“Will they take Dearest’s house away from her—and her carriage?” Cedric asked in a rather unsteady, anxious little voice.
“No!” said the Earl decidedly—in quite a loud voice in fact. “They can take nothing from her.”
“Ah!” said Cedric with evident relief. “Can’t they?”
Then he looked up at his grandfather, and there was a wistful shade in his eyes, and they looked very big and soft.
“That other boy,” he said rather tremulously—“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 and loudly that Cedric quite [jumped.]
“No?” he exclaimed, in wonderment. “Won’t he? I thought——”
He stood up from his stool quite suddenly.
“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?” And his flushed little face [was all alight with eagerness.]
How the old Earl did look at him from head to foot, to be sure! How his great shaggy brows did draw themselves together, and how queerly his deep eyes shone under them—how very queerly!