the charm of their predecessor in material and manner. . . . A delightful -volume, in fair 
 print, and furthermore embellished by Mr. Birch s graceful and sympathetic drawings." MRS. BURTON 
 HARRISON. 
 
 1TTLE LORD FAUNTLEROY. 
 
 SQUARE 8vo, $2.00. 
 
 **/ Little Lord Fauntleroy we gain another 
 charming child to add to our gailery of juvenile 
 heroes and heroines ; one who teaches a great 
 ifison -with such truth and sweetness that we 
 tart ivith him with real regret when the episode 
 is on-tr." LOUISA M. ALCOTT. 
 
 ARA CREWE. 
 
 SQUARE 8vo, $1.00. 
 
 " Everybody was in love ivith Little Lord 
 Fauntleroy" and I think all the world and the 
 rest of mankind will be in love with Sara Crewe? 
 The tale is so tender, so wise, so human, that I 
 wish every girl in America could read it, for I 
 think every on? would be made better by it." 
 LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON. 
 
 .IOVANNI AND THE OTHER. 
 
 CHILDREN WHO HAVE MADE STORIES. 
 
 SQUARE 8vo, $1.50. 
 
 Four of these stories, sad, sweet and touched 
 with delicate humor, are about little Italian waifs 
 n.>ko crept into the author s heart. Two of the 
 itones are of incidents in the lives of Mrs. Bur 
 nett s own boys: and the others, while varied in 
 tubject, have the same magic charm of disclosing 
 the beauty of child-life with a sympathy and 
 UHirmth of feeling the secret of which Mrs. Bur 
 nt tt alone seems to possess. 
 
 TITTLE SAINT ELIZABETH, 
 
 AND OTHER STORIES. 
 
 SQUARE 8vo, $1.50. 
 
 " The pretty talc has for its heroine a little 
 French girl brought up in an old chateau in Nor 
 mandy by an aunt who is a recluse and a devote. 
 A child of tliis type transplanted suddenly to the 
 realistic atmosphere of New York must inevitably 
 have much to suffer. The quaint little figure 
 blindly trying to guess the riddle of duty under 
 these unfamiliar conditions is pathetic, and Mrs. 
 Burnett touches it in with delicate strokes." 
 SUSAN COOLIDGE. 
 
 Illustrated by REGINALD C B. 
 
I 
 
 lU usrflT r 
 
 SO HE WENT TO SHOW IT HIS TROUSERS. 
 
PICCINO 
 
 AND OTHER CHILD STORIES 
 
 BY 
 
 FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT 
 
 ILLUSTRATED BY REGINALD B. BIRCH 
 
 NEW YORK 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER S SONS 
 
 1894 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1894, BY 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER S SONS 
 
 
 THE CAXTON PRESS 
 NEW YORK 
 
nj 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Two T)ays in the Life of Ticcino Tage i 
 
 The Captain s Youngest "79 
 
 Little ^Betty s Kitten Tells Her Story " 7/9 
 
 How Fauntleroy Occurred " 
 
 M109755 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 "So l/)e went to show it bis trousers" Frontispiece 
 
 " Piccino, who lay fast asleep" p a g e ^ 
 
 " Piccino clung to the donkey, rubbing his cheek wofully 
 
 against her gray shoulder" . . . . . /^ 
 
 4t / am going to wash you myself, said Lady Aileen, 
 
 lifting him in her strong white arms" .... " 45 
 
 " The girl stared at him" " 6/ 
 
 " I polished away at the Captains sabre" " 83 
 
 "Miss Rose put her hands on his shoulders" .... " p^ 
 
 " And I shall always be fond of you, Rabbett" ... " 
 
 " I did not like the swing at first" " 
 
 "I left her lap and curled up in her arm" .... " 
 
 Faun tleroy s welcome into the world: " F ow htm in 
 
 erfire!" " 757 
 
viii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 His initial act of charity: " Lady," he said, "lady, 
 
 font door want b ead" Page 165 
 
 "I m very sorry for you, Mr. Weribam, about your wife 
 
 being dead" " 775 
 
 " Are you in society, Mrs. Wilkins?" " 18 i 
 
 The real Fauntleroy listening to the story of the ideal 
 
 Fauntleroy " 207 
 
TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF PICCINO 
 
TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF PICCINO 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 IF he lived a hundred years to be as old as Giuseppe, 
 who was little Roberto s great-grandfather, and could 
 
 only move when he was helped, and sat in the sun and 
 played with bits of string if he lived to be as old as that, 
 he could never forget them, those two strange and dread 
 ful days. 
 
 When sometimes he spoke of them to such of his play 
 mates as were older than himself especially to Carlo, who 
 tended sheep, and was afraid of nothing, even making jokes 
 about the fores fieri they said they thought he had been 
 foolish ; that as it seemed that the people had been ready 
 to give him anything, it could not have been so bad but one 
 could have tried to bear it, though they all agreed that it 
 was dreadful about the water. 
 
 It is true, too, that as he grew older himself, after his 
 mother died and his father married again the big Paula 
 who flew into such rages and beat him and when he had to 
 tend sheep and goats himself, and stay out on the hills all 
 
IN THE LIFE OF PICCINO 
 
 day in such ragged jackets and with so little food because 
 Paula said he had not earned his salt, and she had her own 
 children to feed then he longed for some of the food he 
 would not eat during those two days, and wondered if he 
 would do quite the same thing again under the same circum 
 stances. But this was only when he was very hungry and 
 the mistral was blowing, and the Mediterranean looked gray 
 instead of blue. 
 
 He was such a tiny fellow when it happened. He was 
 not yet six years old, and when a child is under six he has 
 not reached the age when human creatures have begun to 
 face life for themselves altogether; and even a little Italian 
 peasant, who tumbles about among sheep and donkeys, 
 which form part of his domestic circle, is still in a measure a 
 sort of baby, whose mother or brother or sister has to keep 
 an occasional eye on him to see that he does not kill him 
 self. And then also Piccino had been regarded by his 
 family as a sort of capital, and had consequently had more 
 attention paid to him than he would have had under ordi 
 nary circumstances. 
 
 It was like this. He was so pretty, so wonderfully 
 pretty ! His brothers and sisters were not beauties, but he 
 was a beauty from his first day, and with every day that 
 passed he grew prettier. When he was so tiny that he was 
 packed about like a bundle, wound up in unattractive-look 
 ing bandages, he had already begun to show what his eyes 
 were going to be his immense soft black eyes, with lashes 
 
TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF PICCINO 3 
 
 which promised to be velvet fringes. And as soon as his 
 hair began to show itself, it was lovely silk, which lay in 
 rings, one over the other, on his beautiful little round 
 head. Then his soft cheeks and chin were of exquisite 
 roundness, and in each he had a deep dimple which came 
 and went as he laughed. 
 
 He was always being looked at and praised. A " Gesu 
 bambino " the peasant women called him. That was what 
 they always said when a child had wonderful beauty, their 
 idea of supreme child loveliness being founded on the pict 
 ures and waxen, richly dressed figures they saw in the 
 churches. 
 
 But it was \h.Q forestieri who admired him most, and that 
 was why he was s*o valuable. His family lived near a strange 
 little old city in the hills, which spread out behind one of 
 the fashionable seaside towns on the Italian Riviera. The 
 strange little old city, which was a relic of centuries gone by, 
 was one of the places the rich foreigners made excursions 
 to see. It was a two or three hours drive from the fash 
 ionable resort, and these gay, rich people, who seemed to 
 do nothing but enjoy themselves, used to form parties and 
 drive in carriages up the road which wound its way up from 
 the shore through the olive vineyards and back into the hills. 
 It was their habit to bring servants with them, and hampers 
 of wonderful things to eat, which would be unpacked by the 
 servants and spread on white cloths on the grass in some 
 spot shaded by the trees. Then they would eat, and drink 
 
4 TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF P ICC I NO 
 
 wine, and laugh, and afterwards wander about and explore 
 the old city of Ceriani, and seem to find the queer houses 
 and the inhabitants and everything about it interesting. 
 
 To the children of Ceriani and its outskirts these excur 
 sion parties were delightful festivities. When they heard of 
 the approach of one they gathered themselves together and 
 went forth to search for its encampment. When they had 
 found it they calmly seated themselves in rows quite near and 
 watched it as if it were a kind of theatrical entertainment to 
 which they had paid for admission. They were all accom 
 plished in the art of begging, and knew that the forestieri 
 always had plenty of small change, and would give, either 
 through good-nature or to avoid being annoyed. Then they 
 knew from experience that the things that were not eaten 
 were never repacked into the hampers if there was some one 
 to ask for them. So they kept their places quite cheerfully 
 and looked on at the festivities, and talked to each other and 
 showed their white teeth in generous grins quite amiably, 
 sure of reaping a pleasant harvest before the carriages drove 
 back again down the winding road ending at the sea and 
 San Remo, and the white, many-balconied hotels. 
 
 And it was through these excursion parties that Piccino s 
 market value was discovered. When he was a baby and his 
 sister Maria, who was his small nurse being determined not 
 to be left behind by her comrades toiled after the rest of 
 the children with her little burden in her arms or over her 
 shoulder, it was observed that \^ forestieri always saw the 
 
TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF PICCINO 5 
 
 pretty round black baby head and big soft dark eyes before 
 they saw anything else, and their attention once attracted 
 by Piccino very pleasant things were often the result. The 
 whole party got more cakes and sandwiches and legs of 
 chickens and backs of little birds, and when bits of silver 
 were given to Maria for Piccino, Maria herself sometim.es 
 -even had whole francs given to her, because it was she who 
 was his sister and took care of him. And then, having 
 begun giving, the good-natured ones among the party of 
 ladies and gentlemen did not like to quite neglect the other 
 children, and so scattered soldi among them, so that some 
 times they all returned to Ceriani feeling that they had 
 done a good day s work. Their idea of a good day s work 
 was one when they had not run after carriages for nothing, 
 or had heads shaken at them when they held out their hands 
 and called imploringly, "Uno soldino, bella signora bella 
 signora ! " Piccino had been born one of the class which in 
 its childhood and often even later never fails in the belief 
 that the English and Americans who come to the beautiful 
 Riviera come there to be begged from, or in some way 
 beguiled out of their small coin. 
 
 Maria was a sharp child. She had not lugged her little 
 brothers and sisters about all through the working time of 
 her twelve years without learning a few things. She very 
 soon found out what it was that brought in the soldi and the 
 nice scraps from the hampers. 
 
 "It is Piccino they give things to ecco!" she said. 
 
6 TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF PICCINO 
 
 "They see his eyes and they want to look at him and touch 
 his cheeks. They like to see the dimples come when he- 
 laughs. They would not look at me like that, or at you, 
 Carmela. They would not come near us." 
 
 This was quite true. The row of little spectators watch 
 ing the picnics might be picturesque, but it was exceedingly 
 dirty, and not made up of the material it is quite safe to 
 come near. It was a belief current among the parties who 
 drove up from San Remo that soap had never been heard 
 of in the vicinity of Ceriani and that water was avoided as 
 a poisonous element, and this belief was not founded upon 
 mere nothings. 
 
 " They are as dirty as they are cheerful and impudent," 
 some one had said, " and that is saying a great deal. I 
 wonder what would happen if one of them were caught and 
 washed all over." 
 
 Nobody could have been dirtier than Piccino was. Pretty 
 as he looked, there were days when the most enthusiastic 
 of the ladies dare not have taken him in her arms. In 
 fact, there were very few days when any one would have 
 liked to go quite that far or any farther, indeed, than 
 looking at his velvet eyes and throwing him soldi and 
 cakes. But his eyes always won him the soldi and cakes, 
 and the older he grew the more he gained, so that not 
 only Maria and her companions, but his mother herself, 
 began to look upon him as a source of revenue. 
 
 "If he can only sing when he grows a little older," his 
 
TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF PICCINO 7 
 
 mother said, " he can fill his pockets full by going and 
 singing before the hotels and in the gardens of the villas. 
 Every one will give him something. They are a queer 
 lot, these foreigners, who are willing to give good money 
 to a child because he has long eyelashes. His are long 
 enough, thanks to the Virgin ! Sometimes I wonder they 
 are not in his way." 
 
 His mother was the poorest of the poor. She had seven 
 children, and a mere hovel to put them in, and nothing to 
 feed and clothe them with. Her husband was a good-for- 
 nothing, who never worked if he could help it, and who, 
 if he earned a few soldi, got rid of them at once before 
 they could be scolded out of him and spent on such ex- 
 travaeances as food and fire. If Piccino had not been a 
 
 o 
 
 little Italian peasant he would, no doubt, have starved to 
 death or died of cold long before he had his adventure ; 
 but on the Riviera the sun shines and the air is soft, and 
 people seem born with a sort of gay carelessness of most 
 things that trouble the serious world. 
 
 As for Piccino, he was as happy as a soft little rabbit 
 or a young bird or a baby fawn. When he was old enough 
 to run about, he had the most beautiful days. They seemed 
 to him to be made up of warm sunshine and warm grass, 
 flowers looking at him as he toddled round, light filtering 
 through vines and the branches of olive-trees, nice black 
 bread and figs, which he lay on his back and munched de 
 lightedly, and days when Maria dragged him along the road 
 
S TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF PICCINO 
 
 to some green place where grand people sat and ate good 
 things, and who afterwards gave him cakes and delicious 
 little bones and soldi, saying over and over again to each 
 other that he was the prettiest little boy they had ever 
 seen, and had the most beautiful eyes, and oh ! his eye 
 lashes ! 
 
 " Look at his eyelashes ! " they would exclaim. " They 
 are as thick as rushes round a pool, and they must be half 
 an inch long/ 
 
 Sometimes Piccino got rather tired of his eyelashes, 
 and wore a resigned expression, but he was little Italian 
 enough to feel that they must be rather a good thing, 
 as they brought such luck. Once, indeed, a man came all 
 by himself to Ceriani, and persuaded his mother to make 
 him sit on a stone while he put him in a picture, and 
 when it was over he gave his mother several francs, and 
 she was delighted ; but Piccino was not so pleased, because 
 he had thought it rather tiresome to sit so long on one 
 stone. 
 
 This was the year before the dreadful two days came. 
 
 When they came he had been put into queer little 
 trousers, which were much too big for him. One of his 
 brothers had outgrown them and given them good wear. 
 They were, in fact, as ragged as they were big, and as 
 dirty as they were ragged ; but Piccino was very proud 
 of them. He went and showed them to the donkey, 
 whose tumble-down sleeping apartment was next to his 
 
PICCINO, WHO LAY FAST ASLEEP 
 
TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF PICCINO n 
 
 own, and who was his favorite playmate and companion. 
 It was such a little donkey, but such a good one ! It 
 could carry a burden almost as big as its stable, and it 
 had soft, furry ears and soft, furry sides, and eyes and 
 eyelashes as pretty for a donkey as Piccino s were for 
 a boy. It was nearly always at work, but when it was 
 at home Piccino was nearly always with it. On wet and 
 cold days he stayed with it in its tiny, broken stable, 
 playing and talking to it ; and many a day he had fallen 
 asleep with his curly head on its warm little fuzzy side. 
 When it was fine they strolled about together and were 
 companions, the donkey cropping the grass and Piccino 
 pretending it was a little flock of sheep, and that he was 
 big enough to be a shepherd. In the middle of the night 
 he used to like to waken and hear it move and make little 
 sounds. It was so close to him that he felt as if they 
 slept together. 
 
 So he went to show it his trousers, of course. 
 
 " Now I am a man," he said, and he stood close by 
 its head, and the two pairs of lustrous eyes looked affection 
 ately into each other. 
 
 After that they sauntered out together into the beauti 
 ful early morning. When Piccino was with the donkey his 
 mother and Maria knew he was quite safe and so was the 
 donkey, so they were allowed to ramble about. They never 
 went far, it is true. Piccino was too little, and besides, 
 there were such nice little rambles quite near. This time 
 
12 TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF PICCINO 
 
 was the loveliest of all the year. The sun was sweetly 
 warm, but not hot, and there were anemones and flaming 
 wild tulips in the grass. 
 
 Piccino did not know how long they were out together 
 before Maria came to find them. The donkey had a beau 
 tiful breakfast, and Piccino ate his piece of black bread 
 without anything to add to its flavor, because his mother 
 was at the time in great trouble and very poor, and there 
 was scarcely the bread itself to eat. Piccino toddled along 
 quite peacefully, however, and when he came upon a space 
 where there were red and yellow tulips swaying in the 
 soft air he broke off a fine handful, and when the donkey 
 lay down he sat by it and began to stick the beautiful, 
 flaring things round his hat, as he had seen Maria stick 
 things round hers. It was a torn, soft felt hat, with a 
 pointed crown and a broad rim, and when he put it on 
 again, with its adornment of red and yellow flowers sticking 
 up and down, and falling on his soft, thick curls, he was a 
 strangely beautiful little thing to see, and so like a picture 
 that he scarcely seemed like a real child at all, but like a 
 lovely, fantastic little being some artist had arranged to 
 put on canvas. 
 
 He was sitting in this way, looking out to where he 
 could see a bit of blue sea through a break in the hills, 
 when Maria came running towards him. 
 
 "The donkey! "she cried, "the donkey!" 
 
 She had been crying and looked excited, and took him 
 
TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF PICCINO 13 
 
 by the hand, dragging him towards home. His legs were 
 so short and he was so little that it always seemed as 
 if she dragged him. She was an excitable child, and always 
 went fast when she had an object in view. Piccino was 
 used to excitement. They all shouted and screamed and 
 gesticulated at each other when any trifling thing happened. 
 His mother and her neighbors were given to tears and 
 cries and loud ejaculations upon the slightest provocation, 
 as all Italian peasants are, so he saw nothing unusual in 
 Maria s coming upon him like a whirlwind and exclaiming 
 disjointedly with tears. He wondered, however, what the 
 donkey could have to do with it, and evidently the donkey 
 wondered too, for she got up and trotted after them down 
 the road. 
 
 But when they reached the house it was very plain that 
 the thing which had occurred was not a trifle, or usual. 
 
 Piccino saw an old man standing before the door talking 
 to his mother. At least, he was trying to get in a word 
 edgeways now and then, while the mother wept and beat 
 her breast and poured forth a torrent of bewailing, mingled 
 with an avalanche of scolding addressed to her husband, 
 who stood near her, looking at once sheepish and ill- 
 tempered. 
 
 "Worthless brute and pig," she proclaimed; "idle, 
 wicked animal, who will not work to help me to feed his 
 children. It is only I who work and the donkey who helps 
 me. Without her we should starve starve ! And he sells 
 
14 TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF PICCINO 
 
 her poor beast ! sells her to get money for his wickedness 
 and gluttony. And I am to starve without her a fine 
 thing! And he brings to my door the thief he has sold 
 her to." 
 
 Baby as he was, Piccino began to understand. His father 
 had sold the donkey, and it would be taken away. He lifted 
 up his voice in a wail of bitter lamentation, and breaking 
 away from Maria ran to the donkey and clung round her 
 front leg, rubbing his cheek wofully against her gray 
 shoulder. 
 
 For an hour or so they all wept and lamented while their 
 mother alternately wept and raved. She abused her hus 
 band and the old man who had bought the donkey, by turns. 
 Stray neighbors dropped in and helped her. They all agreed 
 that old Beppo was a usurer and a thief, who had somehow 
 got the better of Annibale, who was also a drunken, shame 
 less brute. Old Beppo was so overwhelmed by the storm of 
 hard words and bad names raging about him that he actually 
 was stunned into allowing that the donkey should remain 
 where she was for two days, that she might finish some work 
 her mistress had promised to do with her aid. And he went 
 away grumbling, with his piece of rope over his arm. 
 
 There was nothing to eat in the house, and if there had 
 been, the mother was too prostrate with grief and rage to 
 have prepared anything like a meal. And so it seemed a 
 great piece of good luck when dirty little Filippo burst upon 
 them with the news that three grand carriages full of illus- 
 
PICCINO CLUNG TO THE DONKEY, RUBBING HIS CHEEK WOFULLY AGAINST HER GRAY SHOULDER 
 
TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF PICCINO 17 
 
 trious-looking fores tier -i and inviting hampers were unloading 
 themselves at a certain turn of the road, where the grass 
 was thick and the trees big and close together. 
 
 "Come!" said Maria, catching at Piccino s hand. She 
 gave him a look over. His crying had left a flush in his soft 
 cheeks and a little pathetic curve on his baby mouth, which 
 was always like a tiny vermilion bow. His hat, with the 
 tulips tumbling round it, was set on the back of his head, and 
 the red and yellow things made his eyes look bigger and 
 lovelier than ever by contrast. In these respects Maria saw 
 that he was good for more cakes and soldi than ever. And 
 it would never have occurred to her that tears and rubbingf 
 
 o 
 
 against the donkey had left him dirtier than ever. In 
 Maria s world nobody troubled themselves about dirt. 
 Washing one s self amounted almost to a religious ceremony. 
 But ah ! that little love of a Piccino was dirty as dirty as 
 he was soft and dimpled and rich-colored and beautiful ! 
 
 Near the place where the pleasure-seekers had spread 
 their feast upon the grass there was a low, rough, stone wall 
 at the side of the road. 
 
 When the servants had spread the bright rugs and cush 
 ions upon the ground the party sat down in little groups. 
 No sooner had they done this than one of the ladies looked 
 up and broke into a little laugh. 
 
 " Look there ! " she said, nodding in the direction of the 
 low wall, which was only a few yards from them. 
 
 And those near her looked and saw a little boy peasant, 
 
1 8 TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF P ICC I NO 
 
 sitting with his legs dangling, and gazing at them with the 
 interest and satisfaction of a person who has had the good 
 fortune to secure the best seat at a theatre. 
 
 "He is a sharp one," said the lady, " he has got here 
 first. There will be others directly. They are like a swarm 
 of little vultures. The Bothwicks, who have the Villa des 
 Palmiers, were here a week ago, and they said children 
 seemed to start up from the earth." 
 
 The servants moved about in dexterous silence, unpack 
 ing the hampers and spreading white cloths. The gentle 
 men sat at the ladies feet, and everybody laughed and 
 talked gayly. In a few minutes the lady looked up and 
 laughed again. 
 
 o o 
 
 " Look," she said, " now there are three ! " 
 And there were six legs dangling, and the second and 
 third pair were little girls legs, and their owners looked on 
 at the strangers with cheerful composure, as if their assist 
 ance at the festive scene were the most proper and natural 
 thing in the world. 
 
 The lady who had seen them first was a tall and hand 
 some Englishwoman. She had big coils of reddish-brown 
 hair, and large bright eyes which looked restless and tired 
 at the same time. Everybody seemed to pay her a great 
 deal of attention. The party was hers, the carriages were 
 hers, the big footmen were hers. Her guests called her 
 Lady Aileen. She was a very rich young widow with no 
 children, and though she had everything that wealth and 
 
TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF PICCINO 19 
 
 rank could give she found it rather hard to amuse herself. 
 Perhaps this was because she had given everything to Lady 
 Aileen Chalmer that she could, and it had not yet occurred 
 to her that any one else in the world was any affair of hers. 
 
 " The Bothwicks came home in raptures over a child 
 they had seen," she said ; "they talked of him until it was 
 fatiguing. They said he was as dirty as a pig and as beauti 
 ful as an angel. The rest of the children seemed to use him 
 as a bait. I wish they would bring him to-day.; I should 
 like to see him. I must say I don t believe he was as 
 beautiful as they said. You know Mary Bothwick is by 
 way of being artistic, and is given to raptures." 
 
 " Are you fond of children, Lady Aileen ? " asked the 
 man nearest to her. 
 
 " I don t know," she answered, " I never had one. But 
 I think they are amusing. And these little Italian beggars 
 are sometimes very handsome. Perhaps I should not be 
 so bored if I had a very good-looking child. I should want 
 a boy. I believe I will buy one from a peasant some day. 
 They will give you anything for money." She turned her 
 face a little, and laughed as she had done before. 
 
 " There are quite twelve on the wall now," she said, 
 "perhaps more. I must count them." When they counted 
 them they found there were fourteen, all in a row, all 
 with dangling feet, all dirty, and all staring at what was 
 going on with a composure which had no shadow of embar 
 rassment touching it. 
 
20 TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF PICCINO 
 
 The row having gained in numbers was also beginning 
 to be a little more lively. The young spectators had begun 
 to exchange conversational and lively remarks upon the 
 party, the big footmen, and the inviting things being handed 
 about and eaten. 
 
 In ten minutes from that time Lady Aileen counted 
 again and found there were twenty-two lookers-on, and 
 when she reached the twenty-first she gave a slight start. 
 
 " Dear me ! " she exclaimed, and laid down her fork. 
 
 " What is it, Lady Aileen ? " asked a girl who sat at 
 her side. 
 
 " I am perfectly certain the twenty-first one is the 
 child the Bothwicks were talking about. And he is a hand 
 some creature ! " 
 
 " Which one?" the girl exclaimed, leaning forward to 
 look. " The twenty-first. Oh, I am sure you mean the 
 one next to the end. What a beauty ! Mr. Gordon, look 
 at him ! " 
 
 And Maria had the encouragement of seeing half a 
 dozen people turn to look at Piccino sitting by her on the 
 wall, a marvel of soft roundness and rich color, his velvet 
 eyes dreamily wide open as he gazed fixedly at the good 
 things to eat, his crimson bow of a mouth with parted lips, 
 his flaming tulips nodding round his torn felt hat. 
 
 Lady Aileen looked quite interested. 
 
 " I never saw such a beautiful little animal," she said. 
 " I had no idea children were ever really like that. He 
 
TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF PICCINO 21 
 
 looks as if he had been deliberately made to order. But 
 I should never have had the imagination to order anything 
 so perfect." 
 
 In a very few minutes everybody was looking at him 
 and discussing him. Maria saw them and all the other 
 children saw them, and the whole party began to congrat 
 ulate itself and feel its spirits exhilarated, because it knew 
 how the matter would end. The only one who was not 
 exactly exhilarated was, it must be confessed, Piccino him 
 self. He felt a certain shy awkwardness when he was 
 looked at and talked about so much. He was not much 
 more than a baby, after all, and he liked the cakes and 
 little birds backs much better than he liked being looked 
 at by so many grand ladies and gentlemen all at once. 
 Perhaps, too, if the truth were told, he was not as thrifty 
 as Maria and her companions. He liked the good things, 
 but he did not like to ask for them, whereas the others did 
 not object to begging at all. It was second nature to 
 them. 
 
 On this occasion Maria, seeing what effect he had pro 
 duced, wanted to lift him down from the wall and put him 
 on the grass, and make him go among the signori and hold 
 out his hand. 
 
 But he clung to her and shook his head and stuck out 
 his vermilion under lip, and would not go. 
 
 It was when he was doing this and Maria was whispering 
 to him, and scolding and coaxing, that Lady Aileen called 
 
22 TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF PICCINO 
 
 to one of her footmen and told him to bring her a plate 
 ful of cakes and some marrons glaces. 
 
 " Does your ladyship wish me to take them to the 
 beggar children ? " asked Thomas, his distaste suppressed 
 by respectful civility. 
 
 " No," Lady Aileen answered, rising to her feet. " I 
 am going to take them myself." 
 
 "Yes, my lady," said Thomas, and stepped back. "It 
 would have been safer to have let me do it," he re 
 marked in a discreet undertone when he returned to his 
 fellows. " Ladies dresses are more liable to touch 
 them by accident ; and one wouldn t want to toitch 
 them." 
 
 Lady Aileen carried her plate to the line of spectators 
 on the wall. Mr. Gordon and two or three others of the 
 party followed her. All along the row eyes began to glis 
 ten and mouths to water, but Lady Aileen went straight 
 to Piccino. She spoke to him in Italian. 
 
 " What is your name ? " she asked. 
 
 He hung back a little, keeping close to Maria. This 
 was just what he did not like at all that they would come 
 and ask him his name and try to make him talk. He had 
 nothing to say to people like them. He could talk to the 
 donkey, but then the donkey was of his own world and 
 they knew each other s language. 
 
 " Tell the signora your name," whispered Maria, fur 
 tively pushing him. 
 
TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF PICCINO 23 
 
 " Piccino," he said at length, the word coming through a 
 little reluctant pout. 
 
 Lady Aileen laughed. 
 
