Countess Kate

s. When the summer was getting past its height of beauty, and the streets were all sun and misty heat, and the grass in the parks looked brown, and the rooms were so close that even A

was never quite without a head-ache, and was several times o

f town; and Mrs. Lacy was to go an

about being "always allowed" to do rude and careless things, and her wild rhodomontade about romping games with the boys, had persua

re full of kind schemes for her happiness and good, Lady Barbara said to her sister that it was quite impossible; these good friends did not know what they were asking, and tha

overness to relieve them of her. The going out of town was sad enough to them, for they had always paid a long visit at Caergwent Castle, which had felt like their home through the lifetime of their bro

go out with Josephine; and though Josephine said it was very sombre and savage, between the pine-woods and the sea, Kate had not felt her heart leap with such fulness of enjoyment since she had made snow-balls last winter at home. She ran down

so much less heavy, that both the aunts gazed at her with pleasure, smiled to one an

her music. And really the music was not half as bad as might have been expected with Aunt Barbara. Kate was too much afraid of her to give the half attention she had paid to poor Mrs. Lacy-fright and her aunt's decisi

hen out again-with her aunts this time, Aunt Jane in a wheeled-chair, and Aunt Barbara walking with her-this was rather dreary; but when they went in she was allowed to stay out with Josep

hipwrecks, with beautiful stories about them; and sometimes she hunted for the few shells and sea-weeds there, or she sat down and read some of her favourite books, especially poetry-it suited the sea so well; and s

of their indignant nurses; the little girls in brown hats, with their baskets full; the big boys, that even took off shoes, and dabbled in the shallow water; the great sieges of large castles, where whole

one day when a bright-faced girl ran after her with a piece of weed that she had dropped, she could hardly say "thank you" for her longing to say more; and

r from Sylvia, and said with great glee, "Aunt Barbara! O Aunt Barbara! Alice

y?" said her

saw them; but they are just my age; and it will be such fun-only Alice is ill,

about it wh

-Sylvia's own, own cousins-and not p

ity never disposes me favourably, Kat

did not know what she was about, made mistakes even in reading, and blundered her music more than she had over done under Lady Barbara's teaching; and then, when her aunt reproved her, she could not help laying down her head and bursting into a fit of crying. However, she had not forgotten the terrible tea-drinki

hour earlier than she usually left her room; and Lady Barbara looked up to her, and

ing hands on her hair very tender and comforting, though she wondered to hear them talk as if she were asleep or deaf-or perhaps they thought their voices too low, or their words too l

Lady de la Poer, Dr. Woodman, both-excitab

Barbara. "But I have been trying to make her feel I am not in

raged; and Lady Jane kissed her forehead, and repea

he child's head, and Kate ventured on it to get up, and say quietly, "Yes, it was not Aunt Barbara's speaking to me that made me cry, but I am so unhappy about Alice and Sylvia Joanna;" and a soft caress from Aunt

tended to it. "You are right, Katharine," she said; "no one wishes you to be either proud or ungrateful. I would not wish entirely to prevent you from seeing the children of the family, but it must not be till there is some a

ime she and her aunt were not nearly so much at war as hither

a belief at home, not only that nothing was got by crying, but that if by some strange chance it were,

eness to Sylvia, but at last she was taken by surprise: just as she was dressed, and Aunt Barbara was wa

n age; there was some curtseying and greeting between the two ladies, and her aunt said

rth as if intensely disgusted, put out her hand as if she were going to poke, and muttered her favourite "-do" so awkwardly and coldly, that Lady Barbara felt how proud and ungracious it l

e, which, except that they were adorned with labyrinths of white braid, were much what she had worn at home, also a round brown hat, shading her face from the sun; whereas Sylvia's face was exposed by a little turban hat so deeply edged with blue velvet, that the white straw was hardly seen; had a li

lence like the children. Mrs. Wardour had heard before that Lady Barbara Umfraville was a formidab

other-in-law was so anxious to hear of Lady Caergwent: and Lady Barbara sa

re was a little more said of bathing, and walking, and whether the place was full; and then Mrs. Wardour jumped up and said she was detaining Lady Barbara

k she was not glad to see them. She hung down her head, and pinched the ends of her gloves; she knew it very well, but that did not make i

