"
"When do you expect him?"
"They were to set off in a fortnight from the time he wrote, but it
all depended on how Giles might be. I wish we knew; I wish there
could be any certainty, this is so bad for my sister. And just at
this very time, without a governess, when some children would be
especially thoughtful and considerate, that we should have this
strange fit of idleness and perverseness! It is very trying; I feel
quite hopeless sometimes!"
Some children, as Lady Barbara said, would have been rendered
thoughtful and considerate by hearing such a conversation as this,
and have tried to make themselves as little troublesome to their
elders as possible; but there are others who, unless they are
directly addressed, only take in, in a strange dreamy way, that which
belongs to the grown-up world, though quick enough to catch what
concerns themselves. Thus Kate, though aware that Aunt Barbara
thought her naughtiness made Aunt Jane ill, and that there was a
fresh threat of the Lord Chancellor upon the return of her great-
uncle from India, did not in the least perceive that her Aunt Barbara
was greatly perplexed and harassed, divided between her care for her
sister and for her niece, grieved for her brother's anxiety, and
disappointed that he had been obliged to leave the army, instead of
being made a General. The upshot of all that she carried away with
her was, that it was very cross of Aunt Barbara to think she made
Aunt Jane ill, and very very hard that she could not go to the
bazaar.
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