 " He says his name is Piccino," she said to her com 
 panions. " That means little one, so I suppose it is a 
 sort of pet name. How old is he?" she asked Maria. 
 
 Piccino was so tired of hearing that. They always asked 
 it. He never asked how old they were. He did not want 
 to know. 
 
 " He will be six in three months," said Maria. 
 
 " Will you have some cakes ? " said Lady Aileen. Pic 
 cino held out his horribly dirty, dimpled hands, but Maria 
 took off his hat with the tulips round it and held it out 
 for him. 
 
 "If the illustrissima will put them in here," she said, 
 "he can carry them better." 
 
 Lady Aileen gave a little shudder, but she emptied the 
 plate. 
 
 "What an awful hat!" she said to her friends. "They 
 are quite like little pigs but he looks almost prettier with 
 out it. Look how wonderful his hair is. It has dark red 
 lights in it, and is as thick as a mat. The curls are like 
 the cherubs of the Sistine Madonna. If it were not so 
 dirty I should have liked to put my hand on it." 
 
 She spoke in English, and Piccino wondered what she 
 was saying about him. He knew it was about him, and 
 he looked at her from under his veil of lashes. 
 
24 TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF PICCINO 
 
 " It would please me to have a child as handsome as 
 that about me," she said. 
 
 "Why don t you buy him?" said Mr. Gordon; "you 
 spoke of buying one just now. It would be like buying 
 a masterpiece." 
 
 " So it would," said Lady Aileen. "That s an idea. 
 I think I will buy him. I believe he would amuse me." 
 
 "For a while, at least," said Mr. Gordon. 
 
 "He would always be well taken care of," said her 
 ladyship, with a practical air. "He would be infinitely 
 better off than he is now." 
 
 * # # # # 
 
 She was a person who through all her life had cultivated 
 the habit of getting all she had a fancy for. If one culti 
 vates the habit, and has plenty of money, there are not 
 many things one cannot have. There are some, it is true, 
 but not many. Lady Aileen had not found many. Just 
 now she was rather more bored than usual. Before she had 
 left England something had occurred which had rather 
 troubled her. In fact, she had come to the Riviera to forget 
 it in change of surroundings. She had been to Monte Carlo 
 and had found it too exciting and not new enough, as she 
 had been there often before. She had been to Nice, and 
 had said it was too much like a seaside Paris, and that 
 there were so many English people that walking down the 
 Promenade des Anglais was like walking down Bond Street. 
 She had tried San Remo because it was quiet, and she had 
 
TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF PICCINO 25 
 
 a temporary fancy for being quiet, and then she had chanced 
 to meet some people she liked. So she had taken a snow- 
 white villa high above the sea, and with palms and orange- 
 trees and slender yellow-green bamboos in the garden. 
 And she had invited her new acquaintances to dinner and 
 afternoon tea, and had made up excursions. Still, she was 
 often bored, and wanted some new trifle to amuse her. 
 And actually, when she saw Piccino, and Mr. Gordon sug 
 gested to her that she should buy him, it occurred to her 
 that she would try it. If she had chanced to come upon 
 a tiny, pretty, rare monkey or toy terrier, or an unheard- 
 of kind of parrot or cockatoo, she would have tried the 
 experiment of buying it ; and Piccino, with his dirty, beau 
 tiful little face and his half-inch eyelashes, did not seem 
 much more serious to her. He would cost more money, 
 of course, as she would have to provide for him in some 
 way after he had grown too big to amuse her ; but she 
 had plenty of money, and she need not trouble herself 
 about him. She need not see him if she did not wish to, 
 after she had sent him to school, or to be trained into 
 some kind of superior servant. Lady Aileen was not a 
 person whose conscience disturbed her, and caused her to 
 feel responsibilities. And so, after the party had been to 
 explore Ceriani and the things that otherwise interested 
 them, she asked Mr. Gordon to go with her to the poor 
 little tumble-down house which Maria had pointed out to 
 her as the home of Piccino. Maria had, in fact, had a 
 
26 TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF PICCINO 
 
 rich harvest. Everybody had returned full of good things, 
 and Piccino s small pocket was rich with soldi. 
 
 " I am going to carry out your suggestion," Lady Aileen 
 said to Mr. Gordon, as they walked down the road. 
 
 "What was it?" Mr. Gordon asked. 
 
 "That I should buy the child." 
 
 " Indeed," said Mr. Gordon. "You find you can always 
 buy what you have a fancy for ? " 
 
 " Nearly always," said Lady Aileen, knitting her hand 
 some white forehead a little ; " I have no doubt I can buy 
 this thing I have a fancy for." 
 
 It chanced that she came exactly at the right moment. 
 As they approached the house they heard even louder cries 
 and lamentations and railings than Piccino had heard in the 
 
 morning. 
 
 It appeared that old Beppo had repented his leniency 
 and had come back for the donkey. He would not let it 
 stay another night. He wanted to work it himself. He had 
 brought his piece of rope and had fastened it to the pretty 
 gray head already, while Piccino s mother, Rita, wept and 
 gesticulated and poured forth maledictions. The neighbors 
 had come back to sympathize with her and find out what 
 would happen, and the children had begun to cry and Anni- 
 bale to swear, so that there was such a noise filling the air 
 that if Lady Aileen had not been a cool and determined 
 person she might have been alarmed. 
 
 But she was not. She did not wait for Mr. Gordon to 
 
TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF PICCINO 27 
 
 command order, but walked straight into the midst of the 
 altercation. 
 
 " What is the matter?" she demanded in Italian, 
 "what is all this noise about?" 
 
 Then, after their first start of surprise at seeing the 
 grand lady, who was so plainly one of the rich forestieri, 
 Rita and all her neighbors began to explain their wrongs at 
 once. They praised the donkey and reviled Annibale, and 
 proclaimed that old Beppo was a malefactor without a soul, 
 and a robber of the widow and the fatherless. 
 
 "Far better," cried Rita, "that my children should be 
 without a father. An idle, ugly brute, who takes their bread 
 out of their poor mouths. To sell their one friend who 
 keeps them the donkey ! " 
 
 Old Beppo looked both sheepish and frightened when 
 Lady Aileen turned upon him as he was beginning to try 
 to shuffle away with his property at the end of his rope 
 halter. 
 
 "Stay where you are!" she said. 
 
 " Illustrtssima" mumbled Beppo, "a thousand excuses. 
 But I have work to do, and the donkey is mine. I have 
 bought it. It is my donkey, illustrissima" 
 
 Lady Aileen knew Italy very well. She drew out her 
 purse, that he might see it in her hand, before she turned 
 away from him. 
 
 "Stay where you are," she said. "I shall have some 
 thing to say to you later." 
 
28 TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF PICCINO 
 
 Then she turned to Rita. 
 
 " Stop making a noise," she said. " I want to talk to 
 you." 
 
 11 What could the illustrious signora have to say to a 
 wretched \voman ? " Rita wept. "All her children must 
 starve ; she must starve herself ; death from cold and hun 
 ger lay before them ! " 
 
 " No such thing," said Lady Aileen. " I will buy your 
 donkey back, and give you food and fuel for the winter 
 for more than one winter if you will let me have what I 
 
 want." 
 
 Rita and the neighbors exclaimed in chorus. If she 
 could have what she wanted, the most illustrious signora ! 
 What could she want that a hovel could hold, and what 
 could such poor creatures refuse her ? 
 
 Lady Aileen made a gesture towards Piccino, who had 
 gone to stand by the donkey, and had big tears on his 
 eyelashes as he fondled its nose. 
 
 " I want you to lend me your little boy," she said. " I 
 want to take him home with me and keep him. It will 
 be much better for him." 
 
 The neighbors all exclaimed in chorus. Rita for a 
 moment only stared. 
 
 " Piccino ! " she said at length. " You want to take 
 him to make him your child ! " And aside she exclaimed : 
 "Mother of God! it is his eyelashes!" 
 
 Lady Aileen shrugged her shoulders slightly. " I can- 
 
TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF PICCINO 29 
 
 not make him my child," she said, " but I will take care 
 of him. He shall live with me, and be fed and clothed, 
 and shall enjoy himself." 
 
 Maria clutched at her mother s apron. 
 
 " Mother," she said, " he will be a signorino. He will 
 ride in the carriage of the illustrissima. It will be as if 
 he were a prince." 
 
 " As if he were a prince ! " the neighbors echoed. " As 
 if he were a king s son ! " And they all looked at dirty 
 little Piccino with a growing awe. 
 
 Rita looked at him too. She had never been a very 
 motherly person, and these children, who had given her 
 such hard work and hard fare, had been a combined trial 
 and burden to her. She had never felt it fair that they 
 should have come upon her. Each one had seemed an 
 added calamity, and when Piccino had been born he had 
 seemed a heavier weight than all the rest. 
 
 It was indeed well for him that his eyelashes had begun 
 to earn his living so early. And now, if he could save 
 their daily bread and the donkey for them, it would be 
 a sort of excuse for his having intruded himself upon the 
 world. But Rita was not the woman to let him go for a 
 nothing. 
 
 " He is as beautiful as an angel," she said. " He has 
 brought in many a lira only because the forestieri admire 
 him so. His eyelashes are an inch long. When he is old 
 enough to sing 
 
30 TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF PICCINO 
 
 Lady Aileen spoke aside to Mr. Gordon. 
 
 " I told you that I believed I could buy this thing I 
 fancied," she said. 
 
 To Rita she said : 
 
 " Tell me what you want. I will give you a reasonable 
 sum. But you will be foolish if you try to be extortionate. 
 I want him but not so much that I will be robbed." 
 
 " I should be a foolish woman if I tried to keep him," 
 said Rita; " he will have nothing to eat to-night if he 
 stays here, nor to-morrow, nor the day after, unless a 
 miracle happens. The illustrious signora will give him 
 a good home, and will buy back the donkey and save us 
 from starvation ? I can come sometimes to the villa of 
 the signora and see him?" 
 
 "Yes," said Lady Aileen, practically, "and the servants 
 will always give you a good meal and something to carry 
 home with you. You can have him back at any time if 
 you want him." 
 
 She said this for two reasons. One was because she 
 knew his mother was not likely to want him back, because 
 he would always be a source of small revenue. And then 
 she herself was not a person of the affections, and if the 
 woman made herself in the least tiresome, she was not 
 likely to feel it a grief to part with the child. She only 
 wanted him to amuse her. 
 
 How it was all arranged Piccino did not in the least 
 know. As he stood by the donkey his mother and the 
 
TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF PICCINO .31 
 
 neighbors, his father and Beppo and the illustrious lady, 
 all talked together. He knew they were talking of him, 
 because he heard his own name, but he was too little to 
 listen or care. 
 
 Maria listened to good purpose, however. She was 
 wildly excited and exhilarated. Before the bargain was 
 half concluded she slipped over to Piccino s side and tried 
 to make him understand. 
 
 "The signora is going to buy back the donkey," she 
 said, " and give us money besides, and you are going back 
 in her beautiful carriage to San Remo, to live in her 
 magnificent villa, and be a signorino, and have everything 
 you want. You will be dressed like the king s son, and 
 have servants. You will be as rich as the forestieri? 
 
 Piccino gave her a rather timid look. He was not a 
 beloved nursery darling, he was only a pretty little animal 
 who was only noticed because he was another mouth to 
 feed ; he was not of half as much consequence as the don 
 key. But the dirty place where he ate and slept was his 
 home, and it gave him a queer feeling to think of tumbling 
 about in a strange house. 
 
 But Maria was so delighted, and seemed to think he 
 had such luck, and everybody got up a sort of excitement 
 about him, and he did not want the donkey to be sold, and 
 he was too young to realize that he could not come back 
 as often as he liked. And in the end, when the matter 
 was actually settled, he found himself part of a sort of 
 
32 TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF PICCINO 
 
 triumphal procession which escorted him back to the place 
 where the carriages were. His mother and Maria and 
 several of the neighbors walked quite proudly along the 
 road with him, and even old Beppo followed at a distance, 
 and the donkey, having been freed from the halter, and 
 taking an interest in her friends, loitered along also, crop 
 ping grass as she went. 
 
 Lady Aileen and Mr. Gordon had gone on before them. 
 When they reached the place where the rest of the party 
 was waiting, Lady Aileen explained the rather remarkable 
 thing she had done, and did so with her usual direct cool 
 ness. 
 
 " I have bought the child with the eyelashes," she said, 
 " and I am going to take him back to San Remo on the 
 box with the coachman. He is too dirty to come near us 
 until he is washed." 
 
 She was a person whom nobody thought of question 
 ing, because she never questioned herself. She simply did 
 what it occurred to her to do, and felt her own wish quite 
 enough reason. She did not care in the least whether peo 
 ple thought her extraordinary or not. That was their affair, 
 and not hers, 
 
 " You have bought Piccino ! " one of her friends ex 
 claimed. " Does that mean you are going to adopt him ? " 
 
 " I have not thought of it as seriously as that," said 
 Lady Aileen. " I am going to take him home and have 
 him thoroughly washed, however. When he is clean I will 
 
TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF PICCINO 33 
 
 decide what I shall do next. The thing that interests me 
 at present is, that I am curious to see what he will look 
 like when he has had a warm bath all over, and has been 
 purled with violet powder, and had his hair combed. I want 
 to see it done. I wonder what he will think is happen 
 ing to him. Nicholson will have to take care of him until 
 I find him a nurse. Look at his relatives and friends 
 escorting him in procession down the road. They have 
 already begun to regard him with veneration." 
 
 She beckoned to one of the men servants. 
 
 " Greggs," she said, "you and Hepburn must put the 
 child between you on the box. He is going back to San 
 Remo with me. See that he does not fall off." 
 
 Greggs went to the coachman, with a queer expression 
 of the nostrils. 
 
 " We ve got a nice bunch of narcissuses to carry back 
 between us. Her ladyship says the boy is to go with us 
 on the box." 
 
 "A nice go that is for two men that s a bit particular 
 themselves," said the coachman. " Let s hope he won t give 
 us both typhus fever." 
 
 And under these auspices Piccino went forth to his 
 strange experience. 
 
34 TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF PICCINO 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 HE was too well accustomed to his dirt to think of it as 
 being objectionable, so the way in which Greggs lifted him up 
 on to the seat on the box did not at all explain itself to him. 
 He did not realize that in exactly the same manner the ex 
 cellent Greggs would have handled an extremely dirty lit 
 tle dog her ladyship had chosen to pick up by the wayside 
 and order him to take charge of. 
 
 But though he did not understand how he was regarded by 
 the illustrious signori in livery who sat near him, he was 
 conscious that he was not comfortable, and felt that somehow 
 they were not exactly friendly. His place on the box seemed 
 at an enormous height from the ground, and as they went 
 down hill over the winding road he was rather frightened, 
 particularly when they rounded a sharp curve. It seemed so 
 probable that he might fall off, and he was afraid to clutch at 
 Greggs, who kept as far from him as possible under the 
 circumstances. 
 
 It was a long, long drive to San Remo, and it seemed 
 longer to Piccino than it really was. San Remo to him 
 appeared a wonderful foreign country. He had never been 
 there, and only knew of it what Maria had told him. Maria 
 had once gone there in the small cart drawn by the donkey, 
 
TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF PICCINO 35 
 
 and she had never forgotten the exaltation of the adventure. 
 She was always willing to describe over again the streets, 
 the white villas, the shops, and the grand hotels. 
 
 Piccino was so tired that he fell asleep before the carriage 
 had left the curving road, but when it reached the city the 
 jolting of the wheels wakened him, and he opened his beautiful 
 drowsy eyes and found them dazzled by the lights. They 
 were not very bright or numerous lights, but they seemed so 
 very dazzling to him that he felt bewildered by them. If 
 Maria had been with him he would have clung to her and 
 asked questions about everything, but, even if he had not 
 been too much a baby and too shy, he could not have asked 
 questions of Greggs, who was sufficiently English to feel his 
 own language quite enough for a sensible footman. If the 
 Italians wished to speak Italian that was their own taste, and 
 they might bear the consequences of not being able to make 
 him understand them. English was enough for Greggs. 
 
 So Piccino was borne through the amazing streets in 
 silence. The people in the carriage had also become rather 
 silent, having been lulled, as it were, by the long drive 
 through the woods and olive groves. Lady Aileen, in fact, 
 had had time to begin to wonder if her new plan would 
 prove as satisfactory and amusing as she had fancied it 
 might. Mr. Gordon was quietly speculating about it him 
 self; the other man in the carriage was thinking of the Battle 
 of Flowers at Nice, and inventing a new scheme of floral 
 decoration for a friend s victoria. The only person who was 
 
36 TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF PICCINO 
 
 really thinking of Piccino himself was the girl who sat by 
 Lady Aileen. She was a clever girl, and kind, and she was 
 wondering how he would like the change in his life, and if 
 he had be^un to feel homesick. 
 
 o 
 
 The carriage had to go up-hill again before it reached 
 Lady Aileen s villa. It was a snowy white villa on an emi 
 nence, and it had a terraced garden and looked out over the 
 sea. When they drove through the stately gateway Piccino 
 felt his small heart begin to thump, though he did not know 
 why at all. There were shadows of trees and scents of roses 
 and orange blossom and heliotrope. And on the highest 
 terrace the white house stood, with a glow of light in its 
 portico and gleams in its windows. Poor little dirty peasant 
 baby, how could it be otherwise than that all this grandeur 
 and whiteness should alarm him ! 
 
 But there was just one thing that gave him a homely 
 feeling. And oh ! he felt it so good that it was so ! As 
 they turned in at the gate he heard a familiar sound. It was 
 the hysteric sniffing and jumping and yelping whines of wel 
 come of a dog a poor, exiled doggie, whose kennel was 
 kept close by the gate, probably to guard it. He was fastened 
 by a chain, and evidently, being a friendly, sociable creature, 
 did not like being kept in this lonely place and not allowed to 
 roam with the world. He could not have friendly fights and 
 associates, and he could not rush about and jump on ladies 
 dresses and gentlemen s clothes and leave his dusty or muddy 
 affectionate paw-marks all over them. And so he was not 
 
TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF PICCINO 37 
 
 happy, and when he heard footsteps approaching always 
 strained at his chain, and sniffed and whined. As these 
 returning carriages belonged to his own domestic circle he 
 almost went wild with joy, and leaped and yelped and did 
 his best to make somebody speak to him. He was adoringly 
 fond of Lady Aileen, who scarcely ever noticed him at all, 
 but once or twice had said "Good fellow! Nice dog!" as 
 she went by, and once had come and looked at him and 
 given him two whole pats, while he had wriggled and fawned 
 himself nearly into hysterics of dog delight. 
 
 And so it happened that as the carriage turned into the 
 beautiful gateway Piccino heard this sound he knew that 
 loving, eager, pleading dog voice, which is as much Italian 
 as it is English, and as much peasant as it is noble. The 
 dogs in the hovels near Ceriani spoke just as Lady Aileen s 
 dog did, and asked for just the same thing that human 
 things should love them a little and believe that they them 
 selves love a great deal. And Piccino, who was only a beau 
 tiful little baby animal himself, understood it vaguely, and was 
 somehow reminded of his friend the donkey, and felt not 
 quite so many hundred miles from home and the tumble 
 down stable and Maria. He involuntarily lifted his soft, 
 dirty, blooming face to Greggs in the dark. 
 
 "A chi il cane?" he said. (Whose dog is that?) 
 
 "What s that he s saying?" said Greggs to the coach 
 man. 
 
 " Must be something about the dog," answered Hepburn. 
 
38 TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF PICCINO 
 
 " He said something or other about a carney, and carney 
 means dog. It s a deuce of a language to make out." 
 
 And so, not being answered, Piccino could only resign 
 himself, and, as the carriage rolled up the drive, listen to the 
 familiar homely dog sound and wish he could get down and 
 go to the kennel. And then the carriage stopped before 
 the door. And the door was thrown open by a liveried 
 servant, and showed the brilliantly lighted hall, where there 
 were beautiful pictures and ornaments, and curious things 
 hung on the walls, and rich rugs on the floor, and quaint 
 seats and bits of furniture about, so that to Piccino it looked 
 like a grand room. 
 
 Lady Aileen spoke to the footman at the door. 
 
 " Send Nicholson to me," she said. " Bring the child into 
 the hall," she said to Greggs. 
 
 So Piccino was taken down in as gingerly a manner as he 
 had been put up, and Greggs set him discreetly on a bit of 
 the floor not covered by rugs. 
 
 He stood there without moving, his luminous eyes resting 
 on Lady Aileen. 
 
 Lady Aileen spoke to her companions, but he did not 
 know what she was saying, because she spoke English. 
 
 " He is exactly like some little animal," she said. " He 
 does not know what to make of it all. I am afraid he is 
 rather stupid but what a beauty ! " 
 
 "Poor little mite!" said the girl, " I daresay he is 
 tired." 
 
TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF PICCINO 39 
 
 Nicholson appeared almost immediately. She was a neat, 
 tall, prim young woman, who wore black cashmere and collar 
 and apron of snow. 
 
 Lady Aileen made a gesture towards Piccino. 
 
 " I have brought this child from Ceriani," she said. 
 " Take him up-stairs and take his rags off and burn them. 
 Give him a bath perhaps two or three will be necessary- 
 Get his hair in order. Modesta can change my dress for me. 
 I shall come into the bathroom myself presently." 
 
 Piccino was watching her fixedly. What was she saying ? 
 What were they going to do to him ? 
 
 She turned away and went into the salon with her guests, 
 and Nicholson came towards him. She gave him the same 
 uncomfortable feeling Greggs had given him. He felt that 
 she did not like him, and she spoke in English. 
 
 " Come up-stairs with me. I am going to wash you," she 
 said. 
 
 But Piccino did not understand and did not move. So 
 she had to take hold of his hand to lead him, which she 
 objected very much to doing. She took him up the staircase, 
 and through landings and corridors where he caught glimpses 
 of wonderful bedrooms that were of dainty colors and had silk 
 and lace and frills and cushions in them, and made him feel 
 more strange than ever. And at last she opened a door and 
 took him into a place which was all blue and white porcelain 
 walls and floors and everything else including a strange 
 large object in one corner, which had shining silver things at 
 
40 TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF PICCINO 
 
 one end. And she released his hand and went to the silver 
 things and twisted them round, and, as if by magic, two 
 streams of clear water gushed out and began to fill the blue 
 and white trough as the bed of a torrent is filled by the 
 spring rains. 
 
 Piccino s eyes grew bigger and more lustrous every 
 second as he stared. Was she doing this interesting but 
 rather alarming thing to amuse him ? Maria had never seen 
 anything like this in San Remo, or she would certainly have 
 told him. He was seeing more than Maria. For a moment 
 or so he was not sorry he had come. If the rich forestieri 
 had things like this to play with, they must have other things 
 as amusing. And somehow the water was hot. He could 
 see the pretty white steam rise from it. He came a little 
 closer to look. " Nicola," as he called her in his mind, hav 
 ing heard Lady Aileen speak to her as " Nicholson " -Nicola 
 moved to and fro and collected curious things together a 
 white cake of something, a big, light, round thing made of 
 holes, large pieces of thick, soft, white cloth with fringe at 
 the ends, something these last which must be like the 
 things Maria had heard of as being used in churches by 
 the priests. 
 
 "Che fai?" (What are you doing?) he said to Nicola. 
 
 But she did not understand him, and only said something 
 in English as she took off her white cuffs and rolled up her 
 sleeves. 
 
 By this time the two rushing streams had splashed and 
 
TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF PICCINO 41 
 
 danced into the bed of the torrent until it was nearly full. 
 Nicola twisted the silver things as before, and by magic 
 again the rushing ceased and the clear pool was still, the 
 light vapor rising from it. 
 
 Nicola came to him and began to take off his clothes 
 with the very tips of her fingers, speaking in English as 
 she did it. He did not know that she was saying : 
 
 " A pretty piece of work for a lady s maid to do. My 
 own clothes may go into the washtub and the rag-bag after 
 it. The filth of such people is past bearing. And it s her 
 ladyship all over to have such a freak. There s no end to 
 her whims. Burn them ! she might well say burn them. 
 The sooner they are in the fire the better." She took off 
 the last rag and kicked it aside with her foot. Piccino stood 
 before her, a little, soft, brown cherub without wings. 
 
 " Upon my word!" she said, "he is pretty. I suppose 
 that s the reason." 
 
 Piccino was beginning to feel very queer indeed. The 
 rushing water was amusing, but what was her intention in 
 
 o o 
 
 taking off all his clothes ? That was not funny. Surely the 
 forestieri wore clothes when they were in San Remo. And, 
 besides, she had given his cherished trousers the beautiful 
 trousers of Sandro which had been given him for his own 
 a kick which had no respect in it, and which sent them 
 flying into a corner. His little red mouth began to look 
 unsteady at the corners. 
 
 " Yes, that s the reason," she said. " It s because he s 
 
42 TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF PICCINO 
 
 so pretty." And she picked him up in her arms and bore 
 him to the bath. 
 
 Piccino looked down into the blue and white pool which 
 seemed to him so big and deep. He felt himself being low 
 ered into it, and uttered a wild shriek. They were going 
 to drown him to drown him to drown him ! 
 
 He was in the water. He felt it all around him nearly 
 up to his shoulders. He clung to Nicola and uttered shriek 
 after shriek, he kicked and splashed and beat with his feet, 
 the water leaped and foamed about him, and flew into his 
 eyes and nose and mouth. 
 
 " Lasciatemi / Lasciatemi ! " (Let me go ! Let me go!) 
 he screamed. 
 
 Nicholson tried her best to hold him. 
 
 " My goodness ! " she exclaimed, " I can t manage him. 
 He is like a little wildcat. Keep quiet, you naughty boy! 
 Be still, you bad little pig, and let me wash you ! Good 
 gracious ! what am I to do ? " 
 
 But Piccino would not be drowned without a struggle. 
 
 oo 
 
 To be held in water like that ! to be suffocated by its 
 splashing in his nose and mouth, and blinded by its dash 
 ing in his eyes! He fought with feet and teeth, used his 
 head like a battering-ram, and shrieked and shrieked for 
 aid. 
 
 " lo non ho fatto niente ! lo non ho fat to niente ! (I have 
 done nothing.) Maria ! Maria ! " 
 
 And the noise was so appalling that almost immediately 
 
TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF PICCINO 43 
 
 footsteps were to be heard upon the stairs, swift movement 
 in the corridor, and the bathroom door opened. 
 
 It was Lady Aileen who came in, amazed, frowning, and 
 rather alarmed. The girl friend who had wondered if Piccino 
 would like his surroundings was with her. 
 
 Piccino threw back his head at sight of them and battled 
 and shrieked still more wildly. He thought they must have 
 come to his aid. 
 
 "M amazza! M amazza! Aiuto ! " he wailed. 
 
 "Bless me, what is the matter?" exclaimed Lady Aileen, 
 and came towards the bath. 
 
 " He doesn t like to be washed, my lady," panted Nichol 
 son, struggling ; " he seems quite frightened." 
 
 Suddenly Lady Aileen began to laugh. 
 
 " Take him out for a moment, Nicholson," she said, 
 "take him out. Isobel," to the girl, her words broken with 
 laughter, " he thinks Nicholson is drowning him. Soap and 
 water are such unknown quantities to him that he thinks 
 that in this proportion they mean death." 
 
 Nicholson had lifted her charge out at once, only too 
 glad of the respite. Piccino stood, wet and quaking and 
 sobbing, by the bathtub. 
 
 Lady Aileen began to take off her gloves and bracelets. 
 
 "Give me an apron," she said to Nicholson. And on 
 having one handed to her she tied it over her dress and 
 knelt down before her new plaything. 
 
 " Little imbecile," she said in Italian, taking hold of his 
 
44 TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF PICCINO 
 
 wet shoulders, " no one is going to hurt you. You are 
 only going to be made clean. You are too dirty to be 
 touched, and the water will wash the dirt off." 
 
 Piccino only looked up at her, sobbing. At least, she had 
 had him taken out of the great pool ; but what did she mean 
 by wanting his dirt removed by such appalling means ? 
 
 " I am going to wash you myself," said Lady Aileen, lift 
 ing him in her strong white arms. " Don t let me have any 
 nonsense. If you make a noise and fight I will drown you." 
 She was laughing, but Piccino was struck dumb with fear. 
 She looked so tall and powerful and such a grand lady, that 
 he did not know what she might feel at liberty to do in her 
 powerfulness. 
 