They seem to be quiet, lady-like, inoffensive people, and I have no objection to your associating with

ise much for her thought or her governableness; but perhaps Lady Barbara recollected what her

ic now! However, take care you do not get too familiar. Remember, these Wardours are

ld be a bar between her and the free childish fun she hoped for. Yet when so much had been

f familiarity. They have only to do as they are told, and they may be sure of this, that friendshi

her into the "Clergy Orphan Asylum." And there had been much displeasure when Mr. Wardour answered that he did not think it right that a child who had friends should live on the charity intended for those who had none able to help them; and soon after the decision he had placed his son Armyn in Mr. Brown's office, instead of sending him to the University. All the Wardours were much vexed then; but they were not much better

d shy when she was told that she must go and call upon the Lady Umfravilles, whom the whole family regarded as first so neglectful and then so ungrateful, and make acquaintance with the little girl who had once been he

s from them was seized by a shy fit, and stood looking and feeling like a goose, drawing great C's with the point of her parasol in the sand; Josephine looking on, and thinking how "bête" Englis

her that this was the very way to seem proud and unkind; but what could she do? She felt as if she were frozen up stiff, and could neither move nor look up like herself. At last Mrs. Wardour said that Alice would be tired, and must go in; and then Kate managed to

and ran off with her to the corner where the scenery of Loch Katrine had so often been begun, and began with

aid the child, recovering, as she began to feel by touch, motion

bluntly. "Did you never hear of t

ch Awe, Loch Ness?-But I don't

y; 'tis the 'The

t a new

ead 'The Lady of the Lake

dawn's ref

extracts; but I never did

ful poetry! Don't you like

my other lessons, when it

at she liked poetry better than anything, for a game at romps, and a very amusing story, were still better things; so she did not exc

d h

is, the Knight of Snowdon-James Fitzjames, for

rrid nurse once, who used to

o for Highland: Gallic and Gaelic sound alike, you know. There! Then I'm going out hunting, and my dear gallant grey will drop down dead with fatigue, and I shall lose my way; and when you hear me win

hrown back an

ent of Gre

ll tell you

came up too-tooing through her hand with all her might, but found poor Ellen, very unlike a monument of

g her, it was all sobbed out. She did not like to be called Ellen-and she thought it unkind to send her into banishment-and she had fanci

aid Kate, rather abashed. "I never did;

ou didn'

won't play at that. Let's have 'Ma

like you to

only in

e, let us hav

do you call

I used to d

p always tumbles down: t

play at ball; but t

read out her delicate cambric one-not quite so fit for such a purpose as the lit

ay-lace that she has used and thrown away. Perhaps she broke it in a passi

es as mermaids," said Sylv

ia Katharine, nor like Adelaide and Grace de la Poer; yet by seeing each

ight play with the little Countess, and was so silly as to think the others envied her when she was dragged and ordered about, bewildered by Kate's loud rapid talk about all kinds of odd things in books, and distressed at being called on to tear through the pine-woods, or grub in wet sand. But it was not all silly vanity: she was a gentle,

ion of this new friend quite made her light up, and brighten out of her languor whenever the shrill laughing voice came near. And Kate, after having got over her first awe at coming near a child so unlike herself, grew very fond of her, and fe

scenes a day, drawn and painted-being the career of a very good little girl, whose parents were killed in a railway accident, (a most fearful picture was that-all blunders being filled

nd could not enter into Kate's first objection-founded on fact-that it could not be without killing all the brothers. "Why couldn't it be done in play, like so many other things?" To which Kate answered, "There is

word was long a puzz

alone with Sylvia and Josephine; not in Sylvia's dulness-that she had ceased to care about-but in a little want of plain dealing. Sylvia was never wild

men. Sylvia was one of those very caressing children who can never be happy without clingin

it seemed as if her heart could not love without her touch; but instead of training herself in a little self-control and obedience, she thought it "cross;" and Mamma was no sooner out of sight than her arm was around Kate's waist. Kate struggled at first-it did not suit her honourable conscientiousness;

d she called Sylvia by plenty of such names; but she had been obliged t

alled K, her initial, and the first syllable of her title. It was the cleverest invention Sylvia had ever made; and she was vexed w

d the eyes would have been weeping, and the tongue reproaching in another moment, she allowed it to

hievous, Josephine willingly overlooked them, and there was nothing to bring them to light. It would h

ore whom she always whispered-and freely let the girls be constantly together. The aunt little knew that this meek well