He flushed up because he was so surprised and, for the moment, excited. To see such a place was enough to surprise any ordinary boy.
The room was a large one, too, as all the rooms seemed to be, and it appeared to him more beautiful than the rest, only in a different way. The furniture was not so massive and antique as was that in the rooms he had seen downstairs; the draperies and rugs and walls were brighter; there were shelves full of books, and on the tables were numbers of toys,—beautiful, ingenious things,—such as he had looked at with wonder and delight through the shop windows in New York.
“It looks like a boy's room,” he said at last, catching his breath a little. “Whom do they belong to?”
“Go and look at them,” said Dawson. “They belong to you!”
“To me!” he cried; “to me? Why do they belong to me? Who gave them to me?” And he sprang forward with a gay little shout. It seemed almost too much to be believed. “It was Grandpapa!” he said, with his eyes as bright as stars. “I know it was Grandpapa!”
“Yes, it was his lordship,” said Dawson; “and if you will be a nice little gentleman, and not fret about things, and will enjoy yourself, and be happy all the day, he will give you anything you ask for.”
It was a tremendously exciting morning. There were so many things to be examined, so many experiments to be tried; each novelty was so absorbing that he could scarcely turn from it to look at the next. And it was so curious to know that all this had been prepared for himself alone; that, even before he had left New York, people had come down from London to arrange the rooms he was to occupy, and had provided the books and playthings most likely to interest him.
“Did you ever know any one,” he said to Dawson, “who had such a kind grandfather!”
Dawson's face wore an uncertain expression for a moment. She had not a very high opinion of his lordship the Earl. She had not been in the house many days, but she had been there long enough to hear the old nobleman's peculiarities discussed very freely in the servants' hall.
“An' of all the wicious, savage, hill-tempered hold fellows it was ever my hill-luck to wear livery hunder,” the tallest footman had said, “he's the wiolentest and wust by a long shot.”