Little Lord Fauntleroy is out of fashion these days, but I think that’s because most people haven’t read the book, and believe him to be nothing but the Pears’ Soap poster child of velvet and lace collars. He’s actually funny, asking innocently adroit questions to his elders, and slowly winning his crotchety grandfather over to kindness and light. 

Here he describes a typical breakfast with his mother, before they were separated due to his new found aristrocratic status.

I love breakfast and regret that in general we rush it – will remember to schedule a slow one now and then, when there is time to hand someone the toast. 

By the author of The Secret Garden, a children’s book for disenchanted adults (with a child inside, somewhere). 

‘I always had my breakfast with her in the morning, and put the sugar and cream in her tea for her, and handed her the toast. It made it very sociable of course.’ 

Source: Frances Hodgson Burnett, Little Lord Fauntleroy (London: Collins Classics, 2012), p.77

Photo credit: Calum Lewis at unsplash.com