And, my poor child, I
fear we let the very faults spring up that are your sorrow now."
"Oh no, no, Papa, you helped me! Aunt Barbara only makes me--oh! may
I say?--hate her! for indeed there is no helping it! I can't be good
there."
"What is it? What do you mean, my dear? What is your difficulty?
And I will try to help you."
Poor Kate found it not at all easy to explain when she came to
particulars. "Always cross," was the clearest idea in her mind;
"never pleased with her, never liking anything she did--not
punishing, but much worse." She had not made out her case, she knew;
but she could only murmur again, "It all went wrong, and I was very
unhappy."
Mr. Wardour sighed from the bottom of his heart; he was very
sorrowful, too, for the child that was as his own. And then he went
back and thought of his early college friend, and of his own wife who
had so fondled the little orphan--all that was left of her sister.
It was grievous to him to put that child away from him when she came
clinging to him, and saying she was unhappy, and led into faults.
"It will be better when your uncle comes home," he began.
"Oh no, Papa, indeed it will not. Uncle Giles is more stern than
Aunt Barbara. Aunt Jane says it used to make her quite unhappy to
see how sharp he was with poor Giles and Frank."
"I never saw him in his own family," said Mr. Wardour thoughtfully;
"but this I know, Kate, that your father looked up to him, young as
he then was, more than to anyone; that he was the only person among
them all who ever concerned himself about you or your mother; and
that on the two occasions when I saw him, I thought him very like
your father.
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