 11 It is only a bath," said the girl Isobel in a kind voice. 
 " The water won t go over your head. Don t be frightened, 
 it won t hurt." 
 
 Lady Aileen calmly put him back in the tub. 
 
 Her white hands were so firm and steady that he felt the 
 uselessness of struo-ale. And if he fought she might drown 
 
 oo o o 
 
 him. He looked up piteously at the signorina with the 
 encouraging face and voice, and stood in the water, aghast, 
 and with big tears rolling down his cheeks, but passive in 
 helpless despair. 
 
 But ah ! what strange things were done to him ! 
 
 The illustrious signora took the cake of white stuff and 
 the big porous thing, and rubbed them together in the water 
 and made quantities of snow-white froth ; then she rubbed 
 
AM GOING TO WASH YOU MYSELF, SAID LAT>V AILEEN, LIFTING HIM IN HER STRONG WHITE ARMS 
 
TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF PICCINO 47 
 
 him over and over and over, then she splashed the water 
 over him until she washed the foam off his body, then she 
 scrubbed him with something, then she did strange things to 
 his ears, then she took a little brush and scrubbed his finger 
 nails covering them with the white froth and then washing it 
 off then she did the same thing to his feet and rubbed them 
 with a piece of stone. 
 
 Then she began with his head. Poor neglected little mop 
 of matted silk, what did she not do to it ? She rubbed it with 
 the cake of white stuff till it was a soft, slippery ball of foam, 
 then she scrubbed and scrubbed and thrust her hands in it 
 nd shook it about, and almost drowned him with the water 
 she poured on it. If he had not been so frightened he would 
 have yelled. But people who will do such things to you, what 
 will they not do if you make them angry! Under this ava- 
 lanche^of snowy stuff and this torrent of water a wild, despair 
 ing memory of Maria and the donkey came back to him. 
 Only last night he had fallen asleep in his corner among all 
 the familiar sights and sounds and smells, and without water 
 coming near him. And now he was nearly up to his neck in 
 it, it was streaming from his hair, his ears, his body he could 
 hear and see and taste nothing else. Oh ! could it be possible 
 that he had been all wrong in that first imagining that perhaps 
 the rushing streams were to amuse him ? Could it be that 
 this was all to amuse the forestieri themselves ? That they 
 had brought him to San Remo to make him live in water like 
 a fish? That they would never let him out? 
 
48 TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF PICCINO 
 
 Suddenly the magnificent signora lifted him out of the 
 pool. She set him streaming upon something soft and white 
 and dry, which Nicola had spread upon the blue and white 
 tiles of the floor. 
 
 "There!" she said. " Now I think he is clean, for the 
 first time in his life. Nicholson, you may rub him dry." 
 
 She stood up, laughing, and rather flushed with exertion. 
 
 " It has amused me," she said to Isobel ; " I would not 
 have believed it, but it has amused me. Almost anything 
 new will amuse one the first time one does it. When you 
 have brushed his hair, Nicholson, put him to bed." 
 
 She laid aside the apron and picked up her gloves. 
 
 She went out of the room, smiling, and Piccino was left 
 to the big white cloths and Nicola. 
 
 What happened then was even more tiresome than the 
 bath, though it was not so alarming. He was rubbed as if 
 he were a little horse, and his hair received treatment which 
 seemed to him incredible. When it was dry, strange instru 
 ments were used upon it. The knots and tangles were 
 struggled with and dragged out. Sometimes it seemed as if 
 his curls were being pulled out by the roots, sometimes as 
 if his head itself was to be taken off. It seemed to him that 
 he stood hours by Nicola s knee, whimpering. If Maria had 
 been rash enough to attempt to subject him to such indig 
 nities he would have kicked and screamed and fought, but 
 in this wonderful house, among these wonderful people who 
 were all farestieri, he was terror stricken by his sense of 
 
TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF PICCINO 49 
 
 strangeness. To be plunged into water to be rubbed and 
 scrubbed to have the hair dragged from one s head who 
 would not be terrified ? Suddenly he buried his face in 
 Nicola s lap and broke into woful weeping. "Voglio andare 
 a casa. Lasciammi andare a Maria ed il ciuco!" (I want 
 to go home. Let me go home to Maria and the donkey !) 
 he cried. 
 
 " Well, well, it is nearly done now," said Nicholson, 
 " and a nice job it has been. And what I am to put you 
 to bed in I don t know, unless in one of her ladyship s own 
 dressing-jackets." 
 
 "Voglio andare a casa!" he wept. But Nicholson did not 
 understand him in the least. She went and found one of 
 the dressing-jackets and brought it back to the bathroom. 
 It was covered with rich lace and tied with ribbons; it was 
 too big, and he was lost in it ; but when Nicholson bundled 
 him up in it, and he stood with the lace frills dangling over 
 his hands, and his beautiful little face and head rising above 
 the great, rich ruff they made, he was a wonderful sight to see. 
 
 But he was not aware of it, and only felt as if he were 
 dressed in strange trickery ; and when he was picked up and 
 carried out of the room the beautiful trousers of Sandro 
 being left on the floor in the corner he felt that the final 
 indignity had been offered. 
 
 She carried him into one of the wonderful rooms he had 
 caught a glimpse of. It was all blue, and was so amazing with 
 its frills and blue flowers and lace and ornaments that he 
 
50 TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF P ICC I WO 
 
 thought it must be a place where some other strange thing- 
 was to be done to him. But Nicola only put him down on 
 a soft place covered with lace, and with a sort of tent of lace 
 and silk at the top of it. 
 
 She said something to him in English, and went away and 
 left him. 
 
 He sat and stared about him. Was it a place where peo 
 ple slept ? Did the forestieri lay their heads on those white 
 things ? Was this soft wonder he sat on, a bed ? He looked 
 up above him at the beautiful tent, and felt so lost and strange 
 that he could almost have shouted for Maria again. If she 
 had been there, or if he could have understood what Nicola 
 said, it would not have been so awful. But it was so grand 
 and strange, and Ceriani and Maria and the donkey seemed 
 in another world thousands of miles away. It was as if sud 
 denly he had been taken to Paradise, and had found himself 
 frightened and homesick because it was so far from Ceriani, 
 and so different. 
 
 Nicola came back with a plate. There were things to eat 
 on it, and she offered them to him. And then he realized that 
 a strange thing had happened to him, which had never hap 
 pened before in his life. There before him was a plateful of 
 good things things such as the forestieri brought in their 
 hampers. And he did not want them ! Something seemed 
 to have filled up his throat, and he could not eat. He, Pic- 
 cino, actually could not eat ! The tears came into his eyes, 
 and he shook his head. 
 
TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF PICCINO 51 
 
 "Non ho fame" (I am not hungry,) he whimpered. And 
 he poked the plate away. 
 
 " I suppose he has been stuffed with cakes all day," said 
 Nicholson, " and he is too sleepy. Good gracious, how 
 pretty he is ! " 
 
 She turned down the frilled and embroidered sheets, and 
 gave the pillows a little thump. Then she picked Piccino up 
 again, put him into the bed and covered him up. He lay 
 among the whiteness, a lovely picture put to bed, his eyes 
 wide open, and shining with his awe. 
 
 "Go to sleep/ she said, "and don t be a bad boy." 
 And then she turned out the light and walked out of the 
 room, leaving the door a little open. 
 
 Piccino lay among the softness, his eyes growing bigger 
 and bigger in the dark. He was so little, and everything 
 around him seemed so large and magnificent. This was the 
 way the king s son was put to bed bundled up in a strange 
 garment, with lace frills tickling his ears and cheeks, and with 
 big sleeves which prevented his using his hands. And he 
 could not hear the donkey in her stable the donkey, who 
 must be there this very moment, because she had not been 
 taken away, but had been bought back from Beppo. Oh, if 
 he could hear her now ! but perhaps perhaps he never could 
 get to the stable again ; \hzforestieri the strange, rich lady, 
 would never let him ^0 back never ! 
 
 o 
 
 A little sob broke from him, under Lady Aileen s dress 
 ing-jacket his breast heaved piteously, he turned and 
 
52 TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF P ICC I NO 
 
 buried his face upon the pillow, and wept and wept and 
 wept. 
 
 He cried so that he found he was beginning to make 
 little sounds in spite of himself, and he tried to smother them, 
 because he did not know what the forcstieri did to children 
 who made a noise perhaps held them under the rushing 
 streams of water. But just at the moment when he was 
 trying to stifle his sobs and prevent their becoming wails, a 
 strange thing happened. The door was pushed open and 
 some one came into the room. At least, he heard a sound 
 of feet on the floor, though he did not see any one even when 
 he peeped. Feet ? They were not Nicola s feet, but softer 
 and more pattering. He held his breath to listen. They 
 came to his bed and stopped. And then he heard something 
 else a soft, familiar panting, almost as familiar as the 
 donkey s stirring in the stable. He sat up in bed. 
 
 " un cane " (It is a dog,) he cried. 
 
 And the answer was a leap, and a rough, dear, hairy 
 body was beside him, while a warm, excitedly lapping, affec 
 tionate tongue caressed his hands, his face, his neck. 
 
 For in some mysterious way the lonely dog at the en 
 trance gate had slipped his collar, and in rushing through 
 the house to find some one to love and rejoice over had heard 
 the little smothered sobs, and come in at once to answer 
 and comfort him, knowing in his dog heart that here was 
 one who was lonely and exiled too. 
 
 And Piccino fell upon him and caught him in his arms, 
 
TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF PICCINO 53 
 
 dragging him close to his side, rubbing his wet cheeks upon 
 the rough, hairy coat, and so holding him, nestled against 
 and pillowed his head upon him, rescued from his loneli 
 ness and terror almost as he might have been if the dog 
 had been the donkey. 
 
54 TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF PICCINO 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 IT was a great comfort to go to sleep embracing and 
 embraced by a shaggy friend of one s own world, but when 
 the morning came it seemed that, somehow, to the forestieri 
 it appeared a different thing. When Nicola came in she 
 uttered an exclamation of horror. 
 
 "The dirty little thing! "she cried. " Ah, my goodness, 
 he has been asleep all night with that dusty, muddy dog ! 
 What will my lady say ? Look at his face, and the sheets, 
 and her ladyship s jacket ! " 
 
 Piccino sat up in his silk and lace tent, holding on to the 
 dog. Something was wrong, he. saw, though he understood 
 nothing. What could it be ? 
 
 " Get out!" cried Nicholson, slapping the dog vigorously. 
 " Get out ! How in the world did you get here ? " and she 
 pushed the shaggy friend off the bed and ran after him, 
 driving him out of the room. 
 
 Lady Aileen met her on the threshold. 
 
 "What is that animal doing here?" she asked. 
 
 " Indeed, my lady, I don t know," said Nicholson. " He 
 never did such a thing before. He must have sniffed out the 
 child. He has been sleeping with him all night." 
 
 " Sleeping with him ! " exclaimed Lady Aileen. She 
 
TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF PICCINO 55 
 
 stepped into the bedroom and stood for a moment gazing at 
 Piccino. 
 
 The dog had been both muddy and dusty. Both Piccino 
 and the bed revealed unmistakable signs of the fact. 
 
 " Dear me ! " said her ladyship. " Nicholson, take him at 
 once and wash him." 
 
 And so he was taken again into the blue and white 
 porcelain bathroom. He could not believe the evidence of 
 his senses when Nicola turned the silver things again, and 
 the streams came rushing forth. He stood and looked at her, 
 quaking. And she came and took off his fantastic nightgown 
 as she had taken off his rags the night before. And she lifted 
 him up and put him into the deep water again, and soaped 
 and splashed and washed him almost as hard as she had done 
 it the first time. 
 
 He began to feel stunned and dazed. He did not scream 
 or fight or struggle. He simply gave himself up and stared 
 into space. Moment by moment Ceriani removed itself 
 farther and farther. The dog had brought it nearer, but the 
 dog had been torn away from him. And here he was in 
 the water, being scrubbed once more. 
 
 He was taken out and rubbed dry, and Nicola left him for 
 a moment again. When she came back she carried white 
 things. She began to put them on him a strange little fine 
 shirt with lace, curious little short things for his legs not the 
 beautiful masculine trousers of Sandro, alas ! but short white 
 things trimmed with embroidery, and only just reaching to his 
 
56 TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF PICCINO 
 
 knees and then a petticoat ! Yes, it was a petticoat ! Just 
 as if he had never been a man at all. He pushed it aside, his 
 cheeks crimson with indignation. 
 
 o 
 
 "Roba di donna! No! no! Dove sono i mid panta- 
 loni ! lo porto pantaloni ! " (Not women s clothes! Where 
 are my trousers ? I wear trousers.) 
 
 Nicholson gave him a sharp slap. She was tired of 
 his Italian exclaiming. 
 
 o 
 
 "You naughty child!" she said, "behave yourself! 
 I don t know what you mean, but I won t have it!" And 
 so, in spite of himself, the indignity was put upon him. 
 He was dressed in roba di donna, just like a girl. And 
 round his waist was tied a broad sash, and round his 
 neck was put a lace collar, and on his brown legs short 
 socks, which did not reach his calves. And at his back 
 there was a big bow, and under his chin a smaller one ; 
 and combs were dragged through his hair as before, and 
 brushes plied on it. And when it was all done he stood 
 feeling like a mountebank, and dumb and scarlet under his 
 sense of insult. 
 
 Let him once get away let him once get away, and 
 he would show them whether they would get him again ! 
 He did not know how far it was to Ceriani, but if he 
 could steal out of a door when no one was looking, and 
 walk back, they might take the donkey if they liked, but he 
 would scream and kick and fight and bite until they were 
 afraid to touch him, before they should buy him again. 
 
TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF PICCINO 57 
 
 This was rankling in his mind as Nicholson pulled him 
 after her down the staircase and through the hall to the 
 breakfast-room. Nicholson was getting rather cross. She 
 
 o o 
 
 had not been engaged as a nurse, but as a maid. And 
 she had had to go through all that scrubbing in the 
 evening, and in the morning had had to rush out and 
 
 o o 
 
 borrow clothes for the child to wear from one of Lady 
 Aileen s married friends, and she had not enjoyed having 
 to get up and take a walk so early. 
 
 But her grievance was not so deep a one as Piccino s. 
 
 When he was taken into the breakfast-room Lady 
 Aileen made him feel sulkier than ever. It was the way she 
 looked at him, though he did not in the least know why. 
 If he had been old enough he might have known that 
 to be looked at as if one was not a person, but only a 
 curious little animal, is enough to make any one rebellious. 
 She called him to her just as she would have called her 
 black poodle. 
 
 " Come here ! " she said. 
 
 He went to her, sticking his red mouth out. 
 
 "What are you pouting for?" she asked. "What is the 
 matter, Nicholson ? " 
 
 " I don t know, my lady," answered Nicholson, with rather 
 acid respectfulness. " He doesn t like to be washed, and 
 he doesn t like to be dressed. I suppose he s not used to 
 being kept tidy." 
 
 "Kept tidy!" said Lady Aileen, "I should think not. 
 
58 TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF PICCINO 
 
 You look very nice in your new clothes," she added to 
 Piccino, in Italian. 
 
 "Ma quest e sono vestite di ragazza" (But these are girl s 
 clothes,) he said, pouting. 
 
 " You will wear what I wish," said Lady Aileen. " Nich 
 olson, give him some porridge. I am going to feed him 
 as English children are fed. Heaven knows how he- will 
 behave at table! I am curious to see." 
 
 It was only that she was curious to see. 
 
 And the queer breakfast was given to him ; not nice 
 black bread and figs, or pasta or salad, but oatmeal por 
 ridge, which he had never seen before. He did not like 
 it. It seemed sloppy and flavorless to him, and he would 
 not eat it. He pushed it back, and sat and pouted, and 
 Lady Aileen was amused, and sat and talked English to 
 the visitors who were at table with her, and they told each 
 other how pretty he was and how like a picture, and how 
 interesting it was that, in spite of being dressed like an 
 English child and given porridge to eat, he was still more 
 than ever nothing but a beautiful little Italian peasant. 
 
 And all the day was like that, and baby as he was he 
 raged within his little soul, knowing somehow that he was 
 only there to be looked at and remarked upon, and to amuse 
 them by being a curiosity. 
 
 They took him out in a grand carriage and drove him 
 about the town, taking him to shops and buying clothes for 
 him always roba di donna and when they were tried on, 
 
TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF PICCINO 59 
 
 and he looked angry, Lady Aileen laughed, and even the 
 men or women in the shops made jokes aside. He would 
 have liked to fly at them and kill them, but they were so 
 big and he was so little only Piccino from Ceriani. 
 v And then they took him back to the villa the poor dog 
 leaping and straining at his chain by which he was fastened 
 again when they passed the gate and his face and hands 
 were washed once more, and his hair combed, and he was 
 given more strange things for dinner. A solid underdone 
 English chop without sauce seemed a horrible thing to him, 
 and nursery rice pudding filled him with amazement. He 
 stared at the big potato Nicola put on his plate, and wondered 
 if he was to be made to starve. 
 
 " Goodness, what does the child want?" exclaimed Nich 
 olson. " I am sure he has never had such a dinner set 
 before him before." 
 
 That was exactly it. He had lived on things so different 
 that this substantial nursery food quite revolted him. 
 
 He thought of himself only as a prisoner. He began 
 to feel empty and furious. He was possessed by but one 
 thought how he could get away. 
 
 In the afternoon he was dressed again in another girl s 
 frock and sash and lace collar and a lot of ladies and gentle 
 men came to see Lady Aileen. Her five-o clock teas were 
 very popular, and this afternoon every one wanted to see the 
 child she had picked up at Ceriani. People were always 
 curious about her whims. So Piccino was talked about and 
 
60 TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF PICCINO 
 
 examined and laughed over as the most charming of jokes, 
 and the more he hung back and pouted the more he was 
 laughed at, until his cheeks were crimson all the time, and 
 he would not eat the cakes people kept giving him, just as 
 they would have fed a parrot to make it talk, or a poodle to 
 make it play tricks. 
 
 " He seems rather a sulky child," said Lady Aileen, " and 
 he evidently detests civilization. He thought Nicholson was 
 going to drown him, and fought like a little tiger when she 
 put him in his bath. The watch-dog broke loose and came 
 and slept with him last night. He has hardly eaten any 
 thing to-day. I wonder if one could civilize him." 
 
 While all the gay people were drinking tea and chocolate, 
 and eating cakes in the salon, and sauntering in. groups 
 among the flowers on the terrace, some strolling musicians 
 came into the grounds. A man and woman and some 
 children, who played guitars and mandolins and sang peasant 
 songs, seeing the bright dresses and hearing the voices, were 
 attracted by them. At such places they often got money. 
 
 When they began to play and sing Piccino ran to the 
 window. They sang as the people at Ceriani did, and he 
 was w r ild to see them. When he saw them he wanted to 
 get near them. There was a boy, who sang with the father 
 and mother, and a girl about the age of Maria who was not 
 singing. It was she who went round to beg for money, and 
 she stood aside, calmly munching a piece of black bread. 
 She had other pieces of something tied in her apron, and 
 
THE GIRL STARED AT HIM " 
 
TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF PICCINO 63 
 
 she looked so like Maria did when she had begged some 
 thing good, that Piccino s mouth watered and a bold idea 
 came to him. 
 
 Everybody was so busy amusing themselves that for a 
 while he was forgotten. He glanced furtively about him, 
 and slipped out of a side door. 
 
 The next minute the girl who was like Maria almost 
 jumped. From among the rose-trees and palms she stood 
 by, there came a strange little figure. It was a child dressed 
 grandly, as if he belonged to the richest of the foresticri, 
 but he had a beautiful little dark, rich-colored face and 
 immense black eyes, and he looked at her only as one little 
 peasant looks at another, and he spoke in the Italian only 
 spoken by peasant children. 
 
 " I am hungry," he said. ". I have had nothing to eat. 
 Give me some of your bread." 
 
 The girl stared at him, bewildered. 
 
 " Some bread ! " she exclaimed ; " do you live here ? " 
 
 " I live at Ceriani," he said ; " I am Piccino. The signora 
 took me away. Give me some bread." 
 
 She broke off a big piece, still staring wildly. She had 
 a vague idea that perhaps he- would give her something for 
 it. In her apron she had a piece of Salame sausage, well 
 flavored with garlic, and she broke off a piece of that and 
 gave it to him too. 
 
 Piccino seized it and devoured it. Never in his life 
 had anything seemed so good to him. He ate like a little 
 
64 TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF PICCINO 
 
 wolf, alternate bites of black bread and sausage. His face 
 and hands became smeared and covered with grease, he 
 clutched his Salaine so hungrily and ate in such a hurry. 
 
 " Don t they feed you?" asked the girl. 
 
 " They have lumps of raw meat, and I cannot eat their 
 pasta," said Piccino. 
 
 It was in this guise mutton chops, oatmeal porridge, and 
 rice pudding appeared to him. 
 
 Mr. Gordon, who was one of the visitors, chanced to look 
 out of the window. He put up his eyeglass suddenly. 
 
 " Piccino is fraternizing with the little girl musician, Lady 
 Aileen," he said with a laugh, "and they are eating bread and 
 
 sausage." 
 
 " Horrors!" exclaimed Lady Aileen. 
 
 She sent Greggs out to bring him in at once. 
 
 Greggs returned in a few minutes, bringing him, hanging 
 back reluctantly, his cheeks and mouth glossy with sausage 
 grease, and exhaling such fragrance that people became aware 
 of him as he approached, and stepped aside, making a 
 pathway. 
 
 " Horrors ! " said Lady Aileen again, " he recks with gar 
 lic ! Take him away at once, Greggs. Take him to Nich 
 olson and and tell her to wash him." 
 
 And so for the third time that day Piccino was deluged 
 with soap and water. But it was not possible for Nicholson 
 to wash away the fragrance of the garlic. Even when he 
 shone with cleanliness outwardly, and had had still another 
 
TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF PICCINO 65 
 
 frock put on, he was redolent of it and perfumed all the air 
 about him. He was not, of course, able to translate the names 
 Nicholson called him, but he knew very well that he was 
 being called names. He had often heard Maria scolded at 
 home, but he had not been exactly used to ratings himself. 
 But he could not mistake Nicholson. She was in a rage, and 
 thought him a dirty, troublesome little pig. She had been 
 dressed trimly for the afternoon, and had been enjoying her 
 self looking on at the party in the garden, and to be called 
 to wash and dress again a greasy little peasant, smelling of 
 garlic, was more than her temper could stand. In fact, it 
 happened at last, at some movement of resentment of Pic- 
 cino s, she gave him a sound slap for the second time that 
 day. 
 
 He opened his mouth, gave one howl of rage, and then as 
 suddenly stopped. If he had been twenty-six instead of six 
 he would have stuck his knife into her, if he had had one. 
 He belonged to a race of people who used knives. As it 
 was, the look in his handsome eyes gave Nicholson a queer 
 feeling. 
 
 He could not be taken back to the salon, and Nicholson 
 did not intend to sit in the room with him and inhale garlic. 
 So she set him smartly in an arm-chair and left him, going 
 out and shutting the door after her. She was going to 
 stay in an adjoining chamber and look out of the window, 
 coming to give him a glance now and then. 
 
 And there he sat, breathing passion and garlic, after she 
 
66 TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF PICCINO 
 
 had gone. Upon the wall opposite to him there hung an 
 oval mirror with a frame of flowers in Dresden china. He 
 could see himself in it his beautiful little face, his flashing 
 eyes, and fiercely pouting mouth, his lace collar and bow, 
 and his vestite di ragazza altogether. He did not know he 
 was pretty, he only felt he was ridiculous- that they had 
 kept putting him in water, that the servants despised him 
 and did not want to touch him, that he had been scolded 
 and slapped, and that the donkey would not know him. 
 Suddenly big tears rushed into his eyes. Was he going to 
 stay here always and be put in water every few hours, and 
 called names, and have no one to play with, and never 
 understand anybody, and never see Maria and the donkey 
 never never ! The big tears rolled hot and angry as well 
 as miserable down his soft cheeks. 
 
 " Voglio andare a casa ! " he sobbed. " Voglio andare 
 a casa ! " (I want to go home ! I want to go home !) 
 
 When Nicholson came to look at him he was lying 
 against the cushioned arm of the chair, fast asleep. 
 
 "Goodness knows I am not going to waken him!" she 
 said. " I shall let him sleep until I have had my dinner and 
 it is time to give him his. If her ladyship intends to keep 
 him she must have a regular nurse." 
 
TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF PICCINO 67 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 IT was dusk when he wakened. Lady Aileen s callers 
 had departed some time ago, and Lady Aileen herself 
 had departed to take a twilight drive, which was a thing 
 she was fond of doing. The servants were enjoying them 
 selves in their own fashion in the kitchen, and all the 
 house seemed very quiet. 
 
 It seemed so still to Piccino when he slipped off his 
 chair and stood on his feet rubbing his eyes, that for a 
 moment he felt a little frightened. He was so accustomed 
 to living in a hovel crowded with children and only parti 
 tioned off from the donkey, that Lady Aileen s villa seemed 
 enormous to him. It was not enormous, but it seemed so. 
 He looked round him and listened. 
 
 " Nobody is here!" he said. " Everybody has gone 
 away. Nicola has gone away." 
 
 He certainly did not want Nicholson, but his sense of 
 desolation overwhelmed him. 
 
 And then, as he stood there, there came a sound which 
 seemed to alter everything. It came through the window, 
 which was open, and which he ran towards at once. It 
 was the voice of the friend who had come to him the 
 night before the dog who lived .in the fine kennel at 
 
68 TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF PICCINO 
 
 the gate, and wanted human things so much, and was so 
 unhappy. 
 
 Piccino listened to him a moment, and his breath began 
 to come quickly. He turned round and went to the door. 
 It was not locked Nicholson had not thought of that. 
 It was easy enough to open, and when he had opened it 
 he made his way quickly towards the stairs. 
 
 He did not go out at the big front door at which he 
 had been brought in. That was shut, and he knew he was 
 too little to open it, but he remembered the side entrance 
 into the garden, out of which he had slipped when he went 
 to the girl who looked like Maria. He found it again and 
 passed through it, and was out among the flowers in a 
 moment, running quickly down the broad drive to the gate. 
 
 How the dog jumped and yelped and covered him with 
 caresses when he reached the kennel! He knew his small 
 bed-fellow again well enough. Perhaps, too, he liked the 
 fragrance of the garlic, which was still as perceptible as 
 ever. The two embraced and rubbed against each other, 
 and tumbled affectionately about, until Piccino was quite 
 dirty enough for the bathtub again. But there was to be 
 no more bathtub if he could help it. He wanted the 
 dog to come with him, though, and help him to find his 
 way ; and he fumbled and struggled with the chain and 
 collar until his friend was loose, and, finding that nothing 
 held him, began to race up and down in breathless rapture 
 and run in circles, darting like a wild thing. 
 
TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF PICCINO 69 
 
 Come," said Piccino, " come with me. I am going 
 home." 
 
 He did not realize the number of chances there might 
 be that he would be caught and carried back into bondage. 
 He was not old enough to think much of that, but he just 
 knew enough to teach him that it was best to keep in the 
 shade when he saw any one coming. He trudged along, 
 keeping under trees and near walls, and he was clever 
 enough to do it until he turned off the highway which led 
 through the city. He passed by houses and shops and 
 villas and gardens, but at last he turned into the road which 
 sloped up among the olive vineyards, into the hills. Then 
 he felt that he was at home. He did not know that he was 
 still miles and miles away from Ceriani; he only knew that 
 the big trees and the little ones were familiar things, that 
 when he lifted his face he could see the sky he knew so 
 well, and that the wind that blew softly up from the sea 
 among his curls was something he seemed to have been far 
 away from during these last strange two days. These 
 things made him feel that Ceriani must be near. 
 
 He was used to running about and being on his legs 
 all day, or he would have been tired out long before he 
 was. When he did beein to be tired he sat down on the 
 
 o 
 
 grass, and the dog sat with him. In their own way they 
 talked to each other. Then they would get up and trudge 
 on. 
 
