Poor child! In the midst of all this, there was one comfort. She
had not put aside what Mr. Wardour had told her about the Comforter
she could always have. She DID say her prayers as she had never said
them before, and she looked out in the Psalms and Lessons for
comforting verses. She knew she had done very wrong, and she asked
with all the strength of her heart to be forgiven, and made less
unhappy, and that people might be kinder to her. Sometimes she
thought no help was coming, and that her prayers did no good, but she
went on; and then, perhaps, she got a kind little caress from Lady
Jane, or Mr. Mercer spoke good-naturedly to her, or Lady Barbara
granted her some little favour, and she felt as if there was hope and
things were getting better; and she took courage all the more to pray
that Uncle Giles might not be very hard upon her, nor the Lord
Chancellor very cruel.
CHAPTER XIV.
A fortnight had passed, and had seemed nearly as long as a year,
since Kate's return from Oldburgh, when one afternoon, when she was
lazily turning over the leaves of a story-book that she knew so well
by heart that she could go over it in the twilight, she began to
gather from her aunt's words that somebody was coming.
They never told her anything direct; but by listening a little more
attentively to what they were saying, she found out that a letter--
no, a telegram--had come while she was at her lessons; that Aunt
Barbara had been taking rooms at a hotel; that she was insisting that
Jane should not imagine they would come to-night--they would not come
till the last train, and then neither of them would be equal -
"Poor dear Emily! But could we not just drive to the hotel and meet
them? It will be so dreary for them.
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