Of course it would have been better if they had taken home the little
orphan when she was destitute and an additional weight to Mr.
Wardour; and had she been actually in poverty or distress, with no
one to take care of her, Lady Barbara would have thought it a duty to
provide for her: but knowing her to be in good hands, it had not
then seemed needful to inflict the child on her sister, or to conquer
her own distaste to all connected with her unhappy brother James. No
one had ever thought of the little Katharine Aileve Umfraville
becoming the head of the family; for then young Lord Umfraville was
in his full health and strength.
And why DID Lady Barbara only now feel the charge of the child a
duty? Perhaps it was because, without knowing it, she had been
brought up to make an idol of the state and consequence of the
earldom, since she thought breeding up the girl for a countess
incumbent on her, when she had not felt tender compassion for the
brother's orphan grandchild. So somewhat of the pomps of this world
may have come in to blind her eyes; but whatever she did was because
she thought it right to do, and when Kate thought of her as cross, it
was a great mistake. Lady Barbara had great control of temper, and
did everything by rule, keeping herself as strictly as she did
everyone else except Lady Jane; and though she could not like such a
troublesome little incomprehensible wild cat as Katharine, she was
always trying to do her strict justice, and give her whatever in her
view was good or useful.
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