 They had rested and trudged on many times before he 
 
yo TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF PICCINO 
 
 began to be really discouraged. But his legs were so short, 
 and in time he began to feel as if Ceriani was too far away ! 
 Stars were beginning to come out, and he suddenly realized 
 that he was very little, and it had taken the big carnages of 
 \k& forestieri quite a long time to return to San Remo after 
 their picnic. He sat down suddenly and began to cry. 
 
 " We can t find it ! " he said to the dog. " We can t find 
 it!" 
 
 The dog looked very much grieved. It is probable that 
 he knew quite well what Piccino said. He shook his head 
 until his ears made a flapping noise. Then he pushed close 
 to Piccino and kissed him, lapping the salt tears off his 
 soft cheeks as they rolled down. He knew he could have 
 found the place all by himself, and got there without any 
 particular trouble, but he could not leave his friend, and 
 such a little friend, too, by the roadside. So he pressed 
 close to him and looked sympathetic, and kissed his tears 
 off cheeringly. 
 
 o J 
 
 " We can t find it ! " wailed Piccino. " Maria ! Maria ! 
 Maria ! Ma-ri-a ! " 
 
 Up the curve of the road below there toiled a donkey 
 dragging a cart. It was one of the little peasant carts, 
 floored with a lattice-work of ropes, and there were three 
 people in it. They were a boy and two very young men. 
 They had been to z.festa, and the boy was fast asleep, and 
 the two young men were in very good spirits. They had 
 been dancing and enjoying themselves, and had had so 
 
TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF PICCINO 71 
 
 much wine that they were not quite sure of what they 
 were doing. They alternately sang songs and made jokes 
 and laughed at each other. One of the favorite jokes was 
 about a pretty peasant girl they had both been dancing 
 with, and as it chanced, her name was Maria. After a 
 good deal of such joking they had both been silent for 
 a while, being a little stupid with the wine they had 
 had, and quieted a little by the motion of the cart as 
 the donkey jogged along with it. It was very peaceful in 
 this place, with the gentle wind from the sea, and the 
 occasional rustle of the olives, and the stars shining sweetly 
 above the many shadows. 
 
 " What are you thinking of, Pietro?"said one to the 
 other at last, with a little laugh. 
 
 " Maria! Maria! Ma-ri-a !" wailed Piccino, a few hun 
 dred feet above them. 
 
 They both burst out laughing at once. 
 
 " Of Maria ! Maria ! " said Alessandro. " The very trees 
 call out to you ! " And they found this such a beautiful 
 joke that they laughed until the very donkey was afraid 
 they would roll off the cart. 
 
 By the time they stopped they were close to Piccino, 
 and, whether because she wanted a rest or from some queer 
 instinct, the donkey stopped too. 
 
 " Maria !" cried Piccino. "Voglio andare a casa ! Voglio 
 an-dar-e ! " 
 
 " It is a child," said Pietro. "It is lost!" They had 
 
72 TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF P ICC I NO 
 
 had wine enough to be good-natured, and ready for any 
 adventure. Pietro got out of the cart and rather unsteadily 
 went to the side of the road, where Piccino sat crying with 
 his dog. 
 
 " Who are you ? " he said, " and what are you doing 
 here ? " 
 
 Piccino answered him with sobs. He was not so clear 
 as he thought he was, and Pietro and Alessandro laughed 
 a good deal. They thought he was a great joke all the 
 more when they saw how he was dressed. Their heads 
 were not clear enough to permit them to quite understand 
 what was meant by the childish rambling and disconnected 
 story about the forestieri and the water and Nicola and 
 the donkey, but they found out that somehow the young 
 one lived near Ceriani and wanted to get home to Maria. 
 They themselves lived not far from Ceriani, and if they had 
 been quite sober might have put this and that together 
 and guessed something of the truth ; but as it was, it hap 
 pened to seem enough of a joke for them to be inclined 
 to carry it out. 
 
 " Let us take him in the cart as far as we go," said 
 Alessandro. " He can find his way home after we leave 
 him. Perhaps he will talk to us about his Maria. She 
 may be prettier than the other one." And so he was 
 lifted into the cart, and the dog trotted joyfully by the 
 donkey s side. The two probably talked to each other 
 confidentially, and everything was explained between them 
 
TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF P ICC I NO 73 
 
 as far as the dog could explain it. At all events, he 
 could explain the loneliness of living in a kennel with a 
 chain round your neck, and grand people passing you, 
 laughing and talking, and taking no notice, however much 
 you jumped and whined and begged to have a pat and 
 a word, and not seeing that you loved everybody. 
 
 Piccino sat in the cart and leaned against Pietro or 
 
 o 
 
 the boy, and enjoyed himself. He answered questions 
 about Maria, and did not know why his rescuers laughed 
 at everything he said. Maria seemed a very mature 
 person to him, and he did not know that the young 
 men s impression that she was a pretty young woman 
 was not the correct one. Pietro had some good things 
 he had brought from the festa in a paper, and he gave 
 him some. That he was such a pretty, soft, rabbit-like 
 little thing, made things pleasant for him even when he 
 was picked up from the roadside by two young peasants 
 full of cheap wine. They laughed at his disconnected 
 babbling, and thought him great fun, and when he was 
 sleepy let him cuddle down and be comfortable. 
 
 He was very fast asleep when they wakened him, 
 having reached the end of their journey. 
 
 "Here!" they said, shaking him good-naturedly enough, 
 " you can find your way to Maria now." 
 
 He stood unsteadily in the road where Pietro put him, 
 rubbing his eyes, and feeling the dog greeting him again 
 by jumping at him and kissing him. 
 
74 TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF PICCINO 
 
 " Where is Maria?" he said, sleepily. 
 
 Pietro and Alessandro were sleepy too by this time ; 
 they had almost had time to forget him while he was 
 asleep. 
 
 "Go on and you will find her," they said. " Ceriani 
 is near here." 
 
 When he saw the donkey led away Piccino was on 
 the point of crying because he was to be left, but before 
 he quite began he saw by the light of the moon, which 
 had risen since he fell asleep, a familiar tree a big- 
 twisted and huge-trunked olive he had sat under many 
 a time when he had strayed down the road with Maria. 
 It made his heart begin to beat fast and his rising tears 
 dry in their fountain. It was true! He was near Ceriani! 
 He was near home ! He could find it ! He began to run 
 as fast as his short legs could carry him. The white 
 villa and the grand signori who had joked about him 
 all day, the bathtub and Nicola and the dreadful pasta, 
 seemed as far away now as Ceriani and the donkey had 
 been this morning. The tears that had dried for joy 
 suddenly began to rise again for joy. He did not know 
 anything about it himself, but it was joy which made 
 him begin to choke this beautiful little savage peasant 
 who had been taken away to a world so much too grand 
 for him. 
 
 He ran and ran, and at every yard he saw something 
 that he knew, and felt that he loved it because he knew it. 
 
TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF PICCINO 75 
 
 The late moon shone down on him, a little white figure 
 running eagerly ; the trees rustled as he passed. 
 
 " Maria ! Maria!" he said, but he did not say it loud, 
 but softly. 
 
 And at last he had reached it his own dear hovel which 
 he seemed to have left a thousand years ago. He stood 
 and beat on the door with his little soft fists. 
 
 " Maria ! Maria!" he said, " open the door! I have 
 come home. Let me in ! " 
 
 But inside they slept the heavy sleep of worn-out peas 
 ants and of tired childhood. They could not have heard 
 him even if he had been able to make more noise. His 
 child hands could make very little. They slept so heavily 
 that he could hear them. 
 
 And there he stood in the moonlight, thumping on the 
 old door, unanswered. And the dog stood by him, wagging 
 his tail and looking up at him with such a companionable 
 air that he could not feel he was alone, and actually did 
 not begin to cry. At all events he had got home, and was 
 among the hills again, with the trees growing close around 
 him, and Maria and the donkey. 
 
 His whimper lost itself in a sudden sense of relief. Yes, 
 there was the donkey in her stable, and the door would keep 
 nobody out. 
 
 11 The donkey will let us in," he said to the dog. " Let 
 us go in there." 
 
 And a few moments later the donkey was roused from 
 
76 TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF PICCINO 
 
 her sleep by something soft stumbling against her as she 
 lay down, and, being a donkey with a memory, she realized 
 that a familiar friend had come to her at this untimely hour, 
 and she knew the little voice that spoke, and the little body 
 which cuddled against her side as if she were a pillow, and 
 being also affectionate and maternal, she did not resent the 
 intrusion by any unfriendly moving. 
 
 And in the early, early morning, when Rita opened the 
 stable door and let in a shaft of the gold sunlight which 
 was lighting up the darkness of the olive-trees, the first 
 thing it shone upon was the beautiful, tired little travel- 
 stained figure of Piccino, who lay fast asleep against the 
 donkey s gray side, his arms around her neck, and the dog s 
 body pressed close and lovingly against his own. 
 
 Upon the whole, Lady Aileen was not very much sur 
 prised and not at all disturbed when it was found that he 
 was gone. She sent some one to Ceriani, and when the 
 news was brought back to her that he was discovered there, 
 she only laughed a little. In fact, she had found it too 
 tiresome an amusement to undertake the management of a 
 lovely little wild animal, to whom civilization only repre 
 sented horror and dismay. She sent Rita some money 
 not too much, but enough to make her feel quite rich for a 
 few weeks. For the rest, she only remembered Piccino as 
 part of an anecdote it was rather amusing to tell to those 
 
TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF PICCINO 77 
 
 of her friends in London who were entertained by anec 
 dotes. 
 
 " He thought we were savages or mad," she used to 
 say. " I think he might have borne anything, perhaps, but 
 the bathtub. He said that we put him in water! " 
 
THE CAPTAIN S YOUNGEST 
 
THE CAPTAIN S YOUNGEST 
 
 THERE never were another like him, that s certain. 
 I ve seen a good many young gentlemen in my day, 
 being in the army, and under officers as was what you 
 may call swells, and had families of their own, some of them, 
 but I never saw a young gentleman as could hold a candle to 
 Master Lionel ; no, nor as were fit to black his boots, for the 
 matter of that. And I knew him, too, from the time he 
 were a young gentleman in long clothes, being carried about 
 in his ayah s arms, and many s the time I ve carried him 
 myself, and been proud to do it. I had no children of my 
 own, though I d always been taken with them. I wasn t a 
 married man, and knew I never should be, for that matter, 
 after curly-headed little Maggie Shea died of the fever 
 that blazing hot year when the disease was like a plague 
 among us. She d given me her promise only a week before ; 
 and I never saw the woman I wanted after her. Sometimes 
 I ve thought I was fonder of the children because of it. 
 She had been fond of them, and like a little mother she was 
 to the seven that were sisters and brothers to her. And 
 
82 THE CAPTAIN S YOUNGEST 
 
 there was a sort of reason Master Lionel was more to me 
 than the rest. I d known his father, Captain Dalgetty, in 
 his best days, when he first came out to India with his regi 
 ment at the time of the Mutiny, and won such a name by 
 his dare-devil bravery and determination. That was before 
 he offended his crusty old father by marrying pretty Miss 
 Rosie Terence, the drunken old Irish major s daughter, 
 who had nothing to her fortune but her dimples and her big 
 blue eyes and black lashes, except the coaxing ways that 
 drove the whole station wild with love for her. It were said 
 as Miss Rosie s mother sent her out to her father to make a 
 match, but if she did the old lady must have been terribly 
 disappointed, because no sooner did the captain s father hear 
 of the marriage than he sent for his lawyer, and sat down 
 then and there and made a will cutting the poor fellow off 
 with a shilling, and leaving all his money to hospitals and 
 churches. 
 
 So the captain and Miss Rosie began life on love and 
 short commons ; and, neither of them understanding econ 
 omy, made a good many mistakes, as might have been 
 expected. They didn t know how to contrive, and they got 
 into debt, and when the children came and expenses grew 
 heavier they lost spirit and patience, like a good many more, 
 and let things go their own way. The captain lost his tem 
 per and the mistress grew careless and fretted, and when 
 the young master was born the one as I m telling about 
 things were about as bad and as comfortless as they could 
 
I POLISHED AWAY AT THE CAPTATN s SABRE 
 
THE CAPTAIN S YOUNGEST 85 
 
 be. Not wishing to say a disrespectful word, or a harmful 
 one, I must say as I d even thought the captain were getting 
 tired of his love-match, for he was aging uncommon fast 
 and his temper was getting uncommon sharp, and now and 
 then Mrs. Dalgetty and him would have words as would end 
 in him striding out of the bungalow, leaving her crying and 
 worriting among the children. I can t say even as he were 
 over fond of the children, or that they were over welcome 
 when they came six girls, one after another though they 
 were pretty little things, all of them. But when Master 
 Lionel were born it struck me as he were rather better 
 pleased than he had been before, for he were the first boy. 
 
 Well I remember the day the captain came out of his 
 quarters and told me about his having made his appearance 
 rather unexpected. 
 
 I had been so long with them, and there were so many 
 little things I could do as was a help, that I d got into the 
 way of doing them ; and I happened this morning to be 
 polishing about, and sees the captain coming out, looking 
 half-way pleased with something or other ; and when I drew 
 myself up and saluted as usual, says he : 
 
 " Rabbett," says he, " there s a change in the pro 
 gramme this time." 
 
 I drops my swab in a minute and draws up and salutes 
 again. 
 
 " What, sir ? " says I. " Boy, sir ? " 
 
 "Yes," says he. " Boy, and a fine little fellow too." 
 
86 THE CAPTAIN S YOUNGEST 
 
 So in the course of the week I smartens myself up a bit 
 more than common, in honor of the occasion, and goes into 
 the house and gets the ayah to let me have a look at the 
 young gentleman as he lay in his cradle in the nursery, next 
 to the mistress s room. They was rather fond of me in that 
 nursery, I may say, and it wasn t the first time I d been 
 there by many a one. But though I stepped light enough 
 for fear of wakening the little fellow, somehow or other he 
 did waken that very minute. As I bent over his cradle he 
 opens his eyes, and he actually stares at me as if he was ask 
 ing me a question or so. At least, it looked that way to me, 
 and then, as sure as I m a living man, he does something 
 with his face as if he was doing his best to laugh ; and when 
 I laughs back and lifts his bit of a red hand, he opens it out 
 and lets it lay on mine, quite friendly and sociable. 
 
 I won t say as he knew what he were doing, but I will 
 say as he looked as if he did. And from that minute to the 
 last hour of his life Master Lionel and me was friends fast 
 and firm. Not being a family man, as I have said before, I 
 took to him all the more, and I m happy to say he did the 
 same by me. When he got big enough to be carried out by 
 his ayah I used to meet the woman, and take him off her 
 hands whenever she would let me ; which was often enough, 
 because she knew both the captain and Mrs. Dalgetty knew 
 I was safe to trust. I d take him off into the shade and 
 walk about with him him a-layin his cheek against my red 
 coat, sometimes laughing at the jokes I d make with him, 
 
THE CAPTAIN S YOUNGEST 87 
 
 suiting them to his size, and sometimes a-staring up at me 
 serious, but both of us always understanding each other and 
 being cheerful, whatever was a-goin on betwixt us. The fact 
 was that I got that there used to him, with nursing him so 
 much, that when he d have a little choke or a disturbance of 
 any kind, I got to be as handy as a woman about settling 
 him and turning him over and patting his back, and though 
 it may sound like a exaggeration to outsiders, I must say 
 as I saw clear enough he had his own way of thanking me 
 and showing me his gratitude for any small favors of the 
 kind. Ay, and many an hour I ve thought how it might 
 have been if little Maggie Shea had got through that blaz 
 ing summer many and many an hour as I walked up and 
 down, him nestling up against me as my own flesh and 
 blood might have done, but never would. 
 
 So we began by being fond of one another, and we 
 keeps on a-bein fond of one another, and what s more, 
 we gets fonder and fonder of each other as we grows 
 older. 
 
 And such a boy as he were, and such ways as he had ! 
 There weren t no end to him, he were that manly and 
 handsome and well-grown and ready, by the time he 
 were seven or eight year old. People as never looked 
 at a child looked at him and was took by him, and the 
 ladies at the station run wild about his beauty. Tall he 
 was and well set up, and with a way of carrying himself 
 a brigadier-general might have been proud of. And a 
 
88 THE CAPTAIN S YOUNGEST 
 
 fine-cut face, and a big, brave black eye as looked at 
 a man as if he was equal to leading a regiment ; and 
 yet was thoughtful and loving, and had a softness, too, 
 when he was talking to a friend. And that quick he 
 were to notice things as others of his age would never 
 have seen. Why, he was only six years when one day, 
 as he was standing by watching me at work, he looks 
 up at me all at once and says he : 
 
 " Rabbett," he says, "my mamma is very pretty, isn t 
 she?" 
 
 " Well," says I, " Master Lionel, I should say she were!" 
 
 " I thought so," he says; "I thought everybody must 
 think she was pretty, just as I do, only I am very fond 
 of her, you see." And he rather puzzles me by looking 
 at me again in a wistful, questioning sort of way. 
 
 "Just so, Master Lionel," I answers, "just so, sir." 
 
 " Yes," he goes on, " I am very fond of her, and 
 and I suppose my papa is very fond of her, too." 
 
 Being a trifle upset by this, I polished away at the 
 captain s sabre for a minute or so, and even then I could 
 only say : 
 
 "Yes, sir; nat rally, sir, of course." For the truth were 
 as things had been getting worse and worse, and the tiffs 
 had been growing into rows rows as couldn t go on 
 without being heard in a bungalow, where walls was thin 
 and rooms not over far from each other. And what he 
 had heard the Lord only knows, but it had been a-workin* 
 
THE CAPTAIN S YOUNGEST 89 
 
 in his innercent mind and troubling him, and he was 
 coming to me for comfort, and that I saw in his fine, 
 loving, wistful black eye, and in his handsome little chin, 
 as was not quite steady. 
 
 " Yes, of course, he is very fond of her," he said, " and 
 she is very fond of him ; because people who are married 
 people who are married always are, aren t they, Rabbett ? " 
 
 " Ah, sir," says I, " that they are ; there ain t nothin 
 like it." 
 
 " No," he says, his little face trying to keep itself 
 steady, "and I m very glad of of that I m very glad of 
 that." And quite sudden he faces round and walks off, 
 a-holding his head up like a field officer. But well I 
 knowed why he d gone. Something had hurt his little 
 heart and set him to thinking, so that he could not 
 manage his looks even before Rabbett. And, gentleman as 
 he was, he was not willing to let it be known what his 
 child s trouble was. 
 
 When the family began to grow up the regiment was 
 ordered back to England ; and I came back with them, you 
 see. The captain was not rich, and as the family expenses 
 got bigger, year by year, money got scarcer with him, and 
 they couldn t live as they did before ; and so, somehow I 
 think it was because I liked the children, and especially my 
 young master I fell into a way of being part valet, part 
 waiter, part man-of-all-work for the captain and his. 
 
 This wasn t all. The captain s fine way for he was 
 
90 THE CAPTAIN S YOUNGEST 
 
 handsome still, and a gentleman born, and no mistake 
 brought him fine friends ; and his -fine friends brought him 
 debt, because he was obliged to keep up with them. Every 
 thing was badly managed, because Mrs. Dalgetty, as I said, 
 knew nothing about managing ; so the servants ran wild, 
 and were nothing but trouble and expense, and there were 
 nothing but struggling to keep up, and threatening to break 
 down, from day to day. 
 
 " The captain is worse than ever," Mrs. Dalgetty would 
 say, sometimes, when things looked bad, and she had a 
 crying fit on. " And Rose is so expensive, and the other 
 girls are growing up. I wish Lionel was older. He is 
 the only one who seems to feel for me at all." 
 
 The real truth were, as Lionel were that sweet-natured 
 he felt for them all ; and I must say as they couldn t 
 help being as fond of him in their way as he was of them 
 in his. 
 
 " RabbeU," says he to me once, when they was all going 
 out he was about nine years old then, or thereabout 
 " Rabbett, if you would like to see Rose before she goes, 
 just stand in the passage, when I go into the drawing-room 
 with her cloak and handkerchief. She has just sent me 
 for them." 
 
 Now my young master loved his mother dearly, but he 
 loved Rose even better ; he was allers talking to me of 
 her beauty. 
 
 So says I, " I would like to see her." And he 
 
THE CAPTAIN S YOUNGEST 
 
 runs up-stairs, quite pleased, and is down again in a 
 minute. 
 
 " I ll leave the door open," he says. And in he goes, 
 with the cloak over his arm, and does leave it open, quite 
 wide enough for me to see through. 
 
 Miss Rose was standing by the fire, and beautiful she 
 looked, in her grand evening dress, and so like what her 
 mother had been that it gave me quite a start. There was 
 a gentleman at her side, a-laughing and talking to her, and 
 when Master Lionel goes in this party turns toward the 
 -door, to look at him, and I sees his face, and I gives a start 
 again, for it were Captain Basil Roscoe. 
 
 Now I knew surn at of Captain Basil Roscoe, you see, 
 and that s what made me give a start. If ever there was a 
 villain, and he to be called a gentleman, Captain Basil Ros 
 coe were one. I knew things of him that he little guessed ; 
 we servants get to know many queer things. I felt, when I 
 sees him, as if I saw a snake. 
 
 " Here comes the wrap," says Captain Basil, and he held 
 out his hand, as if he meant to put it on for himself, but 
 Miss Rose laughs and stops him. 
 
 " No," says she. " Lionel wouldn t like that. Would 
 you, Lionel ? He always puts my cloak on for me." 
 
 The captain drew back a bit, and gave the boy a sharp 
 glance, but Miss Rose did not see it, for she was bending 
 down to have the cloak put over her white shoulders, and 
 Master Lionel was a-folding it around her, as pleased as 
 
92 THE CAPTAIN S YOUNGEST 
 
 could be, laughing, too, boy-like, but, for all that, doing 
 it as deft and graceful as if he d been born to it. 
 
 And then, when it was done, Miss Rose put her little 
 hands on the shoulders of his jacket, and kissed him half-a- 
 dozen times, so coaxing and merry and happy that I could 
 not bear to think the time would ever come when life would 
 look harder to her than it did just then going out to a 
 grand ball, in a pretty dress, and with her lover by her 
 side. 
 
 Unless it is true that the devil shrinks from and hates 
 them as has no sins of their own, I should like to know why 
 it was that Basil Roscoe were so ready in taking a dislike to 
 a innocent-faced boy, as never harmed or differed with him ; 
 for nothing is more certain than that from the first he did 
 take a dislike to Master Lionel. It struck me, once or twice, 
 as he not only couldn t bear the sight of him, but that, 
 if he had had the chance, he would not have been sorry 
 to do him a harm. His sneering manner showed it, and his 
 ill-looking, handsome face showed it, apart from a hundred 
 other bits of things. Master Lionel himself found it out 
 soon enough. 
 
 " Rabbett," says he, private and confidential, "he doesn t 
 like me and I don t like him, and I wish he wasn t so fond 
 of Rose. I never did him any harm, you know, Rabbett." 
 
 Nateral enough, his spirit is hurt about it, and he takes 
 it a bit hard. But he never says much about it, until one 
 night he comes to me, and I sees he is wonderful quiet, and 
 
"MISS ROSE PUT HER HANDS ON HIS SHOULDERS* 
 
THE CAPTAIN S YOUNGEST 95 
 
 after a while I made bold to ask what ails him. And the 
 minute I asks him I sees, by the look in his eyes, that what 
 ails him is something uncommon. 
 
 " It s something about Rose," he says, "and it s some 
 thing about Captain Roscoe." 
 
 A slight huskiness comes in my throat, as makes it neces 
 sary for me to clear it. 
 
 -Oh !" I says. Indeed, sir?" 
 
 "Yes," he answers. "As I was coming here I passed 
 him, standing at the corner of the street with a gentleman, 
 and they were both talking aloud, Rabbett, and laughing. 
 And they were talking about Rose." 
 
 Knowing the man so well, and having heard so much 
 of his villany, my blood fairly boiled at the thought of what 
 he might have been saying ; but I made up my mind to 
 speak quietly. 
 
 "Did you hear what they said, sir?" I asked. "Are 
 you sure it was her they were speaking of?" 
 
 "Yes," says he, "sure, for I heard the gentleman say, 
 What? Pretty Rose Dalgetty? And then Roscoe an 
 swered, * Even she might get tiresome/ And they both 
 laughed. Rabbett " and he turned his troubled, question 
 ing boy s face to me, as if he was just awakening to some 
 sort of bewildered fear, and wanted help "what did he 
 mean when he said she might get tiresome ? And what 
 made them laugh as they did ? They were laughing at her 
 my sister Rose." 
 
96 THE CAPTAIN S YOUNGEST 
 
 " No gentleman would have done it, sir," I answered, 
 not knowing what else to say. 
 
 " I know that," he says. " But what did they mean ? 
 You are older than me, Rabbett, and perhaps you can 
 understand more than that it was not what a gentleman 
 would have done." 
 
 But of course I could not tell him that. If it meant 
 nothing worse, it at least did mean as Miss Rose s lover had 
 so little respect for her that he could bandy her name 
 among his companions with something like a sneer ; so I 
 tried my best to lead him away from the subject. If he d 
 been an ordinary kind of young gentleman, and he so very 
 young yet, I might have managed it ; but being the little 
 fellow he was, the suspicion that his sister had been some 
 what slighted stuck to him, and settled itself deep in his 
 mind, and made him thoughtful beyond his years. 
 
 And this was far from being the end of it. Little by little 
 I began to hear a whisper here and there, even among the 
 men, about what people said of Captain Roscoe being so 
 friendly with the Dalgettys, and partic ler with Miss Rosie. 
 There was not one of them but said that it would do the 
 pretty young creature no good, if it did her no harm, to be 
 so ready to let him be attentive. He had been such an 
 open rascal in his time, and his character was so well known, 
 that no careful mother would have let her daughter be seen 
 with him, and he was only tolerated in his own set, and 
 among those who were as bad as himself. But Mrs. Dal- 
 
THE CAPTAIN S YOUNGEST 97 
 
 getty was too thoughtless and indifferent to see the wrong 
 in him, or to be troubled by what she heard, and the cap 
 tain was rarely at home ; so Miss Rose was left to herself, 
 and, of course, did as any other innocent girl would have 
 done, fell in love with a handsome face, and believed in it. 
 
 But at last so much was said by outsiders that something 
 came to the captain s ears as must have roused him, for one 
 evening he comes up to the house in a towering rage, and 
 shuts himself up with Miss Rose and her mother in the 
 parlor, and has a tremendous row, and makes them both 
 cry, and ends up by forbidding them to speak to Roscoe 
 again. 
 
 But though Mrs. Dalgetty gave in, as she always did 
 when the captain gave his orders, of course Miss Rose 
 would not believe anything against her lover. Things had 
 gone so far by that time that she would have stood out for 
 him against the whole world ; and as she dared not openly 
 disobey her father, she fretted until she lost her pretty color 
 and bright spirits, and went about the house looking ill and 
 wretched. 
 
 But the matter was not put an end to, as you may 
 imagine. Once or twice, in going from the house to the 
 barracks, I found Captain Basil Roscoe loitering about not 
 far from the street s end, and more than once I could have 
 sworn that I passed him at dusk with a familiar little figure 
 clinging to his arm. And one night Miss Rosie calls her 
 brother to her, as he was going out on an errand, and, as 
 
 7 
 
98 THE CAPTAIN S YOUNGEST 
 
 she bends over him in the doorway, slips a note into his. 
 hand, crying pitifully. 
 
 " You will take that for me, won t you, dear?" she says. 
 " He is waiting in the square for it, and he does want it. 
 so so much." And she kisses him, and gives a little sob 
 and runs up-stairs. 
 
 I don t think it could have been more than three min 
 utes after that when he comes to me, all pale and breathless 
 with running, and lays that there note on the table. 
 
 " She wants me to take it to him, Rabbett," he says, 
 " and she was crying when she asked me, and what 
 must we do ? " 
 
 It is not to be expected as we two hadn t talked things 
 over, being the friends we were. I got up and took the note 
 from the table, making a resolution all of a sudden. 
 
 " If you ll stay here, sir," I said, " I ll take it myself." 
 And take it I did, and found the rascal waiting, as Miss. 
 Rose had said he would be. He gave a black enough scowl 
 when he saw it were me, and it certainly didn t die out when 
 I spoke to him. 
 
