g rapidity. Evidently their owner had no intention
of losing any time. The carriage rolled slowly away, but his lordship
did not at once lean back; he still looked out. Through a space in the
trees he could see the house door; it was wide open. The little figure
dashed up the steps; another figure--a little figure, too, slender and
young, in its black gown--ran to meet it. It seemed as if they flew
together, as Fauntleroy leaped into his mother's arms, hanging about her
neck and covering her sweet young face with kisses.

VII

On the following Sunday morning, Mr. Mordaunt had a large congregation.
Indeed, he could scarcely remember any Sunday on which the church had
been so crowded. People appeared upon the scene who seldom did him the
honor of coming to hear his sermons.

There were even people from Hazelton, which was the next parish. There
were hearty, sunburned farmers, stout, comfortable, apple-cheeked
wives in their best bonnets and most gorgeous shawls, and half a dozen
children or so to each family. The doctor's wife was there, with her
four daughters. Mrs. Kimsey and Mr. Kimsey, who kept the druggist's
shop, and made pills, and did up powders for everybody within ten
miles, sat in their pew; Mrs. Dibble in hers; Miss Smiff, the village
dressmaker, and her friend Miss Perkins, the milliner, sat in theirs;
the doctor's young man was present, and the druggist's apprentice; in
fact, almost every family on the county side was represented, in one way
or another.

In the course of the preceding week, many wonderful stories had been
told of little Lord Fauntleroy. Mrs. Dibble had been kept so busy
attending to customers who came in to buy a pennyworth of needles or
a ha'porth of tape and to hear what she had to relate, that the little
shop bell over the door had nearly tinkled itself to death over the
coming and going. Mrs. Dibble knew exactly how his small lordship's
rooms had been furnished for him, what expensive toys had been bought,
how there was a beautiful brown pony awaiting him, and a small groom to
attend it, and a little dog-cart, with silver-mounted harness. And she
could tell, too, what all the servants had said when they had caught
glimpses of the child on the night of his arrival; and how every female
below stairs had said it was a shame, so it was, to part the poor pretty
dear from his mother; and had all declared their hearts came into their
mouths when he went alone into the library to see h