But before that 1st, poor Mrs. Lacy wrote again, with great regret
and many excuses for the inconvenience she was causing. Her son and
her doctor had insisted on her resigning her situation at once; and
they would not even allow her to go back until her place could be
supplied.

"Poor thing!" said Lady Jane. "I always thought it was too much for
her. I wish we could have made her more comfortable: it would have
been such a thing for her!"

"So it would," answered Lady Barbara, "if she had had to do with any
other child. A little consideration or discretion, such as might
have been expected from a girl of eleven years old towards a person
in her circumstances, would have made her happy, and enabled her to
assist her son. But I have given up expecting feeling from
Katharine."

That speech made Kate swell with anger at her aunt's tone and in her
anger she forgot to repent of having been really thoughtless and
almost unkind, or to recollect how differently her own gentle Sylvia
at home would have behaved to the poor lady. She liked the notion of
novelty, and hoped for a new governess as kind and bright as Miss
Oswald.

Moreover, she was delighted to find that Mrs. George Wardour was
going to live in London for the present, that Alice might be under
doctors, and Sylvia under masters. Kate cared little for the why,
but was excessively delighted with plans for meeting, hopes of walks,
talks, and tea-drinkings together; promises that the other dear