 " Sir," says I, " I ve come here on a poor errand, and I ve 
 come unwilling enough, God knows. I ve got a note in my 
 hand here a pitiful little letter from a trusting, innocent 
 girl to a man who, if he does not mean her harm, surely 
 cannot mean her good, or he would not be leading her to 
 meet him, and write to him in underhand ways. And I ve 
 been making up my mind, as I came along, to make a appeal 
 
THE CAPTAIN S YOUNGEST 99 
 
 to that man, as surely he ll listen to if he has a man s heart 
 in his breast. She is scarcely more than a child, sir, and she 
 knows nothing of the world. Leave her alone, and she may 
 be a happy woman ; go on as you ve begun, and it will be 
 death and heartbreak to her, and her wrongs will lie at your 
 door." 
 
 He stands there and looks at me, and by the light of the 
 lamp we was standing under I sees his handsome, devilish 
 face, sneering and triumphing and scorning me, as if I was 
 a worm in the dirt under his feet. 
 
 " My good fellow," he says, " you are a little too late. 
 Hand me that letter, and be off, before I find it necessary to 
 help you. How you got hold of the note I don t know, but 
 I do know it was never given to you to deliver, and that I 
 should be well warranted in kicking you back to your quar 
 ters, for your deuced impudence and presumption." 
 
 But I held to the letter tight. 
 
 "Very well, sir," I answers, respectful, but firm as a 
 rock. " This letter goes back to the house, and before night 
 is over the captain will have read it himself, and can judge 
 for himself what is best 
 
 I didn t finish, for the next thing I knew was that he 
 strode up to me and grasped hold of me by my collar, and 
 the minute I saw what he meant to do I felt I had made a 
 mistake in bringing the letter at all, and in fancying that any 
 appeal could touch or move him. There was a struggle 
 between us, but it did not last long ; he being strong and 
 
ioo THE CAPTAIN S YOUNGEST 
 
 lithe, and so much the younger man, gave me no chance ; 
 and it were scarcely three seconds before he threw me on 
 the pavement, and leaving me there, a trifle stunned, walked 
 off with the letter in his hand. 
 
 I knew things must be pretty bad then. He would 
 never have been so desperate and determined if he had not 
 meant to do his worst, and when I made my way back I 
 felt sick with fear. Master Lionel was sitting by the bit 
 of fire in the grate when I opened the door, and he turns 
 round and looks at me, and changes color. 
 
 " Rabbett," he says, "there is blood on your face." 
 
 " Perhaps so, sir," I says. " I ve had a fall." 
 
 And then I sits down and tells him all about it ; about 
 what I had meant to do, and what I had done, and I ends 
 up by asking him what he thinks we had better do, now 
 that my plans had failed. 
 
 " Master Lionel/ 8 I says, " it would seem a dreadful hard 
 sort of thing to do, if we spoke to the captain." 
 
 He turns quite pale at the thought of it. 
 
 "Oh, no," he says, "Rabbett, I wouldn t do it. He 
 would be so angry with Rose, and even with mamma. You 
 remember my telling you what he said before." 
 
 I remembered well enough, and a pretty hard thing it 
 was to say, even if it had been said in a passion, and not 
 half meant. He had threatened to turn Miss Rose out of 
 doors if she spoke to Roscoe again. He must have heard 
 something bad enough, to have been so roused. 
 
THE CAPTAIN S YOUNGEST. ^ \ ?& 
 
 " Well," I ventures, " what can we do, sir ? " 
 
 " Watch," says he. " I can think of nothing else to do 
 just yet, Rabbett. I will watch Rose, and you shall watch 
 Roscoe ; and if the worst comes, and we must tell papa, we 
 must. I suppose, Rabbett, that Roscoe will try to run away 
 with Rose, as Farquhar ran away with that pretty Miss 
 Lewis ? " 
 
 "Yes, sir," I answers, " I m afraid he will. But he is a 
 worse man than Farquhar ; and if Miss Rose goes away 
 with him, I m afraid he ll treat her hard enough when he 
 tires of her, as such men as him always tires of young 
 ladies." 
 
 "It would be better, Rabbett," says he, fixing his dark 
 eyes solemnly on the fire, " it would be better that Rose 
 should die. I know that." 
 
 " I am afeard, sir," says I, " that you are right." 
 
 God knows how he had learned to understand, but 
 understand he did, and he were that sad and wise about it 
 that my very heart ached. He had seen an old enough 
 side of life, had Master Lionel, living among the set he 
 did, but he were a young gentleman as nothing could spoil, 
 his nature were that fine-grained. 
 
 We kept our watch faithful all that week and part of 
 the next, but we found out very little, though we had our 
 suspicions, Master Lionel and me, as things was going on 
 pretty badly in a secret way. But at last the very worst 
 thing as could have happened burst upon us all at once. 
 
*bj; t \\iisTfi CAPTAIN S YOUNGEST 
 
 I was up at the house one evening, doing something 
 or other for Mrs. Dalgetty, when of a sudden I heard a 
 tremendous loud ring at the door-bell ; and, going in a 
 hurry to answer it, the captain himself strode past me 
 into the hall, all in a flame with the wine he had been 
 drinking and the passion he were in. I had seen him in 
 towering enough tempers often before, but I had never 
 seen him look as he did then. It was my impression he 
 were pretty near mad ; indeed, I thought so then, and have 
 thought so since. How could he have done what he did 
 that night, unless he had not been quite himself ? 
 
 " Rabbett," says he, " where s Miss Rose ? " 
 
 "In her own room, sir," says I, wishing with all my 
 heart that I could have told him she were not in. 
 
 "Rabbett," says he, "where s Mrs. Dalgetty?" 
 
 " In her own room," says I, "lying down, a-trying to get 
 rid of a headache." 
 
 " Then," says he, "go and tell Miss Rose to come down 
 to me at once." 
 
 I think I must have looked upset, myself, when I 
 knocked at Miss Rose s door to deliver the captain s 
 message, for the minute the words were out of my mouth 
 she turned quite pale and scared-looking, and began to 
 tremble. 
 
 "Oh, Rabbett," she says, the tears coming into her 
 great, pretty dark eyes, "is anything the matter? does he 
 look angry ? " 
 
THE CAPTAIN S YOUNGEST 103 
 
 " I must say, miss," I answers, " as he seems a bit 
 more pepperyer than common, but I hope it s nothing 
 much." 
 
 " Oh, Rabbett," she says, beginning to cry, and wringing 
 her poor little helpless hands, " I know it is something 
 dreadful. I daren t go down. I am so frightened." 
 
 But she were obliged to go down, and go down she did, 
 a-trembling all over, and out-and-out faint with fear. She 
 had always been a timid little affectionate creature, and the 
 captain were pretty hard to face when his temper were up. 
 
 I am not ashamed to confess as I stayed as near within 
 hearing distance as I could, without positively eavesdrop 
 ping. I own up as I had my fears as to what the end of 
 it all would be, knowing the captain were drove too wild 
 to be wise, or even reasonable, and I wanted to be near 
 enough to see Miss Rose when she came out of the room, 
 and say a comforting word to her, if she seemed to need 
 one. 
 
 But she came out of the room in a different manner 
 to what even I had expected. The minute she went in I 
 heard the sound of Mrs. Dalgetty crying and the captain 
 storming, and for a quarter of an hour after the storm fairly 
 raged. The captain stamped and swore, Mrs. Dalgetty 
 sobbed, and tried to put in a word now and then, but 
 Miss Rose seemed to be too much stunned to speak. I 
 never heard her voice after the first few moments, and at 
 last the door opened again, and she came running out, her 
 
104 THE CAPTAIN S YOUNGEST 
 
 beautiful dark eyes wide open, her innocent face as white 
 as death. She did not see me, but ran past where I stood, 
 up to her own bedroom, and there was that in her look 
 as brought my heart into my mouth, and, queer as it may 
 seem to you, the first thing I thought of was Master 
 Lionel. 
 
 " There s harm been done," says I to myself, " deadly 
 harm, and no one can undo it but one as loves her, and 
 that she s fond of herself in her girl s way ; the one as she 
 needs now is that there fine little fellow as was almost 
 like a little lover to her." 
 
 And when she came down I feels surer of it than ever ; 
 for in three minutes more she did come down, with her hat 
 and jacket on, ready to go out. And her face was even 
 whiter than before ; and when she sees me she holds out 
 her hand, her eyes looking big and bright with a dangerous 
 sort of shine. 
 
 "Good-by, Rabbett," she says. " I am going." 
 
 "Miss Rose," says I, "where are you going to?" 
 
 Then she smiles sad and bitter, and a bit hard. 
 
 " Ask papa," she answers. " He ought to know. He 
 sent me away. I don t exactly know myself, unless unless 
 one person in the world loves me well enough to take me." 
 
 "Miss Rose," I breaks out, "for God s sake don t go 
 to Basil Roscoe!" 
 
 She dragged her hand away from mine, and her eyes 
 flashed fire. 
 
THE CAPTAIN S YOUNGEST 105 
 
 "You all hate him!" she cried; "but I have chosen 
 him before all the world. Papa said I must choose, and 
 I have chosen. I am going to Basil Roscoe ! " 
 
 And before I could speak another word she had darted 
 out of the door, all on fire, and desperate, as one might say, 
 and was gone. 
 
 I knew it would be of no use speaking to the captain. 
 Since he had as good as turned the poor innocent creature 
 out of house and home, he was not the one to go to for 
 help. When he was cooler he would see his mistake, and 
 repent it bitter enough ; but just now to go to him would 
 only make him madder than ever. 
 
 Well, just at that very minute in come Master Lionel. 
 There might have been some sort of a fate in it. He jumps 
 up them stone steps, two at a time, and bangs at that open 
 front door, clean out of breath, and looking wonderful like 
 his sister, in his excitement. 
 
 " Where s Rose gone to, Rabbett ? " he says. " I have 
 just seen her walking fast almost running down the 
 street, and she would not stop for me. What has been 
 the matter?" 
 
 I ups and tells him. I weren t afeard of doing it. 
 I knew him to be that there ready and brave and 
 affectionate. 
 
 " Rabbett," he said, in a jiffy, " come along with me." 
 
 "Master Lionel," I asks, "where to?" For the fact 
 were my head weren t as clear as his, and I were a bit 
 
io6 THE CAPTAIN S YOUNGEST 
 
 bothered as to what would be the best thing to be done 
 first. 
 
 " I am going to Captain Roscoe s lodgings," he an 
 swers, as steady as you please. 
 
 And so, if you ll believe me, off we goes, out into the 
 street, him a-keeping step beautiful, as he always did, but 
 not saying a word until at last I speak to him. 
 
 "Master Lionel," I says, "what are you thinking 
 about?" 
 
 " I am thinking," he answers, his dark eyes shining, 
 " about what I am going to say to Roscoe." 
 
 But it weren t so easy to find Roscoe. We did not 
 know exactly where his lodgings were, and so we had to 
 inquire in first one place and then another. The people 
 we fancied could tell us knew nothing definite, when we 
 went to them ; and when we got the name of the street, it 
 were hard to find. But we did find it at last, after a great 
 deal of trouble and a great deal of delay, which was worse. 
 The delay was what upset us, for both of us felt pretty 
 certain that Captain Basil Roscoe would lose very little 
 time in getting Miss Rose away out of the reach of her 
 friends, if he once found her willing to go with him. 
 
 By the time we reached the end of the street where he 
 lived, Master Lionel were that worked up and excited that 
 he was growing paler and paler, and his eyes were like 
 lanterns in his face, and he caught hold of my hand and 
 held it hard and fast. 
 
THE CAPTAIN S YOUNGEST 107 
 
 " Rabbett," he says, what if we should be too late?" 
 
 " I can t think such bad luck could happen to us, sir," 
 I answers him back. 
 
 And then it were just at that instant as his sharp 
 young eyes spied something out ahead of us, for he drew 
 his hand away, and started running, just throwing back a 
 word or so to me. 
 
 "There s a carriage before the door," he said, "and they 
 are getting into it." 
 
 He were up that street like a deer, and in half a minute 
 I were with him ; but when I comes up, all out of breath, he 
 were on the carriage-step, holding the cloor open ; and, 
 what s more, holding at bay the black rascal who stood 
 near, sneering and raging at him- by turns. " Rabbett," he 
 cries out, " help me to hold the door open. No go to 
 the horses heads. Now, Rose, get out." 
 
 I went to the horses heads, as I would have done if the 
 captain himself had give the order, instead of " The Cap 
 tain s Youngest." It made my heart ache, too, to hear the 
 ring in the little chap s voice, so like his father s, and then 
 to remember what the captain might have been and what 
 he were. Even the driver were struck all of a heap by the 
 youngster s pluck, and were so busy looking at him that 
 he let me take my stand, without a word against it. 
 
 " Look here, mate," he says to me, "here s a rum go!" 
 
 " It s bad enough," says I. " Perhaps you ll oblige me 
 with them reins ? " 
 
io8 THE CAPTAIN S YOUNGEST 
 
 " If you don t come down from that step," says Roscoe, 
 saying every word slow, as if he was trying to hold him 
 self back from striking the boy a blow as would kill him, 
 "you impudent young devil, I will take the whip from the 
 box there and cut you to pieces ! " 
 
 Then Miss Rose bends forward. It is my impression 
 as the cruel, murderous sound in the fellow s voice was 
 something she had never heard before, and it frightened her. 
 
 "Don t speak to him in that way, Basil," she says. 
 " Oh, Lionel, dear, you shouldn t have come. You must 
 go back. You must, indeed. I shall never come home 
 again, Lionel." And she burst out crying. 
 
 " I shall go back, Rose," says the boy, " but you must 
 come with me. Rabbett and I came to fetch you, and 
 we shall not leave you." And then he looks at Roscoe 
 square. " I am not afraid of your cutting me to pieces 
 with your whip, sir," he says. " Rabbett will see to that. 
 But," and the fire blazed up in his voice and his face and 
 his eyes, as grand as if he had been the captain himself, 
 " if I had come alone I would not have left this carriage 
 door unless Rose had come with me. You might have 
 used your whip, but you couldn t have made me do that." 
 
 "Am I," says Roscoe, panting with the passion he dare 
 not let out, "am I to throw you into the street under the 
 horses hoofs, you impudent young devil?" 
 
 But Master Lionel s back was turned to him. He was 
 pleading with his sister. 
 
THE CAPTAIN S YOUNGEST 109 
 
 " Rose, dear," he says, "come home with me. You will 
 come home with me, I know." And he caught hold of 
 her hand. 
 
 God knows how it all happened I don t. If I had 
 only been quick enough to see in time, the captain s young 
 est might have been alive this day, a brave young fellow, 
 such as the captain had been in those first days in India 
 a brave, handsome young soldier, as would have been 
 a honor to his country, and a stanch friend yet to me. 
 
 But that weren t to be. Just as he stood there, his 
 foot on the carriage-step, a-holding his sister s hand, the 
 passion in the heart of the rascal watching him broke forth. 
 He caught him by the shoulder, there were a short strug 
 gle as the boy tried to free himself, and before I could 
 reach them he had whirled him away from the door 
 with greater force than he intended, I ve tried to believe. 
 The frightened horses lashed out their hoofs and sprang 
 forward, struggling over the child s very body as he lay 
 stunned under their feet. 
 
 Scoundrel as he was, I never could make it look square 
 to myself as the man meant the harm he did. His face 
 was out and out deathly, as he leaped forward to save him 
 as quick as I did myself. But we were both too late. 
 We could only drag at the reins, and stop the horses in 
 time to prevent the wheels passing over him that were 
 all. 
 
 We had him out in a minute, and Miss Rose was out of 
 
no THE CAPTAIN S YOUNGEST 
 
 the carnage, kneeling on the pavement by him, and the 
 driver was down off his box. 
 
 " Great God ! " says Roscoe, " I never meant to do him 
 such a harm. He s dead ! " And he shuddered all over, 
 with fear, perhaps, as much as anything else. 
 
 But he weren t dead, and he hadn t even fainted, though 
 he were stunned at first. I had lifted him in my arms, and 
 he lay against me, panting a bit, and stone-white, all but for 
 a stain of blood on one temple. It weren t his head as was 
 so badly hurt, it were his side, where one of the horses had 
 lashed out and struck him. And as sure as I m a living 
 man, in a few minutes he opens his eyes and lays hold 
 of his sister s hand. 
 
 " Rose," he says, "will you go home with me now?" 
 
 She knelt over him, wrinmnof her hands, and sobbing as 
 
 o o o 
 
 if her heart would break. She would not let her lover 
 come near her. When he tried to speak, she shrank away, 
 shuddering. 
 
 It s my belief as what she had seen in his face during the 
 last ten minutes would have broke her faith in him, even if 
 the young master had met no hurt. And now she were that 
 terrified that she were as helpless as a child. 
 
 " Is he much hurt?" she kept saying. " Rabbett, oh, 
 Rabbett ! let me take him home to mamma. Put him into 
 the carriage." And then she turned upon Roscoe, fierce 
 and wild. "Go away," she cried out. "You have killed 
 him ! Go away, and never let me see you again ! " 
 
THE CAPTAIN S YOUNGEST 
 
 There were a dreadful house when we took him home. 
 Mrs. Dalgetty went out of one faint into another, as she 
 always did when she were frightened. The servants ran 
 backward and forward, doing nothing, the children crowded 
 round us, crying, and the captain looked on at all we did like 
 a man in a dream. 
 
 He were hurt and bruised and broken that bad poor 
 little fellow ! that when the doctor came, and were begin 
 ning to go to work on him, he looks up at me with his 
 bright, troubled eye, and says to me : 
 
 " Rabbett, please take hold of my hand." 
 
 I were that near breaking down and sobbing out loud 
 that I were ashamed of myself. It were a comfort to me, in 
 many a day after, to think I had took hold of his hand, and 
 that he had asked me to do it. 
 
 And when the hard job was over, the doctor put his 
 hands into his coat pockets, and stands looking at him for a 
 minute or so, and then he turns to me and beckons me out 
 of the room. 
 
 " Sir," I ventured to say, " Master Lionel will he 
 But I could not finish, somehow. I meant to say, " Will he 
 get over it ? " 
 
 " No," says he. " I am very sorry to say it ; but he will 
 
 not." 
 
 Will you believe me as the words struck me like a slung- 
 shot. Not having no family of my own, and never having 
 clung to nothing on earth as I had clung to that there gener- 
 
ii2 THE CAPTAIN S YOUNGEST 
 
 ous, neglected little fellow, just at that minute I felt as if I d 
 got a blow as was too hard to stand up against. I couldn t 
 face it straight. When I had been lonely in my way, he had 
 been lonely in his, and we had been a help and a comfort to 
 each other in ways as outsiders never understood. 
 
 " Sir," I puts it to him, quite hoarse when I gets my voice 
 back, "when And 1 couldn t finish that question 
 
 neither. 
 
 11 Well," he answers me back, " I am afraid before morn- 
 ing." 
 
 I went back to the room and stayed there all night. 
 
 It seemed a strange sort of thing that at the very last 
 him and me was together alone, as we always had seemed to 
 be. He had coaxed Miss Rose to go to bed ; he would not 
 rest until she went; and when she bent down to kiss him, 
 he says to her, in a whisper, quite bright and cheerful : 
 "Don t cry, Rose. It s all right." 
 
 And then the captain gets tired, and begins to doze, 
 and Mrs. Dalgetty falls asleep on the sofa ; and so Master 
 Lionel and me was left together ; me watching him, and 
 listening to the clock ticking ; him lying quiet, with his 
 eyes shut. 
 
 But toward daybreak he gets a bit restless, and stirs, 
 and the next thing I sees him looking at me, quite wide 
 awake. 
 
 " Rabbett," says he, in a bit of a hurry, "open the 
 window." 
 
" AND I SHALL ALWAYS BE FOND OF YOU, RABBETT " 
 
THE CAPTAIN S YOUNGEST 115 
 
 And when I goes and does it, and comes back, he 
 puts out his hand. 
 
 "Rabbett," he says, "I m very fond of you;" and 
 something wistful comes into his eyes, and I sees a faint 
 gray shadow creeping up over his face. " I was always 
 fond of you, and I always shall be fond of you," says he. 
 " Don t let my hand go, Rabbett." 
 
 And the next minute the gray shadow has changed his 
 brave, handsome, childish face all at once and altogether. 
 He gives me a innocent, bright look just one, as if he 
 were wondering why I shook so and shuts his eyes. He 
 would never open them again on me, as was so fond and 
 proud of him in my poor way. When they opened again 
 he would see something brighter than the morning sky, as 
 was just growing red and golden before the east window. 
 * * * * * 
 
 Qf course they fretted over him for a while, finding 
 out most likely as he d made himself dearer than they d 
 thought before he were gone. They could not have helped 
 missing him if they had been more careless than they were. 
 Sometimes I fancied the captain was checked a bit and sad r 
 and blamed himself in secret, but his days of being open and 
 soft-hearted was over, and it were hard to tell. I know it 
 was a long time before he forgave Miss Rosie, though for 
 her sake the matter was hushed up, and no one but them 
 selves knew exactly how the accident happened. Miss 
 Rose could never bear the sound of Basil Roscoe s name 
 
n6 THE CAPTAIN S YOUNGEST 
 
 again, and she married a good man a few years after, and 
 made him a good wife. So the poor little fellow as gave 
 his life for her did not lose it for nothing, though, if 
 you were to ask me which of the two but, there, it s not 
 for me to take on myself to argue out ! But he were 
 only a boy to them only a child. They didn t know him 
 as I did, and so after a while their grief died out, and in 
 a year or so he was half forgotten. 
 
 But it weren t so easy for me. His handsome little 
 face and his pleasant ways is as clear to me to-day as they 
 ever was. When I sit lonely over my fire of a winter s 
 night and I am a lonely man, things being as they are and 
 the years going on I think of him for hours in a way of my 
 own, and make a sort of dream of him. I think of him as he 
 lay in his cradle and we made friends when he wasn t but a 
 week old. I think of him as he was, with his little soldier 
 ways about the quarters, carrying himself as military as if 
 he d been twenty ; a-helping me in one way and another, 
 and finding out he might be confidential, though I wasn t 
 nothing but a private and him a officer s son. I think 
 about him as he looked when he came to me in his inner- 
 cent trouble that night and told me about his sister s 
 lover. And then I see him lying there, with the light from 
 the east window falling on him, and I hear him saying : 
 
 " I am very fond of you, Rabbett. I always was fond 
 of you, and I always shall be fond of you. Don t let my 
 hand go, Rabbett." 
 
THE CAPTAIN S YOUNGEST 117 
 
 Ay and that ain t all. I make a picture of what 
 might have been. I sees him grown into a young man- 
 a handsome, smart young officer and make a picture of 
 some beautiful young girl, and tells myself what a pretty love 
 story they would have had betwixt them, and what a lover, 
 and what a young husband he would have been ! Why, 
 there s been nights when I ve even seen little children like 
 him, and thought they would have been fond of me, as 
 he was. It s made me forget where I was, and when I d be 
 roused up by something or other I ve found myself choke 
 up with something as might almost have been my heart in 
 my throat, to think as it were only a sort of dream after 
 all. And the captain s youngest lies out under the stars 
 in the churchyard, the wind a-blowing over the snow as 
 lies on a grave as is only the grave of a child. 
 
LITTLE BETTY S KITTEN TELLS HER 
 
 STORY 
 
LITTLE BETTY S KITTEN TELLS HER 
 
 STORY 
 
 JAM Betty s kitten at least, I was Betty s kitten once. 
 That was more than a year ago. I am not a kitten now, 
 I am a little cat, and I have grown serious, and think a 
 great deal as I sit on the hearthrug, looking at the fire and 
 blinking my eyes. I have so much to think about that I even 
 stop to ponder things over when I am lapping my milk or 
 washing my face. I am very careful about lapping my milk. 
 I never upset the saucer. Betty told me I must not. She 
 used to talk to me about it when she gave me my dinner. 
 She said that only untidy kittens were careless. She liked to 
 see me wash my face too, so I am particular about that. It is 
 always Betty I am thinking about when I sit on the rug and 
 blink at the fire. Sometimes I feel so puzzled and so anxious 
 that if her mamma or papa are sitting near I look up at them 
 and say : 
 
 " Mee-azow ? Mee-aiow ? " 
 
 But they do not seem to understand me as Betty did. 
 Perhaps that is because they are grown-up people and she 
 was a little girl. But one day her mamma said 
 
122 LITTLE BETTY S KITTEN TELLS HER STORY 
 
 " It sounds almost as if she were asking a question." 
 I was asking a question. I was asking about Betty. I 
 wanted to know when she was coming back. 
 
 I know where she came from, but I do not know where 
 she is gone, or why she went. She usually told me things, 
 but she did not tell me that. I never knew her to go away be 
 fore. I wish she had taken me with her. I would have kept 
 my face and paws very clean, and never have upset my milk. 
 
 I said I knew where she came from. She came from 
 behind the white rose-bush before it began to bloom, and 
 when it had nothing but glossy green leaves and tight little 
 buds on it. 
 
 I saw her! My eyes had only been open about two 
 weeks, and I was lying close to my mother in our bed under 
 the porch that was round the house. It was a nice porch, 
 with vines climbing over it, and I had been born under it. 
 We were very comfortable there, but my mother was afraid of 
 people. She was afraid lest they might come and look at us. 
 She said I was so pretty that they would admire and take me 
 away. That had happened to two or three of my brothers 
 and sisters before their eyes had opened, and it had made 
 my mother nervous. She said the same thing had happened 
 before when she had had families quite as promising, and 
 many of her lady friends had told her that it continually 
 happened to themselves. They said that people coming and 
 looking at you when you had kittens was a sort of epidemic. 
 It always ended in your losing children. 
 
LITTLE BETTY S KITTEN TELLS HER STORY 123 
 
 She talked to me a great deal about it. She said she felt 
 rather less nervous after my eyes were opened, because peo 
 ple did not seem to want you so much after your eyes were 
 opened. There were fewer disappearances in families after 
 the first nine days. But she told me she preferred that I 
 should not be intimate with people who looked under the 
 porch, and she was very glad when I could use my legs and 
 get farther under the house when any one bent down and 
 said, " Pussy ! Pussy ! " She said I must not get silly 
 and flattered and intimate even when they said, " Pretty 
 pussy ! poo ittle kitty puss ! " She said it might end in 
 trouble. 
 
 So I was very cautious indeed when I first saw Betty. I 
 did not intend to be caught, but I was not so much afraid 
 as I should have been if she had not been so very little and 
 so pretty. 
 
 Not very long before she went away she said to me one 
 day, when we were in the swing together : 
 
 " Kitty, I am nearly five o clock ! " 
 
 So when she came from behind the white rose-bush per 
 haps she was four o clock. 
 
 I shall never forget that morning, it was such a beau 
 tiful morning. It was in the early spring, and all the world 
 seemed to be beginning to break into buds and blossoms. 
 There were pink and white flowers on the trees, and there 
 was such a delicious smell when one sniffed a little. Birds 
 were chirping and singing, and every now and then darting 
 
124 LITTLE BETTY S KITTEN TELLS HER STORY 
 
 across the garden. Flowers were coming out of the ground, 
 too ; they were blooming in the garden beds and among the 
 grass, and it seemed quite natural to see a new kind of flower 
 bloom out on the rose-bush, which had no flowers on it then, 
 because the season was too early. I was such a young kitten 
 that I thought the little face peeping round the green bush 
 was a flower. But it was Betty, and she was peeping at me ! 
 She had such a pink bud of a mouth, and such pink, soft 
 cheeks, and such large eyes, just like the velvet of a pansy 
 blossom. She had a tiny pink frock and a tiny white apron 
 with frills, and a pretty white muslin hat like a frilled daisy, 
 and the soft wind made the curly, soft hair falling over her 
 shoulder as she bent forward sway as the vines sway. 
 
 " Mother," I whispered, "what kind of a flower is that? 
 I never saw one before." 
 
 She looked, and began to be quite nervous. 
 
 "Ah, dear! ah, dear!" she said, "it is not a flower at all. 
 It is a person, and she is looking at you." 
 
 " Ah, mother," I said, " how can it be a person when it is 
 not half as high as the rose-bush ? And it is such pretty 
 colors. Do look again." 
 
