who was
the claimant's mother. But, of course, it was Mrs. Dibble who could tell
the most, and who was more in demand than ever.

"An' a bad lookout it is," she said. "An' if you were to ask me, ma'am,
I should say as it was a judgment on him for the way he's treated that
sweet young cre'tur' as he parted from her child,--for he's got that
fond of him an' that set on him an' that proud of him as he's a'most
drove mad by what's happened. An' what's more, this new one's no lady,
as his little lordship's ma is. She's a bold-faced, black-eyed thing,
as Mr. Thomas says no gentleman in livery 'u'd bemean hisself to be gave
orders by; and let her come into the house, he says, an' he goes out of
it. An' the boy don't no more compare with the other one than nothin'
you could mention. An' mercy knows what's goin' to come of it all, an'
where it's to end, an' you might have knocked me down with a feather
when Jane brought the news."

In fact there was excitement everywhere at the Castle: in the library,
where the Earl and Mr. Havisham sat and talked; in the servants' hall,
where Mr. Thomas and the butler and the other men and women servants
gossiped and exclaimed at all times of the day; and in the stables,
where Wilkins went about his work in a quite depressed state of
mind, and groomed the brown pony more beautifully than ever, and said
mournfully to the coachman that he "never taught a young gen'leman to
ride as took to it more nat'ral, or was a better-plucked one than he
was. He was a one as it were some pleasure to ride behind."

But in the midst of all the disturbance there was one person who was
quite calm and untroubled. That person was the little Lord Fauntleroy
who was said not to be Lord Fauntleroy at all. When first the state of
affairs had been explained to him, he had felt some little anxiousness
and perplexity, it is true, but its foundation was not in baffled
ambition.

While the Earl told him what had happened, he had sat on a stool holding
on to his knee, as he so often did when he was listening to anything
interesting; and by the time the story was finished he looked quite
sober.

"It makes me feel very queer," he said; "it makes me feel--queer!"

The Earl looked at the boy in silence. It made him feel queer,
too--queerer than he had ever felt in his whole life. And he felt more
queer still when he saw that there was a troubled expression on the
small face which was usually so happy.

"Will they take D