Certainly, whatever the cause was, the result was triumphant. When Val was alone--in the nursery, where he ruled like a little despot, or out of doors, where he conducted himself like a tiny desperado, always in mischief--he was uncontrollable; but in the drawing-room, when his grandmother received her visitors, or when he accompanied her on the visits which it was now a point in her diplomacy to make, no little paladin born in the purple could have shown more perfect manners, or behaved himself more gracefully. He was acting a part, well defined and recognisable, and the _rôle_ gave him pleasure. Not that the child himself was conscious of this, or could have defined what his instinct enabled him to do so perfectly; but yet the mental exercise was one that excited him, and called forth all his powers. The little actor threw himself off, as he jumped from the coach-box, where he had been driving wildly, with precocious dash and nerve, restrained, with difficulty, by the cautious old coachman, who knew exactly how much my lady could put up with--and assumed in a moment the gracious character of the little prince, suave, soft, and courteous, saying what he had to say with childish frankness, and keeping himself still and in order with a virtue which was heroic. From the Dowager Duchess to the farmers’ wives on Eskside, everybody was satisfied by these performances; and no reasonable creature who had seen Val’s little exhibition could have lent a moment’s credence to the vulgar story of the “randy wife.” “I don’t see the strong likeness to his father,” said the Dowager Duchess, who was, as it were, the last court of appeal and highest tribunal of social judgment in the county. “To me there is another type of feature very evident besides the difference of complexion; but in manners he’s his father’s son. Not a lout, like Castleton’s boy, who ought to be a gentleman, heaven knows! if race is anything--on both sides of the house.” Lady Eskside felt the implied sting about “both sides of the house,” but bore it heroically, knowing that the Marquis of Hightowers, the Duke of Castleton’s only son, was like any ploughman’s child beside her own bonnie boy; and it did not occur to her, any more than it did to Val himself, that the whole secret of his success was his superiority in dramatic power, and in enjoyment of that suppressed but exquisite joke of mystification which children by nature love so dearly. Probably it was the blood of gipsy and tramp and roadside mime in Val’s veins which gave him more facility than usual in the representation; but the same gift shows in every nursery in a greater or lesser degree. Little Violet Pringle, with her dolls around her, discoursing to them--scolding one for its naughtiness, and another for having neglected its lessons, with high maternal dignity--was not more purely histrionic than was Val when he played at being young prince and good boy, according to his grandmother’s injunctions, and enjoyed the mystification--unless when it chanced to last too long.