 " It is a child person," she said, "and I have heard they 
 are sometimes the worst of all though I don t believe they 
 take so many away at a time." The little face peeped farther 
 round the green of the rose-bush, and looked prettier and 
 prettier. The pink frock and white frills began to show them 
 selves a little more. 
 
LITTLE BETTY S KITTEN TELLS HER STORY 125 
 
 " Get behind me," said my mother ; and I began to shrink 
 back. 
 
 Ah! how often I have wondered since then why I did not 
 know in a minute that it was Betty just Betty ! It seemed 
 so strange that I did not know it without being told. She 
 came nearer and nearer, and her cheeks seemed to grow 
 pinker and pinker, and her eyes bigger and bigger. Suddenly 
 she gave a little jump, and began to clap her hands and 
 laugh. 
 
 " Ah, "she said, "it is a little kitty. It is a surely little 
 kitty." 
 
 "Oh, my goodness!" said my mother. " Fts-fts-ftss ! 
 Fttss-ffttssss ! " 
 
 I could not help feeling as if it was rather rude of her, 
 but she was so frightened. 
 
 But Betty did not seem to mind it at all. Down she went 
 on her little knees on the grass, bending her head down to 
 peep under the porch, until her cheek touched the green 
 blades, and her heap of curls lay on the buttercups and 
 daisies. 
 
 " Oh, you dee little kitty," she said. " Pretty pussy, pussy, 
 puss! Kitty kitty! Poo ittle kitty. I won t hurt you!" 
 
 She made a movement as if she were going to put out 
 her dimpled hand to stroke me, but a side window opened, 
 and I heard a voice call to her. 
 
 "Betty Betty!" it said, "you mustn t put your hand 
 under there. The pussy is frightened, and it makes her 
 
i26 LITTLE BETTY S KITTEN TELLS HER STORY 
 
 cross, and she might scratch you, Don t try to stroke her, 
 dearie." 
 
 She turned her bright little face over her shoulder. 
 
 " I won t hurt her, mamma," she said. " I surely, surely 
 won t hurt her. She has such a pretty kitty ; come and 
 look at it, mamma! " 
 
 " Ffttssss-ss ! " said my mother. " More coming ! Grown 
 ups this time ! " 
 
 " I don t believe they will hurt us," I said, "The little 
 one is such a pretty one." 
 
 " You know nothing about it," said my mother. 
 
 But they did not hurt us. They were as gentle as if they 
 had been kittens themselves. The mother came and bent 
 down by Betty s side and looked at us, too, but they did 
 nothing which even frightened us. And they talked in quite 
 soft voices. 
 
 " You see, she is a wild little pussy," the mother said. 
 " She must have been left behind by the people who lived 
 here before we came, and she has been living all by herself 
 and eating just what she could steal or, perhaps, catching 
 birds. Poor little cat ! And now she is frightened because, 
 evidently, some of her kittens have been stolen from her, and 
 she wants to protect this one." 
 
 " But if I don t frighten her," said Betty, " if I keep com 
 ing to see her and don t hurt her, and if I bring her some 
 milk and some bits of meat, won t she get used to me and let 
 her .kitten come out and play with me after a while ? " 
 
LITTLE BETTY S KITTEN TELLS HER STORY 127 
 
 " Perhaps she will/ 1 said the mother. " Poor pussy, puss, 
 pussy, pretty pussy ! " 
 
 She said it in such a coaxing voice that I quite liked her, 
 and when Betty began to coax, too, she was so sweet and so 
 like a kitten herself that I could scarcely help going a trifle 
 nearer to her, and I found myself saying " Mee-ow " quite 
 softly in answer. 
 
 And from that time we saw her every day ever so many 
 times. She seemed never tired of trying to make friends 
 with us. The first thing in the bright mornings we used to 
 hear her pretty child voice and see her pretty child face. She 
 used to bring saucers of delightful milk to us two or three 
 times a day. And she always was so careful not to frighten 
 us. She would just call us, " Pretty, pretty pussy ! Pretty 
 kitty puss ! " in a voice as soft as silk, and then she would put 
 the saucer of milk near us and go away behind the rose-bush 
 and let us drink in comfort and peace. 
 
 We thought at first that she went back to the house when 
 she set the saucer down, but after a few days, when we were 
 beginning to be rather less afraid, we found out that she just 
 hid behind the rose-bush and peeped at us through the 
 branches. I saw her pink cheeks and big, soft, pansy eyes 
 one day, and I told my mother. 
 
 " Well, she is a well-behaved child person," mother said. 
 " I sometimes begin to think she does not mean any harm." 
 
 I was sure of it. Before I had lapped three saucers of 
 milk I had begun to love her a little. 
 
128 LITTLE BETTY S KITTEN TELLS HER STORY 
 
 A few days later she just put the saucer down near us and 
 stepped softly away, but stood right by the rose-bush, without 
 hiding behind it. And she said, " Pretty pussy, pussy ! " so 
 sweetly, without moving towards us, that even my mother 
 began to have confidence in her. 
 
 About that time I began to think it would be nice to 
 creep out from under the house and get to know her a 
 little better. It looked so pleasant and sunshiny out on 
 the grass, and she looked so sunshiny herself. I did like 
 her voice so, and I did like a ball I used to see her playing 
 with, and when she bent down to look under the porch, 
 and her curls showing, I used to feel as if I should like to 
 jump out and catch at them with my claws. There never 
 was anything as pretty as Betty, or anything which looked 
 as if it might be so nice to play with. 
 
 " I wish you would like me and come out and play, kitty," 
 she used to say to me sometimes. "I do so like kitties! I 
 never hurt kitties ! I ll give you a ball of string." 
 
 There was a fence not far from the house, and it had a 
 sort of ledge on top, and it was a good deal higher than 
 Betty s head, because she was so very little. She was quite 
 a little thing, only four o clock. 
 
 So one morning I crept out from under my porch and 
 jumped on to the top of that fence, and I was there when 
 she came again to peep, and say, " Pretty pussy." When she 
 caught sicrht of me she be^an to lau^h and clap her little 
 
 O > O O J. 
 
 hands, and jump up and down. 
 
LITTLE BETTY S KITTEN TELLS HER STORY 129 
 
 " Oh, there s the kitty," she said. " There s my kitty. It 
 has come out its own self. Kitty, kitty, pretty, pretty kitty ! " 
 
 She ran to me, and stood beneath me, looking up with her 
 eyes shining and her pink cheeks full of dimples. She could 
 not reach me, but she was so happy because I had come 
 out that she could scarcely stand still. She coaxed, and 
 called me pretty names, and stood on her tiptoes, stretching 
 her short arm and dimpled hand to try to see if I would let 
 her touch me. 
 
 11 I won t pull you down, pussy," she said, " I only want 
 to stroke you. Oh, you pretty kitty ! " 
 
 And I looked down at her, and said, " Meeiou," gently, 
 just to tell her that I wasn t very much afraid now, and that 
 when I was a little more used to being outside instead of 
 under the house, perhaps I would play with her. 
 
 " Mee-iaou ! " I said, and I even put out one paw as if 
 I was going to give her a pat, and she danced up and down 
 for joy. 
 
 My dear little Betty! I wish I could see her again. I 
 cannot understand why she should go away when I loved her 
 so much, and when everybody loved her so much. 
 
 Oh, how happy we were when I came down from the 
 fence. I did it in three days. She brought some milk and 
 coaxed me, and then she put it on the grass close to the 
 fence and moved away a few steps, and looked at me with 
 such a pretty, imploring look in her pansy eyes that suddenly 
 I made a little leap down and stood on the grass, and began 
 
130 LITTLE BETTY S KITTEN TELLS HER STORY 
 
 to lap the milk and even to purr ! That was the beginning. 
 From that time we played together always. And oh, what 
 a delightful playmate Betty was! And such a conversa 
 tionalist ! She was not a child who thought you must not 
 talk to a kitten because it could not talk back. She had so 
 many things to tell me and show me. And she showed me 
 ever} T thing, and explained it all, too. She had a playhouse 
 in a box in a nice grassy, shady place, and she told me all 
 about it, and showed me her teacups and her dolls, and we 
 had tea-parties, with bits of real cake and tiny cups with 
 flowers on them. 
 
 " They don t hold much milk, kitty," she said, " but it s a 
 dolls tea-party, so you must pretend, and I ll give you a big 
 saucerful afterwards." 
 
 I pretended as hard as ever I could, and it was a beautiful 
 party, though I did not like the Sunday doll, because she 
 looked proud, and as if she thought kittens were too young. 
 The everyday doll was much nicer, though her hair was 
 a little tufty and she was cracked. 
 
 How Betty did enjoy herself that lovely sunny afternoon 
 we had the first tea-party in the playhouse ! How she 
 laughed and talked, and ran backwards and forwards to her 
 mamma for the cups of milk and bits of cake. I ran after 
 her every time, and she was as happy as a little bird. 
 
 " See how the kitty likes me now, mamma," she said. 
 "Just watch, it runs every time I run. It isn t afraid of me 
 the leastest bit. Isn t it a pretty kitty ? " 
 
I DID NOT LIKE THE SWING AT FIRST 
 
LITTLE BETTY S KITTEN TELLS HER STORY 133 
 
 I never left her when I could help it. She was such fun. 
 She was a child who danced about and played a great deal, 
 and I was a kitten who liked to jump. We ran about and 
 played with balls, and we used to sit together in the swing. 
 I did not like the swing very much at first, but I was so fond 
 of Betty that I learned to enjoy it, because she held me 
 on her knee and talked. She had such a soft, cosey lap and 
 such soft arms that it was delightful to be carried about by 
 her. She was very fond of carrying me about, and she liked 
 me to lay my head on her shoulder so that she could touch 
 me with her cheek. My pretty little Betty, she loved me 
 
 so! 
 
 She used to show me the flowers in the garden and tell 
 me which ones were going to bloom, and what color they 
 would be. We were very much interested in all the flowers, 
 but we cared most about the white rose-bush. It was so big 
 and we were so little that we could sit under it together, and 
 we were always trying to count the little, hard, green buds, 
 though there were so many that we never counted half of 
 them. Betty could only count up to ten, and all we could do 
 was to keep counting ten over and over. 
 
 " These little buds will grow so big soon," she used to 
 say, "that they will burst, and then there will be roses, and 
 more roses, and we will make a little house under here and 
 have a tea-party." 
 
 We were always going to look at that rose-bush, and 
 sometimes, when we were playing and jumping, Betty would 
 
134 LITTLE BETTY S KITTEN TELLS HER STORY 
 
 think she saw a bud beginning to come out, and we would 
 both run. 
 
 I don t know how many days we were so happy together, 
 playing ball, and jumping in the grass, and watching the 
 white rose-bush to see how the buds were growing. Perhaps 
 it was a long time, but I was only a kitten, and I was too 
 frisky to know about time. But I grew faster than the rose 
 buds did. Betty said so. But oh, how happy we were ! If 
 it could only have lasted, perhaps I might never have grown 
 sober, and sat by the fire thinking so much. 
 
 One afternoon we had the most beautiful play we had ever 
 had. We ran after the ball, we swung together, Betty knelt 
 down on the grass and shook her curly hair so that I could 
 catch at it with my paws, we had a tea-party on the box, and 
 when it was over we went to the rose-bush and found a bud 
 beginning to be a rose. It was a splendid afternoon ! 
 
 After we had found the bud beoqnnincr to be a rose we sat 
 
 o o 
 
 down together under the rose-bush. Betty sat on the thick 
 green grass, and I lay comfortably on her soft lap and 
 purred. 
 
 "We have jumped so much that I am a little tired, and 
 I feel hot," she said; "are you tired, kitty? Isn t it nice 
 under the rose-bush, and won t it be a beautiful place for a 
 tea-party when all the white roses are out? Perhaps there 
 will be some out to-morrow. We ll come in the morning 
 and see!" 
 
 Perhaps she was more tired than she knew. I don t 
 
LITTLE BETTY S KITTEN TELLS HER STORY 135 
 
 think she meant to go to sleep, but presently her head 
 began to droop and her eyes to close, and in a little while 
 she sank down softly and was quite gone. 
 
 I left her lap and crept up close to the breast of her little 
 white frock, and curled up in her arm and lay and purred, 
 and looked at her while she slept. I did so like to look at 
 her. She was so pretty and pink and plump, and she had 
 such a lot of soft curls. They were crushed under her warm 
 cheek and scattered on the grass. I played with them a 
 little while she lay there, but I did it very quietly, so that I 
 should not disturb her. 
 
 She was lying under the white rose-bush still asleep, 
 and I was curled up against her breast, watching her, when 
 her mamma came out with her papa, and they found us. 
 
 " Oh, how pretty ! " the mamma said. " What a lovely 
 little picture ! Betty and her kitten asleep under the white 
 rose-bush, and just one rose watching over them. I wonder 
 if Betty saw it before she dropped off. She has been look 
 ing at the buds every day to see if they were beginning to 
 be roses." 
 
 " She looks like a rose herself," said her papa, " but it is 
 a pink rose. How rosy she is!" 
 
 He picked her up in his arms and carried her into the 
 house. She did not waken, and as I was not allowed to sleep 
 with her I could not follow, so I stayed behind under the 
 rose-bush myself a little longer before I went to bed. When 
 I looked at the buds I saw that there were several with 
 
136 LITTLE BETTY S KITTEN TELLS HER STORY 
 
 streaks of white showing through the green, and there were 
 three that I was sure would be roses in the morning, and I 
 knew how happy Betty would be and how she would laugh 
 and dance when she saw them. 
 
 I often hear people saying to each other that they should 
 like to understand the strange way I have of suddenly saying 
 "Meeiaou! Mee-iaou ! " as if I was crying. It seems strange 
 to me that they don t know what it means. I always find 
 myself saying it when I remember that lovely afternoon when 
 we played so happily, and Betty fell asleep under the rose 
 bush, and I thought how pleased she would be when she 
 came out in the- morning. 
 
 I can t help it. Everything was so different from what 
 I had thought it would be. Betty never came out in 
 the morning. Oh, dear ! oh, dear ! she never came out 
 again ! 
 
 I got up early enough myself, and it was a beautiful, 
 beautiful morning. There was dew on the grass and on the 
 flowers, and the sun made it sparkle so that it was lovely 
 to look at. I did so want Betty to see it ! I ran to the 
 white rose-bush, and, sure enough, there were four or five 
 roses such white roses, and with such sparkling drops of 
 dew on them ! 
 
 I ran back to the house and called to Betty, as I always 
 did. I wanted her to come. 
 
 But she did not come ! She was not even at breakfast, 
 eating her bread and milk. I looked for her everywhere 
 
I LEFT HER LAP AND CURLED UP IN HER ARM 
 
LITTLE BETTY S KITTEN TELLS HER STORY 139 
 
 except in her bedroom. Her bedroom door was closed, and 
 I could not get in. 
 
 And though I called and called, nobody seemed to take 
 any notice of me. Somehow, something seemed to be the 
 matter. The house was even quieter than usual, but I felt as 
 if every one was busy and in trouble. I kept asking and ask 
 ing where Betty was, but nobody would answer me. Once I 
 went to her closed bedroom door and called her there, and 
 told her about the white roses, and asked her why she did 
 not come out. But before I had really finished telling her, 
 my feelings were quite hurt by her papa. He came, and 
 spoke to me in a way that was not kind. 
 
 "Go away, kitty," he said, "don t make such a noise; 
 you will disturb Betty." 
 
 I went away waving my tail. I went out into the garden 
 and sat under the rose-bush. As if I could disturb Betty ! 
 As if Betty did not always want me ! She wanted me to 
 sleep with her in her little bed, but her mamma would not 
 let me. 
 
 But ah, how could I believe it! she did not come out 
 the next day, or the next, or even the next. It seemed as if 
 I should go wild. People can ask questions, but a little cat 
 is nothing to anybody unless to some one like Betty. She 
 always understood my questions and answered them. 
 
 In the house they would not answer me. They were 
 always busy and troubled. It did not seem like the same 
 house. Nothing seemed the same. The garden was a 
 
140 LITTLE BETTY S KITTEN TELLS HER STORY 
 
 different place. In the playhouse the Sunday doll and the 
 everyday doll sat and stared at the tea-things we had used 
 that happy afternoon at the party. The Sunday doll sat 
 bolt upright and looked prouder than ever, as if she felt she 
 was being neglected ; but the everyday doll lopped over, as 
 if she had grieved her strength away because Betty did not 
 come. 
 
 I had made up my mind at the first tea-party that I 
 would never speak to the Sunday doll, but one day I was 
 so lonely and helpless that I could not help it. 
 
 "Oh, dear!" I meeiaoued, "oh, dear! do you know 
 anything about Betty? Do you? do you?" 
 
 And that heartless thing only sat up and stared at me, and 
 never answered, though the tears were streaming down my 
 nose. 
 
 What could a poor little cat do ? I looked and looked 
 everywhere, but I could not find her. I went round the house 
 and round the house, and called in every room. But they 
 only drove me out, and said I made too much noise, and 
 never understood a word I said. 
 
 And the white rose-bush it seemed as if it would break 
 my heart. " There will be more roses, and more roses." 
 Betty had said, and every morning it was coming true. I 
 used to go and sit under it, and I had to count ten over and 
 over, there were so many. It was such a great rose-bush 
 that it looked at last like a cloud of snow-white bloom. 
 And Betty had never seen it ! 
 
LITTLE BETTY S KITTEN TELLS HER STORY 141 
 
 "Ah, Betty! Betty! " I used to cry when I had counted so 
 many tens that I was tired. " Oh ! do come and see how 
 beautiful it is, and let us have our tea-party. Oh, white rose 
 bush, where is she ? " They drove me out of the house so 
 many times that I had no courage ; but one morning the 
 white rose-bush was so splendid that I made one desperate 
 effort. I went to the bedroom door and rubbed against it, 
 and called with all my strength : 
 
 " Betty, if you are there ! Betty, if you love me at all, 
 oh, speak to me and tell me what I have done ! The white 
 rose-bush has tens and tens and tens of flowers upon it. It 
 is like snow. Don t you care about it ? Oh, do come out 
 and see ! Betty, Betty ! I am so lonely for you, and I 
 love you so !" 
 
 And the door actually opened, and her mamma stood there 
 looking at me, with great tears rolling down her cheeks. She 
 bent down and took me in her arms and stroked me. 
 
 " Perhaps she will know it," she said in a low, strange 
 voice to some one in the room. She turned and carried me 
 into the bedroom, and I saw that it was Betty s papa she had 
 spoken to. 
 
 The next instant I sprang out of her arms on to the bed. 
 Betty was there my Betty ! 
 
 It seemed as if I felt myself lose my senses. My Betty ! 
 I kissed her and kissed her and kissed her! I rubbed her 
 little hands, her cheeks, her curls. I kissed her and purred 
 and cried. 
 
142 LITTLE BETTY S KITTEN TELLS HER STORY 
 
 t( Betty," said her mamma, " Betty, darling, don t you 
 know your own little kitty ? " 
 
 Why did not she ? Why did she not ? Her cheeks were 
 hot and red, her curls were spread out over the pillow, her 
 pansy eyes did not seem to see me, and her little head moved 
 drearily to and fro. 
 
 Her mamma took me in her arms again, and, as she 
 carried me out of the room, her tears fell on me. 
 
 " She does not know you, kitty," she said. " Poor kitty, 
 you will have to go away." 
 
 #$*&$ 
 
 I cannot understand it. I sit by the fire and think and 
 think, but I cannot understand. She went away after that, 
 and I never saw her again. 
 
 I have never felt like a kitten since that time. 
 
 I went and sat under the white rose-bush all day, and 
 slept there all night. 
 
 The next day there were more roses than ever, and I 
 made up my mind that I would try to be patient and stay 
 there and watch them until Betty came to see. But two or 
 three days after, in the fresh part of the morning, when every 
 thing was loveliest, her mamma came out, walking slowly, 
 straight towards the bush. She stood still a few moments 
 and looked at it, and her tears fell so fast that they were like 
 dew on the white roses as she bent over. She began to 
 
 o 
 
 gather the prettiest buds and blossoms one by one. Her 
 tears were falling all the time, so that I wondered how she 
 
LITTLE BETTY S XI T TEN TELLS HER STORY 143 
 
 could see what she was doing, but she gathered until her 
 arms and her dress were full she gathered every one ! And 
 when the bush was stripped of all but its green leaves, I gave 
 a little heart-broken cry because they were Betty s roses, 
 and she had so loved them when they were only hard little 
 buds and she looked down and saw me, and oh ! her tears 
 fell then, not like dew, but like rain. 
 
 " Betty," she said, " kitty, Betty has gone where where 
 there are roses always." 
 
 And she went slowly back to the house, with all my 
 Betty s white roses heaped up in her arms. She never told 
 me where my Betty had gone no one did. And no more 
 roses came out on the bush. I sat under it and watched, 
 because I hoped it would bloom again. 
 
 I sat there for hours and hours, and at last, while I was 
 waiting, I saw something strange. People had been going 
 in and out of the house all morning. They kept coming, and 
 bringing flowers, and when they went away most of them 
 had tears in their eyes. And in the afternoon there were 
 more than there had been in the morning. I had got so 
 tired that I forgot, and fell asleep. I don t know how long 
 I slept, but I was awakened by hearing many footsteps going 
 slowly down the garden walk towards the gate. 
 
 They all seemed to be people who were going away. 
 And first there walked before them two men who were carry 
 ing a beautiful white and silver box of some kind on their 
 shoulders. They moved very slowly, and their heads were 
 
144 LITTLE BETTY S KITTEN TELLS HER STORY 
 
 bent as they walked. But the white and silver box was 
 beautiful. It shone in the sun, and oh, how my heart beat! 
 all my Betty s snow-white roses were heaped upon and 
 wreathed around it. And I sat under the stripped rose-bush 
 breaking my heart. She had gone away my little Betty 
 and I did not know where ; and all I could think was that this 
 was the very last I should ever see of her ; because I thought 
 there must be something which had belonged to her in the 
 white and silver box under the roses, and because she was 
 gone they were carrying that away, too. 
 
 Oh, my Betty, my Betty ! and I am only a little cat, who 
 sits by the fire and thinks, while nobody seems to care or 
 understand how lonely and puzzled I am, and how I long for 
 some kind person to explain. And I could not bear it, but 
 that we loved each other so much that it comforts me to think 
 of it. And I loved her so much, that when I say to myself 
 over and over again what her mamma said to me, it almost 
 makes me happy again almost, not quite, because I m so 
 lonely. But if it is true, even a little cat who loved her 
 would be happy for her sake. 
 
 Betty has gone where there are always roses. Betty 
 has gone where there are always roses. 
 
HOW FAUNTLEROY OCCURRED 
 
 AND A VERY REAL LITTLE BOY BECAME AN 
 
 IDEAL ONE 
 
 10 
 
HOW FAUNTLEROY OCCURRED 
 
 AND A VERY REAL LITTLE BOY BECAME AN 
 
 IDEAL ONE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 HIS ENTRANCE INTO THE WORLD 
 
 IT has always been rather interesting to me to remem 
 ber that he first presented himself in an impenetrable 
 
 disguise. It was a disguise sufficiently artful to have 
 disarmed the most wary. I, who am not at all a far- 
 sighted person, was completely taken in by him. I saw 
 nothing to warrant in the slightest degree any suspicion 
 that he had descended to earth with practical intentions ; 
 that he furtively cherished plans of making himself into 
 the small hero of a book, the picturesque subject of illus 
 trations, the inspiration of a fashion in costume, the very 
 jeune premier in a play over which people in two conti 
 nents would laugh and cry. 
 
 Perhaps, in periods before he introduced himself to his 
 family that morning of April 5, 1876, in a certain house 
 in Paris, he may have known all this, and laid out his 
 
148 HOW FAUNTLEROY OCCURRED 
 
 little plans with adroitness and deliberation ; but when I 
 first examined him carefully, as he lay on my arm, look 
 ing extremely harmless and extremely fast asleep in his 
 extremely long nightgown, he did not bear at all the 
 aspect of a crafty and designing person ; he only looked 
 warm and comfortable, and quite resigned to his situa 
 tion. 
 
 He had been clever enough to disguise himself as a 
 baby a quite new baby, in violet powder and a bald head 
 and a florid complexion. He had even put on small, in 
 definite features and entirely dispensed with teeth, besides 
 professing inability to speak, a fastidious simplicity of taste 
 in the matter of which limited him to the most innocuous 
 milk diet. But beneath this disguise there he lurked, the 
 small individual who, seven years later apparently quite 
 artlessly and unconsciously presented his smiling, ingen 
 uous little face to the big world, and was smiled back 
 upon by it Little Lord Fauntleroy. He was a quite 
 unromantic little person. Only a prejudiced maternal 
 parent could have picked him out from among seventy- 
 five other babies of the same age ; but somehow we always 
 felt that he had a tiny character of his own, and somehow 
 it was always an amusing little character, and one s natural 
 tendency was to view him in rather a jocular light. 
 
 In the first place, he had always been thought of as a 
 little girl. It was the old story of " Your sister, Betsey 
 Trotwood ; " and when he presented himself, with an un- 
 
HOW FAUNTLEROY OCCURRED 149 
 
 flinching firmness, in the unexpected character of a little 
 boy, serious remonstrance was addressed to him. 
 
 " This habit you have contracted of being a little boy," 
 his mamma said to him, " is most inconvenient. Your 
 name was to be Vivien. Vivien is Early English, and 
 picturesque and full of color ; Vivian, which is a boy s 
 name, I don t think so much of. It sounds like a dandy, 
 and reminds me of Vivian Grey ; but, after the way you 
 have behaved, it is about all I can do for you, because I 
 am too tired of thinking of names to be equal to invent 
 ing anything else." 
 
 If it had not been for his disguise, and his determina 
 tion not to be betrayed into the weakness of speech, it is 
 quite possible he might have responded : 
 
 " If you will trust the matter to me, I will manage to 
 reconcile you to the name, and make you feel there is 
 some consolation for the fact that I preferred to be myself, 
 instead of Vivien. Just give me time." 
 
 We were, of course, obliged to give him time, and he 
 wasted none of it. One of the favorite jokes was that 
 he was endeavoring to ingratiate himself with us, and by a 
 strict attention to business to merit future patronage. We 
 felt it very clever of him to elect to do this quietly ; to 
 occupy the position he had chosen for himself with such 
 unobtrusiveness that no one could possibly object to him. 
 This might really have been the deepest craft. To have 
 proved one s self an individual to whom no one can object 
 
1 5 o HOW FAUNTLEROY OCCURRED 
 
 on any pretext, is really an enormous step in the direction 
 of gaining a foothold. It is quite possible that he realized 
 that the step he had taken had been somewhat premature ; 
 that to introduce himself to a family absorbed in study and 
 foreign travel, and an elder brother aged eighteen months, 
 had not been entirely discreet, and that a general decorum 
 of manner would be required to obliterate the impression 
 that he had been somewhat inconsiderate. 
 
 His elder brother had decided to become a stately 
 beauty, and after some indeterminate months had set up as 
 premonitory symptoms large brown eyes, a deepening golden 
 tinge of hair, and a distinguished and gracefully exclusive de 
 meanor. His opinion of the new-comer was that he was an 
 interloper. I think his private impression was that he was 
 vulgar, also that he was fatuous and unnecessary. He used 
 to stand by his nurse s knee when she held the intruder, and 
 regard her with haughty reflection from under his eyelids. 
 She had hitherto been his sole property, and her defection 
 seemed to him to denote inferior taste and instability of 
 character. On one occasion, after standing by her in dis 
 approving silence for some time, while he alternately looked 
 at her and then at the white bundle on her knee, he waved 
 his hand toward the grate, remarking, with more dignity of 
 demeanor than clearness of enunciation : 
 
 " F ow him in er fire ! " 
 
 We were sure that the new member of the family appre 
 ciated the difficulty of his position. We wondered if he had 
 
FAUNTLEROY S WELCOME INTO THE WORLD: " F OW HIM IN ER FIRE ! 
 
HOW FAUNTLEROY OCCURRED 153 
 
 understood when he had heard us refer to him as the " Little 
 Calamity." After a few days acquaintance with him we 
 were afraid he had, and felt a delicacy in using the term, 
 which we had at first thought rather a good joke. 
 
 Dear Little Calamity, how often we have spoken of 
 that misnomer since ! From his first hour his actions 
 seemed regulated by the peaceful resolve never to be in 
 the way. and never to make any one uncomfortable. 
 
 The unvarying serenity with which he devoted himself 
 to absorbing as much nourishment as his small system 
 would hold, and then sleeping sweetly for hours and most 
 artistically assimilating it, was quite touching. 
 
 " Look at him," his mamma would say. " He is trying 
 to insinuate himself. He intends to prove that he is 
 really an addition, and that no family should be without 
 him. But no family can have him," she burst forth in a 
 very short time, "no family but ours. Nobody is rich 
 enough to buy him. He has made his own price, and it 
 is five hundred thousand million dollars ! " When he had 
 selected her as a parent he had probably observed that 
 she was a susceptible person peculiarly susceptible to 
 the special variety of charms he had to offer. He had 
 analyzed her weakness and his strength, and had known 
 she w r as a fitting victim for his seductive arts. 
 
 o 
 
 The unflinchingness with which he applied himself to 
 the fine art of infant fascination was really worth reflecting 
 upon. At thirty there are numerous methods by which a 
 
1 54 HOW FAUNTLEROY OCCURRED 
 
 person may prove that he is worthy of affection and admira 
 tion ; at three months his charms and virtues are limited to 
 a good digestion, a tendency to somnolence, and an unob 
 trusive temper. The new arrival did not obtrude upon us 
 any ostentatiously novel attractions. He merely applied 
 himself to giving his family the most superior specimens 
 of the meritorious qualities his tender age was entitled to. 
 He never complained of feeling unwell, he was generally 
 asleep, and when he was awake he would lie upon his back 
 without revolt for a much longer period than is sub 
 mitted to usually by persons of his months. And when he 
 did so he invariably wore the air of being engaged in sweet- 
 tempered though profound reflection. 
 
 He had not seemed to regret being born in Paris, but 
 he seemed agreeably impressed by America when he was 
 taken there at the age of six weeks. Feeling himself 
 restored to a land of republican freedom, he began to feel 
 at liberty to unfold his hitherto concealed resources. He 
 began by giving less time to sleep and more to agreeable, 
 though inarticulate, conversation. He began to sit up 
 and look around him with soft, shadowy, and peculiarly 
 thoughtful eyes. The expression the clear little dreamy, 
 reflective expression of his eyes was his most valuable 
 possession. It was a capital. It attracted the attention 
 of his immediate relatives and ensnared them into discuss 
 ing his character and wondering what he was thinking of. 
 
 o o o 
 
 His eyes were brown, and having heard their color re- 
 
HO IV FAUNTLEROY OCCURRED 155 
 
 marked on in a complimentary manner, he, with great 
 artistic presence of mind, stealthily applied himself to 
 developing upon his hitherto bald head golden hair with a 
 curl in it. 
 
 It was his mamma who first discovered this. She was 
 lying upon a grassy slope, playing with him, and holding 
 him up in the sunlight at arm s length ; she saw in the 
 brightness a sort of faint little nimbus of gold crowning him. 
 
 "Oh, the Lammie day!" she cried out. ("Lammie day" 
 is not in the dictionary ; it was a mere maternal inspiration.) 
 " See what he is doing now ! He is putting out a lovely 
 little golden fuzz all over his head, and there is a tiny 
 curl at the ends like little duck-tails ! He has asked 
 somebody or something, perhaps a fairy, what kind of 
 hair I like with brown eyes, and he is doing it on purpose." 
 It seemed not improbable that, on inquiring into her 
 character before selecting her, he had grounded himself 
 thoroughly in the matter of her tastes, and had found that 
 an insistent desire for a certain beauty in the extremely 
 young was one of her weaknesses also. 
 
 From his earliest hours he considered her. He had not 
 anticipated walking alone at nine months old/but in their 
 intimate moments he discovered she had really set her 
 heart upon his doing so. 
 
 " Your brother walked alone beautifully when he was 
 nine months old," she would remark, "and if you wait until 
 you are ten months old I shall feel that you have dishonored 
 
156 HOW FAUNTLEROY OCCURRED 
 
 your family and brought my reddish hair with sorrow to 
 the grave." 
 
 This being the case, he applied himself to making deter 
 mined, if slow, little pilgrimages upon the carpet on his 
 hands and knees. His reward was that the first time he 
 essayed this he was saluted with cries of adulation and joy, 
 notwithstanding the fact that his attempt was rather wab 
 bly in character, and its effect was marred by his losing his 
 balance and rolling over in a somewhat ignominious manner. 
 
 " He is creeping ! " his mamma said. " He has begun 
 to creep ! He is going to walk as soon as Lionel did ! " 
 and everything available in the form of an audience was 
 gathered together in the room, to exult with acclamations 
 over the enrapturing spectacle of a small thing dragging 
 its, brief white frock and soft plump body, accompanied 
 and illumined by a hopeful smile, over a nursery carpet. 
 
 " He is so original ! " his unprejudiced parent exclaimed, 
 with fine discrimination. " He s creeping, of course, and 
 babies have crept before, but he gives it a kind of air, as 
 if he had invented it, and yet was quite modest." 
 
 Her discrimination with regard to his elder brother 
 had been quite as fine. There were even persons who 
 regarded her as being prejudiced by undue affection. It 
 has never been actually proved that the aspirant for pedes 
 trian honors had privately procured a calendar and se 
 creted it for daily reference as to the passage of time, but 
 if this were not the case, it was really by a rather singular 
 
HOW FAUNTLEROY OCCURRED 157 
 
 coincidence that the day before his ninth month was 
 completed he arrested his creeping over the carpet, and, 
 dragging himself up by a chair to a standing position, cov 
 ered himself with glory by staggering, flushed, uncertain, 
 but triumphant, at least six steps across the floor unaided 
 and alone. 
 
 He was snatched up and kissed until he was breathless. 
 He was ruffled and tumbled with delightful little shakes 
 and ecstatic little hugs. He bore it all with the modest 
 composure of a conqueror, who did not deign trivial airs and 
 graces. His cheeks were warm and pink ; he made no 
 remark whatever, but there was in his eyes a soft, coy little 
 smile which only a person of his Machiavellian depth of 
 character could have accomplished. By that time, by adroit 
 machinations and an unbounded knowledge of human weak 
 ness, he had assured his position in the respectable family 
 of which he had chosen to become a member. It would 
 have been impossible to oust him, or to work upon the 
 feelings of his relatives in any such manner as would have 
 induced them to listen for a moment to any animadversions 
 upon his conduct. His eyelashes, his indefinite features, 
 his totter, his smile, were considered to become matters of 
 the most thrilling national importance. On the magnificent 
 occasion when he first decided to follow his mamma up 
 stairs, and consequently applied himself to the rather pro 
 longed and serious athletic task of creeping up step by step 
 on his dusty little hands and soft knees, and electrifying 
 
158 HOW FAUNTLEROY OCCURRED 
 
 her by confronting her, when she turned and saw him, with 
 a sweetly smiling and ardent little upturned face on that 
 occasion it seemed really that it could only be by the most 
 remarkable oversight that there were not columns of edito 
 rials on the subject in the London Times. 
 
 " They wrote about the passing of bills in Parliament," 
 his parent remarked, " and about wars and royal marriages ; 
 why don t they touch on things of really vital importance ?" 
 It was at this period of existence that his papa was fre 
 quently distracted in moments of deep absorption in scien 
 tific subjects, by being implored to leave his essay upon 
 astigmatism and revert his attention upon his offspring. 
 
 " Don t waste him! "he was besought. "He could not 
 possibly keep up this degree of fascination always. He 
 might grow out of it, and then just think how you would feel 
 when you reflected that you had read medical books when 
 you might have been watching him pretending to be looking 
 at pictures. He ought to be economized every moment ! " 
 
 But the most charming feature of his character was that 
 his knowledge of the possession of glittering accomplish 
 ments, which were innumerable, never betrayed him into for 
 getting that his attitude toward the entire world was one of 
 the most perfect good-fellowship. When he was spoken to, 
 he smiled ; when he was kissed, even by unprepossessingly 
 familiar persons, he always comported himself with graceful 
 self-control and dignity. The trying fact, which I am sure 
 was more apparent to no one than to himself, that there were 
 
HOW FAUNTLEROY OCCURRED 159 
 
 individuals whose idea of entertaining him was to make bla 
 tant idiots of themselves, was never resented by him openly. 
 When they uttered strange sounds, and poked his soft 
 cheeks, or tumbled him about in an unseemly manner, it 
 was his habit to gaze at them with deep but not dis 
 dainful curiosity and interest, as if he were trying to be 
 just toward them and explain to himself their point of view. 
 
 " It really must be rather fatiguing to him not to be able 
 to express himself," was his mamma s opinion. " He has 
 evidently so many opinions in reserve." 
 
 He was so softly plump, he was so sweet-tempered, he 
 was so pretty ! One forgot all about his Early English sister 
 Vivien. It was as if she had never been contemplated for 
 a moment. The word "calamity" was artfully avoided in 
 conversation. One felt unworthy, and rather blushed if one 
 caught sight of it in literature. When he invented a special 
 little habit of cuddling up to his mamma in a warm, small 
 heap, and in his sleep making for her a heavenly downy 
 necklace of both his arms, with his diminutive palms locked 
 together to hold her prisoner through the night, she began 
 to feel it quite possible that his enslaving effect upon her 
 might be such as to enfeeble an intellect even of the most 
 robust. But she knew him by this time well enough to 
 realize that it would be useless to rebel, and that she might 
 as well succumb. 
 
 She succumbed more and more as the days went by. 
 But she also observed that everybody else succumbed. 
 
160 HOW FAUNTLEROY OCCURRED 
 
 While making the most of his mental charms and graces he 
 gave a great deal of attention to his physical attractions. It 
 was believed that he concentrated his attention upon his 
 hair. He encouraged it to develop from the golden fuzz 
 into a golden silk, from the tiny duck-tails to shining rings, 
 from rings to a waving aureole, from the aureole to an 
 entrancing mop of yellow, which tumbled over his forehead 
 and gave his up-looking eyes a prettiness of expression. 
 
 And how like him it was to make a point of never 
 objecting to have this wayward, though lovely, growth 
 brushed ! What a supplice he might have made of the 
 ceremony for his family if he had resented it and rebelled ! 
 But, on the contrary, it was believed that he seized upon 
 the opportunity offered by it to gild the refined gold of his 
 amiability of disposition, as it were. Speaking as a person 
 with some knowledge of the habits of the extremely young, 
 I should say that there may be numbers of maternal parents 
 who will scarcely believe that one of the most enchanting 
 hours of the day was a certain time in the morning, when he 
 leaned against his mamma s knee and gave himself up to 
 engaging conversation while his tangles were being taken 
 out. He made not the slightest objection to being curled 
 and brushed and burnished up and made magnificent. His 
 soft, plump body rested confidingly against the supporting 
 knee, and while the function proceeded he devoted himself 
 to agreeable remark and analytical observation. 
 
 There was an expression of countenance it was his 
 
HOW FAUNTLEROY OCCURRED 161 
 
 habit to wear at such times which was really a matter 
 of the finest art. It combined philosophic patience, genial 
 leniency, and a sweet determination to make the very best 
 of a thing, which was really beautiful to behold. It was at 
 these times that a series of nursery romances, known as 
 " The Hair-Curling Series," was invented and related. 
 They were notable chiefly for good, strong, dramatic color 
 ing, and their point w r as the illustration of the useful moral 
 that little boys with a great deal of beautiful curly hair 
 are naturally rewarded if they are always good when it 
 is brushed by delightful adventures, such as being played 
 with by fairies and made friends with by interesting wild 
 animals, whose ravenous propensities are softened to the 
 most affectionate mildness by the sight of such high-minded- 
 ness in tender youth. There was one story, known as 
 "The Good Wolf," which lasted for months, and was a 
 never-ending source of delight, as it rejoiced in features 
 which could be varied to adapt themselves to any circum 
 stance or change of taste in playthings. It was the lauda 
 ble habit of the good wolf to give presents to little boys 
 who were deserving, besides taking them delightful rides in 
 a little sleigh, and one could vary the gifts and excursions 
 to an unlimited extent. Another, known as " The Mournful 
 Story of Benny," was a fearful warning, but ended happily, 
 and as it was not of a personal nature was not disapproved 
 of, and was listened to with respectful and sympathizing 
 interest, though " The Good Wolf " was preferred. 
 
1 62 HOW FAUNTLEROY OCCURRED 
 
 A delightfully intelligent little expression and an occa 
 sional dear little gurgling laugh when the best points were 
 made, convinced me that the point of view of the listener 
 was an appreciation of the humor between the lines quite 
 as clear, in a four-year-old way, as that of the relater of the 
 incidents. He revelled in the good wolf and was concerned 
 by the misfortunes of Benny, who had brought tragedy 
 upon himself by being so lost to all sense of virtue as to 
 cut off his curls, but he knew they were highly colored 
 figures, and part of a subtile and delightful joke. 
 
 But long before this he had learned to talk, and it was 
 then that we were introduced to the treasures of his 
 mind. 
 
 What was the queer little charm which made every one 
 like him so much, which made every one smile when he 
 looked at them, which made every one listen when he 
 spoke, which made arms quite involuntarily close around 
 his small body when he came within reach ? 
 
 The person who made the closest study of his character 
 devoted five or six years to it before she was quite sure 
 what this charm consisted in. Then she decided that it 
 was formed of a combination of fortunate characteristics 
 which might have lost all their value of fascination but 
 for their being illumined by the warmth and brightness 
 of a purely kind little heart, full of friendliness to the 
 whole world. 
 
 He was pretty, but many little boys were pretty; he 
 
HOW FAUNTLEROY OCCURRED 163 
 
 was quaint and amusing, but so are many scores. The dif 
 ference between this one tiny individuality and others was 
 that he seemed to have been born without sense of the 
 existence of any barrier between his own innocent heart 
 and any other. 
 
 I think it had never occurred to him that any one could 
 possibly be unfriendly or unloving to him. He was a per 
 fectly human little thing, not a young cherub, but a rational 
 baby, who made his frocks exceedingly dirty, and rejoiced 
 sweetly in the making of mud pies. But, somehow, his 
 radiant smile of belief in one s sympathy, even with his mud 
 pies, minimized the trouble of contending with the earthly 
 features of him. 
 
 His opinion evidently was that the world was made of 
 people who loved him and smiled if they saw him, of things 
 one could play with and stories one could listen to, and of 
 friends and relations who were always ready to join in the 
 play and tell the stories. He went peacefully to the curl- 
 brushing ordeal, perhaps because of this confiding sureness 
 that any hand that dealt with him would touch him tenderly. 
 He never doubted it. 
 
 One morning, before he was three years old, he trotted 
 into the dining-room with a beautifully preoccupied expres 
 sion, evidently on business thoughts intent. The breakfast 
 was over, but his mamma was still sitting at the table, 
 reading. 
 
 She heard the tiny pattering of feet coming down the 
 
1 6 4 HOW FAUNTLEROY OCCURRED 
 
 hall before he entered. She had thought him with his 
 nurse, but he appeared to be returning from some unusual 
 expedition to the front door, which, as it was a warm, early 
 summer morning, stood open. 
 
 She was always curious about his mental processes, and 
 so, when he trotted to the table with his absorbed air, and 
 stood upon his tiptoes, making serious efforts to gain pos 
 session of a long loaf of French bread, she regarded him 
 with interest he was so little, and the roll of bread was 
 so long, and his intentions to do something practical with 
 it were so evident. Somehow, one of his allurements was 
 that he was always funny, and he was so purely because 
 his small point of view was always so innocently serious. 
 
 "What does mamma s baby want?" she asked. He 
 looked at her with an air of sweet good faith, and 
 secured the bread, tucking it in all its dignity of propor 
 tion under the very shortest possible arm. 
 
 " Lacly," he said, "lady, font door want b ead," and 
 he trotted off, with a simple security in the sense of doing 
 the right and only admissible thing, which it was repose 
 ful to behold. 
 
 His mamma left her book hurriedly and trotted after 
 him. Such a quaint baby figure he was, with the long 
 French roll under his arm ! And he headed straight for 
 the front door. 
 
 Standing upon the top step was an exceedingly dilapi 
 dated and disreputable little negro girl with an exceed- 
 

HOW FAUNTLEROY OCCURRED 167 
 
 ingly dirty and broken basket on her arm. This basket 
 was intended to contain such scraps of food as she might 
 beg for. She was grinning a little, and at the same time 
 looking a little anxious, as the baby came toddling to 
 her, the sun on his short curls, the loaf under his short 
 arm. 
 
 He dropped the loaf into her basket with sweet 
 friendliness. 
 
 " B ead, lady," he said. And as she scurried away he 
 turned to smile at his approaching mamma with the con 
 fidence of a two-year-old angel. 
 
 "Lady, b ead," he remarked succinctly, and the situa 
 tion was explained. 
 
 The dirty little colored girl was a human thing in 
 petticoats, consequently she was a lady. His tender mind 
 saw no other conclusion to be arrived at. She had 
 expressed a desire for bread. On his mamma s breakfast 
 table there was a beautiful long loaf. Of course it must 
 be given to her. The question of demand and supply 
 was so easily settled ; so he trotted after the bread. The 
 mere circumstances of short legs and short arms did not 
 deter a spirit like his. 
 
 And it was this simple and unquestioning point of view 
 which made him adorable. 
 
i68 HOW FAUNTLEROY OCCURRED 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 IN WHITE FROCK AND SASH 
 
 IN the drawing-room, in full war-paint of white frock and 
 big sash, he was the spirit of innocent and friendly hos 
 pitality, in the nursery he was a brilliant entertainment, 
 below stairs he was the admiration and delight of the domes 
 tics. The sweet temper which prompted him to endeavor to 
 sustain agreeable conversation with the guest who admired 
 him led him, also, to enter into friendly converse with the 
 casual market-man at the back door, and to entertain with 
 lively anecdote and sparkling repartee the extremely stout 
 colored cook in the kitchen. He endeavored to assist her in 
 the performance of her more arduous culinary duties, and 
 by his sympathy and interest sustained her in many trying 
 moments. When he was visiting her department chuckles 
 and giggles might be heard issuing from the kitchen when 
 the door was opened. Those who heard them always knew 
 that they were excited by the moral or social observations 
 or affectionate advice and solace of the young but dis 
 tinguished guest. 
 
 "Me an Carrie made that pudding," he would kindly 
 
HO IV FAUNTLEROY OCCURRED 169 
 
 explain, at dinner. " It s a very good pudding. Carrie s 
 such a nice cook. She lets me help her." 
 
 And his dimples would express such felicity, and his eyes 
 beam from under his tumbling love-locks with such pleasure, 
 at his confidence in the inevitable rapture of his parents at 
 the announcement of his active usefulness, that no one pos 
 sessed sufficient strength of mind to correct the grammati 
 cal structure of his remarks. 
 
 There is a picture not one of Mr. Birch s which I 
 think will always remain with me. It is ten years since 
 I saw it, but I see it still. It is the quaint one of a good- 
 looking, stout, colored woman climbing slowly up a back 
 staircase with a sturdy little fellow on her back, his legs 
 astride her spacious waist, his arms clasped round her neck, 
 his lovely mop of yellow hair tumbling over her shoulder, 
 upon which his cheek affectionately and comfortably rests. 
 
 It does not come within the province of cooks to toil 
 up-stairs with little boys on their backs, especially when the 
 little boys have stout little legs of their own, and are old 
 enough to wear Jersey suits and warlike scarfs of red, but in 
 this case the carrying up-stairs was an agreeable ceremony, 
 partly jocular and wholly affectionate, engaged in by two 
 confidants, and the bearer enjoyed it as much as did her 
 luxurious burden. 
 
 " We re friends, you know," he used to say. " Carrie s 
 my friend, and Dan s my friend. Carrie s such a kind cook, 
 and Dan s such a nice waiter." 
 
i yo HOW FAUNTLEROY OCCURRED 
 
 That was the whole situation in a nutshell. They were 
 his friends, and they formed together a mutual admiration 
 society. 
 
 His conversation with them we knew was enriched by 
 gems of valuable and entertaining information. Among his 
 charms was his desire to acquire information, and the amia 
 ble readiness with which he imparted it to his acquaintances. 
 We gathered that while assisting in the making of pudding 
 he was lavish in the bestowal of useful knowledge. Inti 
 mate association and converse with him had revealed to 
 his mamma that there was no historical, geographical, or 
 scientific fact which might not be impressed upon him in 
 story form, and fill him with rapture. Monsoons and 
 typhoons, and the crossing of the Great Desert on camels, 
 he found absorbing ; the adventures of Romulus and Remus, 
 and their good wolf, and the founding of Rome, held him 
 spellbound. He found the vestal virgins and their task of 
 keeping up the sacred fires in the temple sufficiently inter 
 esting to be made into a species of dramatic entertainment 
 during his third year. It was his habit to creep out of his 
 crib very early in the morning, and entertain himself agree 
 ably in the nursery until other people got up. One morning 
 his mamma, lying in her room, which opened into the 
 nursery, heard a suspicious sound of unlawful poking at 
 the fire. 
 
 " Vivvie," she said, " is that you ? " 
 
 The poking ceased, but there was no reply. Silence 
 
HOW FAUNTLEROY OCCURRED 171 
 
 reigned for a few moments, and then the sound was heard 
 again. 
 
 " Vivian," said his anxious parent, " you are not allowed 
 to touch the fire." 
 
 Small, soft feet came pattering hurriedly into the room ; 
 round the footboard of the bed a ruffled head and seriously 
 expostulatory little countenance appeared. 
 
 " Don t you know," he said, with an air of lenient re 
 monstrance, "don t you know I s a westal wirgin?" 
 
 It would be impossible to explain him without relating 
 anecdotes. Is there not an illustration of the politeness of 
 his demeanor and the grace of his infant manners in the 
 reply renowned in his history, made at the age of four, 
 when his mamma was endeavoring to explain some inter 
 esting point in connection with the structure of his small, 
 plump body? It was his habit to ask so many searching 
 questions that it was necessary for his immediate relatives 
 to endeavor to render their minds compact masses of 
 valuable facts. But on this occasion his inquiries had 
 led him into such unknown depths as were beyond him 
 for the moment only for the moment, of course. He 
 listened to the statement made, his usual engaging expres 
 sion of delighted interest gradually becoming tinged with 
 polite doubtfulness. When the effort at explanation was 
 at an end he laid his hand upon his mamma s knee with 
 apologetic but firm gentleness. 
 
 " Well, you see," he said, "of course you know I believe 
 
1 72 HOW FAUNTLEROY OCCURRED 
 
 you, dearest " (the most considerate stress was laid upon 
 the " believe"), " but, ascuse me," with infinite delicacy, 
 " asciise me, I do not think it is true." 
 
 The tender premonitory assurance that his confidence 
 was unimpaired, even though he was staggered by the 
 statement made, was so affectionately characteristic of him, 
 and the apologetic grace of the " ascuse me, dearest," was 
 all his own. 
 
 There might be little boys who were oblivious of, and 
 indifferent to, the attractions of simooms, who saw no charm 
 in the interior arrangements of camels, and were indifferent 
 to the strata of the earth, but in his enterprising mind such 
 subjects wakened the liveliest interest, and a little habit 
 he had, of suddenly startling his family by revealing to 
 them the wealth of his store of knowledge, by making 
 casual remarks, was at once instructive and enlivening. 
 
 " A camel has ever so many stomachs," he might sweetly 
 announce, while sitting in his high chair and devoting 
 himself to his breakfast, the statement appearing to evolve 
 itself from dreamy reflection. " It fills them with water. 
 Then it goes across the desert and carries things. Then 
 it isn t thirsty." 
 
 He was extremely pleased with the camel, and was 
 most exhaustive in his explanations of him. It was not 
 unlikely that Carrie and Dan might have passed a strict 
 examination on the subject of incidents connected with 
 the crossing of the Great Desert. He also found his 
 
HOW FAUNTLEROY OCCURRED 173 
 
 bones interesting, and was most searching in his inquiries 
 as to the circulation of his blood. But he had been 
 charmed with his bones from his first extremely early 
 acquaintance with them, as witness an incident of his third 
 year, which is among the most cherished by his family of 
 their recollections of him. 
 
 He sat upon his mamma s knee before the nursery 
 fire, a small, round, delightful thing, asking questions. He 
 had opened up the subject of his bones by discovering 
 that his short, plump arm seemed built upon something 
 solid, which he felt at once necessary to investigate. 
 
 "It is a little bone," his mamma said, "and there is 
 one in your other arm, and one in each of your legs. 
 Do you know," giving him a caressing little shake, "if I 
 could see under all the fat on your little body I should 
 find a tiny, weenty skeleton ? " 
 
 He looked up enraptured. His dimples had a power 
 of expressing delight never equalled by any other baby s 
 dimples. His eyes and his very curls themselves seemed 
 somehow to have something to do with it. 
 
 "If you did," he said, "if you did, woiild you give it 
 to me to play with ? " 
 
 He was a very fortunate small person in the fact that 
 nature had been extremely good to him in the matter of 
 combining his mental sweetness and quaintness with the 
 great .charm of physical picturesqueness. All his little 
 attitudes and movements were picturesque. When he 
 
i 7 4 HOW FAUNTLEROY OCCURRED 
 
 stood before one to listen he fell unconsciously into some 
 quaint attitude ; when he talked he became ingenuously 
 dramatic ; when he sat down to converse he mentally 
 made a droll or delightful and graceful little picture of 
 himself. His childish body was as expressive as his glow 
 ing little face. Any memory of him is always accom 
 panied by a distinct recollection of the expression of his 
 face, and some queer or pretty position which seemed to be 
 part of his mental attitude. When he wore frocks his habit 
 of standing with his hands clasped behind his back in the 
 region of a big sash, and his trick of sitting down with a 
 hand upon each of the plump knees a brevity of skirt 
 disclosed, were things to be remembered ; when he was 
 inserted into Jersey suits and velvet doublet and knicker 
 bockers, his manly little fashion of standing hands upon 
 hips, and sitting in delicious, all unconsciously aesthetic, poses 
 were positively features of his character. What no dancing- 
 master could have taught him, his graceful childish body 
 fell into with entire naturalness, merely because he was a 
 picturesque small person in both body and mind. 
 
 Could one ever forget him as he appeared one day at 
 the seaside, when coming up from the beach with his brief 
 trousers rolled up to his stalwart little thighs? He stood 
 upon the piazza, spade and bucket in hand, looking with 
 deep, sympathetic interest at a male visitor who was on 
 the point of leaving the house. This visitor was a man 
 who had recently lost his wife suddenly. He was a near 
 
HOW FAUNLTEROY OCCURRED 177 
 
 relative of a guest in the house, and the young friend of 
 all the world had possibly heard his bereavement discussed. 
 But at six years old it is not the custom of small boys to 
 concern themselves about such events. It seems that this 
 one did, however, though the caller was not one of his 
 intimates. He stood apart for a few moments, looking at 
 him with a tenderly reflective countenance. His mamma, 
 seeing his absorption, privately wondered what he was 
 thinking of. But presently he transferred both spade and 
 bucket to one hand, and came forward, holding out the 
 other. I do not think anything could have been quainter 
 and more sweet than the kind little face which uplifted 
 itself to the parting guest. 
 
 " Mr. Wenham," he said, " I m very sorry for you, Mr. 
 Wenham, about your wife being dead. I m very sorry 
 for you. I know how you must miss her." 
 
 Even the sympathy of six years old does not go for 
 nothing. There was a slight moisture in Mr. Wenham s 
 eyes as he shook the small, sandy hand, and his voice was 
 not quite steady as he answered, "Thank you, Vivvie, thank 
 you." 
 
 It was when he was spending the summer at this place 
 that he made the acquaintance of the young lady whose 
 pony he regarded as a model of equine strength and beauty. 
 It was the tiniest possible pony, whose duty it was to draw a 
 small phaeton containing a small girl and her governess. 
 But I was told it was a fine sight to behold the blooming 
 
 12 
 
1 78 HOW FAUNTLEROY OCCURRED 
 
 little gentleman caller standing before this stately equipage, 
 his hands on his hips, his head upon one side, regard 
 ing the steed with quite the experienced air of an aged 
 jockey. 
 
 That s a fine horse," he said. " You see, it s got 
 plenty of muscle. What I like is a horse with plenty of 
 muscle." 
 
 And when we drove away from the cottage at the end 
 of the summer, I myself perhaps a shade saddened, as one 
 often is by the thought that the days of sunshine and roses 
 are over, he put his small hand in mine and looked up at 
 me wistfully. 
 
 "We liked that little house, didn t we, dearest?" he 
 said. " We will always like it, won t we ? " 
 
 " Do you know my friend Mrs. Wilkins ? " he inquired 
 one day, when he was still small enough to wear white 
 frocks, and not old enough to extend his explorations 
 further than the part of the quiet street opposite the house 
 he lived in. 
 
 "And who is your friend Mrs. Wilkins?" his mamma 
 inquired. 
 
 " She is a very nice lady that saw me through her 
 window when I was playing on the pavement, and we 
 talked to each other, and she asked me to come into her 
 house. She s such a kind lady, and she paints beautiful 
 cups and saucers. She s my friend. And her cook is a 
 nice lady too. She lives in the basemen and she talks to 
 
HOW FAUNTLEROY OCCURRED 179 
 
 me through the window. She likes little boys. I have 
 two friends in that house." 
 
 " My friend Mrs. Wilkins " became one of his cherished 
 intimates. His visits to her were frequent and prolonged. 
 
 " I ve just been to see my friend Mrs. Wilkins," he 
 would say ; or, " My friend Mrs. Wilkins s husband is very 
 kind to me. We go to his store, and he gives me oranges." 
 
 It is not improbable that he also painted china during 
 his calls upon his friend Mrs. Wilkins. It is certain that, 
 if he did not otherwise assist, his attitude was that of an 
 enthusiastic admirer of the art. That his conversation with 
 the lady embraced many subjects, we have evidence in an 
 anecdote frequently related with great glee by those to 
 whom the incident was reported. I myself was not present 
 during the ingenuous summing up of the charm of social 
 life, but I have always mentally seen him taking his part in 
 the scene in one of his celebrated conversational attitudes, 
 in which he usually sat holding his plump knee in a man 
 ner which somehow seemed to express deep, speculative 
 thought. 
 
 o 
 
 " Are you in society, Mrs. Wilkins ? " he inquired, ingen 
 uously. 
 
 " What is being in society, Vivvie ? " Mrs. Wilkins 
 replied, probably with the intention of drawing forth his 
 views. 
 
 " It s well there are a great many carriages, you 
 know, and a great many ladies come to see you. And they 
 
i8o HOW FAUNTLEROY OCCURRED 
 
 say, How are you, Mrs. Burnett? So glad to find you 
 at home. Gabble, gabble, gabble, gabble. Good morning ! 
 And they go away. That s it." 
 
 I am not quite sure that I repeat the exact phrasing, but 
 the idea is intact, and the point which inspired the hearers 
 with such keen joy was that he had absolutely no intention 
 of making an unfriendly criticism. He was merely painting 
 an impressionist s picture. On his own part he was fond of 
 society. It delighted him to be allowed to come into the 
 drawing-room on the days when his mamma was "at home." 
 This function impressed him as an agreeable festivity. As 
 he listened to the " gabble, gabble, gabble," he beamed with 
 friendly interest. He admired the ladies, and regarded them 
 as beautiful and amiable. It was his pleasure to follow the 
 departing ones into the hall and render them gallant assist 
 ance with their wraps. 
 
 " I like ladies, dearest," he would say. " They are so 
 pretty." 
 
 At what age he became strongly imbued with the 
 stanchest Republican principles, it would be difficult to say. 
 He was an unflinching Republican. 
 
 " My dearest Mamma," he wrote me in one of the 
 splendid epistolary efforts of his earliest years, " I am sorry 
 that I have not had time to write to you before. I 
 have been so occupied with the presidential election. 
 The boys in my school knock me clown and jump on 
 me because they want me to go Democrat. But I am 
 
ARE YOU IN SOCIETY, MRS. WILKINS ? " 
 
HOW FAUNTLEROY OCCURRED 183 
 
 still a strong Republican. I send you a great many hugs 
 and kisses. 
 
 4< Your obedient and humble son and servant. 
 
 " VIVIAN." 
 
 He was given to inventing picturesque terminations 
 to his letters, and he seemed particularly pleased with the 
 idea of being my humble or obedient son and servant. The 
 picture the letter brought to my mind of a flushed and 
 tumbled but stanch little Republican engaged in a sort of 
 kindergarten political tussle with equally flushed and tumbled 
 little Democrats wore an extremely American aspect. Fig 
 uratively speaking, he plunged into the thick of the elec 
 tioneering fray. He engaged in political argument upon 
 all available occasions. Fortunately for his peace of mind, 
 Carrie and Dan favored the Republican party. Dan took 
 him to see Republican torchlight processions, and held him 
 upon his shoulders while he waved his small hat, his hair 
 flying about his glowing face while he shouted himself hoarse. 
 No unworthy party cry of " Rah for Hancock!" went un 
 answered by the clarion response. At the sound of such a 
 cry in the street the nursery windows flew open with a bang, 
 and two ecstatic Republicans (himself and brother) almost pre 
 cipitated themselves into space, shouting " Rah for Garfield ! " 
 Without such precautions he felt his party would be lost. 
 I think he was six when he discovered that he was a sup 
 porter of the movement in favor of female suffrage. It 
 was rather a surprise to us when this revealed itself, but 
 
1 84 HOW FAUNTLEROY OCCURRED 
 
 his reasons were of such a serious and definite nature that 
 they were arguments not to be refuted. 
 
 When he gave them he was leaning against a window- 
 ledge in a room in a seaside home, his hands in his red sash, 
 his countenance charming with animation. 
 
 " I believe they ought to be allowed to vote if they like 
 it," he said, " cause what should we do if there were no 
 ladies ? Nobody would have any mothers or any wives." 
 
 " That is true," his maternal audience encouraged him by 
 saying. "The situation would be serious." 
 
 " And nobody could grow up," he proceeded. " When 
 any one s a baby, you know, he hasn t any teeth, and he 
 can t eat bread and things. And if there were no ladies to 
 take care of him when he was very first born he d die. I 
 think people ought to let them vote if they want to." 
 
 This really seemed so to go to the root of things that 
 the question appeared disposed of. 
 
 One laughed and laughed at him. All his prettiness was 
 quaint, and so innocent that its unconsciousness made one 
 smile. Only sometimes quite often while one was smil 
 ing one was queerly touched and stirred. 
 
 What a picture of a beautiful, brave little spirit, aflame 
 with young fervor, he was the day I went into a room 
 and found him reading for the first time in his brief life 
 the story of the American Revolution ! 
 
 He sat in a large chair, one short leg tucked under him, 
 a big book on his knee, his love-locks tumbling over his 
 
HO IV FAUNTLEROY OCCURRED 185 
 
 ecstasied child face. He looked up, glowing, when I entered. 
 His cheeks were red, his eyes were beautiful. 
 
 " Dearest," he said, " dearest, listen. Here s a brave man, 
 here s a brave man ! This is what he says, * Give me liberty 
 or give me death ! It was somehow so movingly incon 
 gruous this " pretty page with dimpled chin " stirred so 
 valiantly by his " liberty or death." I kissed his golden 
 thatch, laughing and patting it, but a little lump was in 
 my throat. 
 
 Where did he learn faithful and tender heart to be 
 such a lover as he was ? Surely no woman ever had such 
 a lover before ! What taught him to pay such adorable 
 childish court, and to bring the first-fruits of every de 
 light to lay upon one shrine? In the small garden where 
 he played a toddling thing, accumulating stains of grass 
 and earth in truly human fashion on his brief white frock 
 the spring scattered sparsely a few blue violets. How he 
 applied himself to searching for them, to gather them with 
 pretty laboriousness until he had collected a small, warm 
 handful, somewhat dilapidated before it was large enough 
 to be brought up-stairs in the form of a princely floral 
 gift! 
 
 It is nearly fourteen years since they were first laid at 
 my feet these darling little grubby handfuls of exhausted 
 violets but I can hear yet the sound of the small feet 
 climbing the staircase, stoutly but carefully, the exultant 
 voice shouting at intervals all the way up from the first 
 
1 86 HOW FAUNTLEROY OCCURRED 
 
 flight: "Sweet dearest! Sweet de-ar-est ! I got somefin 
 for you ! Please le me in." 
 
 So many beautiful names had been tried by turns by 
 himself and brother, but they found " sweetest " and " sweet 
 dearest" the most satisfactory. Finally they decided upon 
 "dearest" as combining and implying the sentiment they 
 were inspired by. 
 
 There was in a certain sacred workroom at the top of 
 the house a receptacle known as the "treasure drawer." It 
 was always full of wonderful things, rich gifts brought care 
 fully and with lavish generosity from the grass in the back 
 yard, from dust heaps, from the street, from anywhere ; bits 
 of glass or pebble, gorgeous advertising cards, queerly 
 shaped twigs or bits of wood, pictures out of papers, small, 
 queer toys, possessing some charm which might make them 
 valuable to an appreciative maternal relative. And just 
 before they were presented I always heard the small feet 
 on the stairs, the knock on the door, and the delightful, con 
 fiding voice outside : " Please, may I come in? I ve brought 
 a treasure for you, dearest." 
 
 We always spoke of them as " treasures." They seemed 
 so beautiful and valuable to the donor, that love brought 
 them at once as a gift to love, and the recipient saw them 
 with his eyes. 
 
 The very first bud which appeared on the old-fashioned 
 rose-bushes at the back of the house was watched for and 
 discovered when it was a tiny, hard, green thing. 
 
HO IV FAUNTLEROY OCCURRED 187 
 
 There s a bud," he would say, and I m watching till 
 it is a rose, so that I can give it to you." 
 
 There is nothing so loving as a child who is loved. What 
 valuable assistance he rendered in the matter of toilet! 
 How charmed he was with any pretty new thing! How 
 delighted to be allowed to put on slippers or take them off, 
 to stand by the dressing-table and hand pins, and give the 
 benefit of his admiring advice. And how adorable it was 
 to come home late from a party and find the pincushion 
 adorned with a love-letter, scrawled boldly in lead pencil and 
 secured by a long pin. In conjunction with his brother 
 who was the troubadour of love from his infancy, and who 
 has a story of his own he invented the most delightful 
 surprises for those late returns. Sometimes pieces of candy 
 wrapped in paper awaited the arrival, sometimes billets doux, 
 sometimes singular rhymes courageously entitled " A Val 
 entine." The following was the fine flower of all : 
 
 " MY MAMA 
 " O my swetest little mama, 
 
 Sweteness that can ne er be told 
 
 Dwells all decked in glory behind thy bosom folds. 
 
 In love and tender sweteness 
 
 Thy heart has no compare 
 
 And as through the path of sorrow 
 
 Thy heart goes wangering on 
 
 Thow always lend a helping hand 
 
 To all who are alone. 
 
 " ESEX ESSEX." 
 ii 
 
1 88 HO IV FAUNTLEROY OCCURRED 
 
 " What does Essex mean, darling?" I asked. 
 
 " I don t know what it means," he said, sweetly, " and I 
 didn t spell it right at first. But, you know, when any one 
 writes poetry they nearly always put another name at the 
 end, and I thought Essex would do." He was so desirous 
 of making it complete ! 
 
HOW FAUNTLEROY OCCURRED 189 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 IN BOYHOOD AND NOW 
 
 AS a travelling companion what a success he was ! How 
 he made friends in the train, at railway stations, on 
 steamers ! How, if one lost sight of him for a 
 moment, he invariably reappeared full of delight, with the 
 information that he had " found a friend." 
 
 As I was struggling in the usual manner up the crowded 
 gangway of an ocean steamer on one occasion, his flushed 
 and radiant countenance appeared over the rail, where he 
 had climbed. 
 
 " Dearest, dearest," he said, " I ve found a friend. He s 
 a French gentleman and can t speak English." He had found 
 him on the tug, and they had apparently sworn eternal amity 
 between the wharf and the steamer, though how this had 
 been accomplished I was never quite able to determine, as 
 he had only just begun to attack valiantly a verb or so of 
 the first conjugation. But with the assistance of "dormer," 
 "aller," "aimer," and a smile like his, nothing was im 
 possible. 
 
 His circle of acquaintances during an ocean voyage was 
 
1 9 o HOW EAUNTLEROY OCCURRED 
 
 choice and large. And one languid passenger, lying in her 
 steamer chair with cushions behind her and fur robes over 
 her, was never passed without the affectionate, inquiring 
 smiles of a protector, and at intervals through all the day 
 he presented himself to " look after " her. 
 
 " Are you all right, dearest ? " he would say. " Do you 
 want your feet tucked in ? Did the deck steward bring you 
 your lunch ? Are your cushions comfortable ? " And these 
 matters being attended to he would kiss her gayly and run 
 off to explore engines, or gather valuable information about 
 walking-beams. 
 
 On several occasions he and his brother made some 
 rather long railroad journeys alone. It was quite safe to 
 send them. If they had not been able to take care of them 
 selves, half the world would have taken care of them. Con 
 ductors conversed with them, passengers were interested in 
 them, and they arrived at the end of their travels laden 
 with tribute. After one such journey, taken together be 
 tween Washington and Boston, with what joy they per 
 formed their toilets through an entire summer with the 
 assistance of a large box of wonderful soaps and perfumes, 
 sent to them by an acquaintance made en voyage. 
 
 " He was Lionel s friend," Vivian explained. " I think he 
 said he was a drummer. He was so nice to us. My friend 
 that I made was a professor in a college, I believe, and he 
 gave me this to remember him by." 
 
 "This" was a pretty nugget of gold, and was accompa- 
 
HOW FAUNTLEROY OCCURRED 191 
 
 nied by a card on which the donor had written the most 
 affectionately kind things of the pleasure he had had in 
 his brief acquaintance with his young travelling companion, 
 whose bonne mine he should not soon forget. 
 
 One could always be quite sure that he would give no 
 trouble during a journey, that he would always be ready to 
 perform any service, that no railroad nor ocean boat official 
 could withstand him when he presented himself with a smil 
 ing request. 
 
 It is easy to call to mind, at any moment, some mem 
 ory of him, his face flushed, his hair damp on his fore 
 head, his eyes courageous, as he struggled with something 
 too big for him, he had felt it his duty to take charge of, 
 as he swayed with the crowd down the gangway of some 
 steamer at Southampton or some paquebot at Calais. 
 
 " It is too heavy for you, darling," one would say. 
 " You look so hot. Let me carry it." 
 
 " Oh, no,* would be his valiant answer. " I m all right, 
 dearest. It s rather a warm day, but a boy doesn t mind 
 being warm." 
 
 Even foreign languages did not appall him. 
 
 11 I m only a little boy, you know," he would say, cheer 
 fully. " It doesn t matter if it does sound funny, just so 
 that they understand me. I like to talk to them." 
 
 So he conversed with Annunciata in the kitchen, and 
 Luigi in the dining-room, as it had been his habit to con 
 verse with Carrie and Dan years before, for by this time 
 
1 92 HOW FAUNTLEROY OCCURRED 
 
 his love-locks had been cropped and had changed to brown, 
 but he still remained the same charming and engaging little 
 person. 
 
 " Boys are sometimes a great trouble," commented Luigi, 
 in referring to him and his brother, " but these they are 
 little signorini? 
 
 Fauntleroy had "occurred" nearly four years before 
 the time when he exhausted all the resources of the Paris 
 Exposition, but it was still Fauntleroy, though a taller 
 one, in schoolboy suit and Eton collar, and shorn of his 
 boucles blondes, who marched off at nine o clock every morn 
 ing for two weeks, and spent the day exploring the treas 
 ures of the exhibition. Sometimes he was quite alone, 
 sometimes he had appointments with some "friends" he 
 had made in the passage from New York to Havre three 
 interesting men whose connection with the electrical exhibit 
 inspired him w r ith admiration and delight. My impression 
 is that they did not speak French, and that it enraptured 
 him to place his vocabulary at their disposal. 
 
 "They are so kind to me, dearest," he said, just as he 
 had said it at three years old, when he visited his " friend 
 Mrs. Wilkins." 
 
 " It must be an entertaining spectacle," I often thought, 
 "to see him walk into the restaurant quite unattended, 
 order his little dejeuner a la fourchette, dispose of it in 
 dignified solitude at a small table, and present the gar (on 
 with a pourboire as if he were forty. I should like to be a 
 
HOW FAUNTLEROY OCCURRED 193 
 
 spectator from afar. No doubt the waiters know him and 
 make jocular remarks among themselves." 
 
 But it was when he was only seven that Fauntleroy 
 really occurred. He had been so amusing and interesting 
 that summer, and I had reflected upon him so much ! Every 
 few days I heard some delightful anecdote about him, or 
 saw him do something incomparably quaint. What led 
 me most into speculation was the effect he invariably pro 
 duced upon people, touching little fascinations he exercised. 
 
 " Do you know, I never saw a child like him ! " said a 
 clever man of the world who had spent an hour talking to him. 
 
 And, curiously enough, it was exactly the idea expressed 
 by an old colored aunty years before. " Dat chile," she said, 
 4 he suttanly ain t like no other chile. Tain t jest dat he s 
 smart though cose he s smart, smart as they make em. 
 It s sump n else. An he s the frien liest little human I ever 
 seed he suttanly is ! " 
 
 I had been ill that year and the year before it, and of 
 that illness I have many memories which are beautiful and 
 touching things. One is of many disturbed and weary 
 nights, when the door of my room opened quietly and a 
 little figure entered such an adorable little figure, in a 
 white nightgown, and with bright hair, tumbled by sleep, 
 falling about a serious, small face. 
 
 " I ve come to take care of you, dearest," he would say, 
 with his indescribable protecting and comforting air. " I ll 
 sit by you and make you go to sleep. 
 13 
 
i 9 4 HOW FAUNTLEROY OCCURRED 
 
 And somehow there seemed to emanate from his child 
 ish softness a sort of soothing which could not have been 
 put into words. 
 
 It was his special province to put me to sleep when I 
 was restless. He assumed it as a sacred duty, and had 
 the utmost confidence in his power to do it. 
 
 " I ll put you to sleep," he would say. " I will just 
 sit by you and hold your hand and make you quiet." 
 
 How long had he sat by me on that one night which I 
 shall always remember ? I do not know. But he had been 
 so quiet, and had sat holding my hand so long, that I coulcl 
 not find it in my heart to let him know that the charm had 
 not worked and that I was not really asleep. I pretended 
 that I was, lying very still, and breathing with soft regu 
 larity. 
 
 He stayed quite a long time after I knew he thought I 
 was quiet for the night, he was so determined to be quite 
 sure that nothing would disturb me. At last he began with 
 the most cautious softness to take his hand away. When 
 he had been a baby I had sometimes laid him down to 
 sleep with just such cautious movement. How gradually 
 and softly the small fingers released themselves one by one, 
 how slowly, with what infinite precaution of slowness, the 
 warm, kind little palm was detached from mine. Then 
 there was a mysterious, careful movement, and I knew he 
 was leaving his chair. I dared not open my eyes for fear 
 he would see me, and be heartbroken because I was awake. 
 
HOW FAUNTLEROY OCCURRED 195 
 
 What was he doing ? There were no footsteps, and yet he 
 was moving a little a very little, it seemed. And the 
 movement was so slow, and interrupted by such pauses, that 
 the length of time it lasted added to my curiousness. What 
 idea had he been inspired by ? Whatsoever he was doing 
 he was putting his entire soul into, and he should not be 
 crushed by the thought that it was all in vain. When I 
 could hear that he had reached the door I opened an eye 
 very cautiously. The opening of the door was as clever 
 and quiet as the mysterious movement. It was opened 
 only a little, there was more careful movement, and then it 
 was drawn to. But though I had been looking directly at 
 the slip of light I had not seen him. Somehow he had 
 passed through without coming within my line of vision. 
 
 I lay mystified. The incomprehensibleness of it gave 
 me something to think about. His room was near my 
 own, and I knew that he went to it and got into bed. I 
 knew, also, that he would be asleep as soon as his curly 
 head touched the pillow. 
 
 He had been asleep perhaps an hour when his brother 
 came in. He had been spending the evening at the house 
 of a friend. He was usually a tender and thoughtful thing 
 himself, but this night the excitement of festivity had in 
 toxicated him and made him forgetful. He came up the 
 staircase and ran into the bedroom with a childish rush. 
 
 Exactly what happened I could only guess at. I had 
 reason to suppose that my young protector and medical 
 
196 HOW FAUNTLEROY OCCURRED 
 
 attendant was wakened with some extra sense of flurry 
 taking place. He evidently sat up in bed in reproachful 
 despair. 
 
 "What have I done?" said his brother. "What is 
 the matter? " 
 
 I heard tears in the plaintive little voice that answered 
 actual tears. 
 
 " Oh ! " he said, "I know you ve wakened her! I know 
 you have ! It was so hard to get her to sleep. And at 
 last I did, and then I was so afraid of wakening her that 
 I went down on the floor and crawled out of the room 
 on my hands and knees. And I think it took an hour." 
 
 " Darling," I murmured, in the drowsiest possible tone, 
 when he crept into the room to look at me, "I ve had 
 a lovely sleep, and I m going to sleep again. You made 
 me so quiet." But with the most serious difficulty I re 
 strained myself from clutching him in my arms with a force 
 which would have betrayed to him all my adoring duplicity. 
 
 It was things such as these I remembered when he 
 was so deliciously amusing, and I heard stories of him 
 every day. 
 
 Sometimes, when swinging in my hammock on the 
 piazza, I caught sight of him flying on his small bicycle 
 down the tree-shaded avenue, a delightful, animated picture, 
 his strong, graceful child body beautifully defined in his 
 trim, close-fitting Jersey suit, his red scarf and fez brilliant 
 touches of color, his waving, flying hair brightened to gold 
 
HOW FAUNTLEROY OCCURRED 197 
 
 as he darted through the sunshine and into the shade. I 
 used to say to myself: "He is so good to look at! He is 
 so pretty ! That is why every one likes him so." And then, 
 when I heard him say some quaint thing which was an 
 actual delight through its droll ingenuousness, I said : " It 
 is because he is so amusing!" 
 
 So I studied him day after day, often trying to imagine 
 the effect his fearless candor and unsophisticated point of 
 view would have upon certain persons who did not know 
 his type. 
 
 I was convalescing from my long illness, and had plenty 
 of time to amuse myself with such speculations. He was 
 such a patriotic young American ; he was so engaged in an 
 impending presidential election at the time ; his remarks 
 were so well worth hearing. I began, among other fancies 
 about him, to imagine his making them with that frankly 
 glowing face to conservative English people. He had 
 English blood in his veins, and things more unheard-of 
 had occurred than that, through a combination of circum 
 stances, he might be surrounded by things very new to him. 
 
 "When a person is a duke," he had said to me once, 
 "what makes him one? What has he done?" His opinion 
 evidently was that dukedoms were a species of reward for 
 superhuman sweetness of character and brilliant intellectual 
 capacity. I began to imagine the interest that would be 
 awakened in his mind by the contemplation of ducal per 
 
 sonages. 
 
 o 
 
1 98 HOW FAUNTLEROY OCCURRED 
 
 It amused me to analyze the subject of what his point 
 of view would be likely to be. I knew it would be pro 
 ductive of immense entertainment to his acquaintances. I 
 was sure that the duke would be subjected to sweet but 
 searching cross-questioning, and that much lively interest 
 would be felt in the subject of coronets. He would regard 
 them as a species of eccentric hat. What questions he 
 would ask, what enthusiasm he would display, when he was 
 impressed by things beautiful or stately and interesting ! 
 Would he seem u a cheeky little beggar" to less republican 
 minds than his own ? I asked myself this curiously. But 
 no, I was sure he would not. He would be so simple ; he 
 would expect such splendor of mind and of noble friend 
 liness that the hypothetical duke would like him as Dan 
 and Carrie did, and he would end by saying " My friend 
 the Duke of Blankshire," as affectionately as he had said 
 " My friend the milkman." 
 
 It was only a thread of fancy for a while, but one day 
 I had an idea. 
 
 " I will write a story about him," I said. " I will put 
 him in a world quite new to him, and see what he will do. 
 How shall I bring a small American boy into close rela 
 tionship with an English nobleman irascible, conservative, 
 disagreeable ? He must live with him, talk to him, show 
 him his small, unconscious, republican mind. He will be 
 more effective if I make him a child who has lived in the 
 simplest possible way. Eureka ! Son of younger son, 
 
HOW FAUNTLEROY OCCURRED 199 
 
 separated from ill-tempered noble father because he has 
 married a poor young American beauty. Young father 
 dead, elder brothers dead, boy comes into title ! How it 
 would amaze him and bewilder him ! Yes, there it is, and 
 Vivian shall be he -just Vivian, with his curls and his eyes, 
 and his friendly, kind little soul. Little Lord Something- 
 or-other. What a pretty title Little Lord , Little 
 Lord what ? " 
 
 And a day later it was Little Lord Fauntleroy. A 
 story like that is easily written. In part, it was being 
 lived before my eyes. 
 
 " I can wash myself quite well, thank you," he said, 
 scrubbing vigorously one day. " I can do it quite well, 
 dearest, if some one will just zamine the corners." 
 
 He had always spoken very clearly, but there were a 
 few words his pronunciation of which endeared them in 
 expressibly to me. On the evening of the day before 
 " Fauntleroy " spent his first morning with " Lord Dorin- 
 court " he brought into my room a parlor base-ball game 
 to show me. 
 
 It was a lovely thing to see his delight over it, and to 
 note the care with which he tried to make all technical 
 points clear to an interested but unintelligent parent. 
 What vigorous little attitudes he threw himself into when 
 he endeavored to show me how the ball was thrown in the 
 real game ! 
 
 " I m afraid that I am a very stupid little mammy," 
 
200 HOW FAUNTLEROY OCCURRED 
 
 I said. " What does the first base do ? And what is the 
 pitcher for ? I m very dull, you see." 
 
 " Oh, no ! " he said. " No, you re not, dearest. It s me, 
 you know. I m afraid that I m not a very good splainer. 
 And besides, you are a lady, you know, and ladies don t 
 play base-ball." 
 
 Almost every day I recorded something he had said or 
 suggested. 
 
 And how delightful it was to read the manuscript to 
 him and his brother! He used to sit in a large arm-chair 
 holding his knee, or with his hands in his pockets. 
 
 <4 Do you know," he said to me once, "I like that boy! 
 There s one thing about him, he never forgets about dearest." 
 
 When the first appearance of the false claimant occurred, 
 he turned quite pale ; so did his brother. 
 
 "Oh, dearest!" they gasped, " why did you do that? 
 Oh, don t do it ! " 
 
 "What will he do ? " the occupant of the arm-chair 
 asked. " Won t he, dearest, be the Earl s boy any more ? " 
 
 " * That other boy, said Fauntleroy tremulously to Lord 
 Dorincourt, the next day, he will have to to be your boy 
 now as I was won t he ? 
 
 " No, answered the Earl, and he said it so fiercely 
 that Cedric quite jumped. 
 
 " Shall I be your boy even if I m not going to be 
 an earl ? he said. Shall I be your boy just as I was 
 before ? " 
 
HOW FAUNTLEROY OCCURRED 
 
 But it was a real little heart that had beaten at the 
 thought. 
 
 He has been considered such an ideal little person 
 Cedric Errol, Lord Fauntleroy and he was so real after 
 all. Perhaps it is worth while explaining that he was only 
 a simple, natural thing a child, whose great charm was 
 that he was the innocent friend of the whole world. 
 
 I have reason to believe that an impression exists that 
 the passage of years has produced no effect whatever on 
 the great original, that he has still waving golden hair, and 
 wears black velvet doublets and broad collars of lace. This 
 is an error. He is sixteen. He plays foot-ball and tennis, 
 and battles sternly with Greek. He is anxious not to 
 "flunk" in geometry, and his hair is exceedingly short and 
 brown. He has a fine sense of humor, and his relatives 
 consider it rather a good joke to present him to intimates, 
 as he appears before them, looking particularly cheerful and 
 robust, in the words first heard by Havisham : 
 
 II This is Little Lord Fauntleroy." 
 
 But there are things which do not change with the 
 darkening of golden hair and the passage of boyish years. 
 
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