Mrs. Wardour had been dead for about four years, and the little girls were taught by the eldest sister, Mary, who had been at a boarding-school to fit her for educating them. Mr. Wardour too taught them a good deal himself, and had the more time for them since Charlie, the youngest boy, had gone every day to the grammar-school in the town.
Armyn, the eldest of the family, was with Mr. Brown, a very good old solicitor, who, besides his office in Oldburgh, had a very pretty house and grounds two miles beyond St. James’s, where the parsonage children were delighted to spend an afternoon now and then.
Little did they know that it was the taking the little niece as a daughter that had made it needful to make Armyn enter on a profession at once, instead of going to the university and becoming a clergyman like his father; nor how cheerfully Armyn had agreed to do whatever would best lighten his father’s cares and troubles. They were a very happy family; above all, on the Saturday evenings and Sundays that the good-natured elder brother spent at home.
“There!” cried Sylvia, laying down her slate pencil, and indulging in another tremendous yawn; “we can’t do a thing more till Mary comes! What can she be about?”
“Oh, but look, Sylvia!” cried Kate, quite forgetting everything in the interest of her drawing on a large sheet of straw-paper. “Do you see what it is?”
“I don’t know,” said Sylvia, “unless—let me see— That’s a very rich little girl, isn’t it?” pointing to an outline of a young lady whose wealth was denoted by the flounces (or rather scallops) on her frock, the bracelets on her sausage-shaped arms, and the necklace on her neck.
“Yes; she is a very rich and grand— Lady Ethelinda; isn’t that a pretty name? I do wish I was Lady Katharine.”
“And what is she giving? I wish you would not do men and boys, Kate; their legs always look so funny as you do them.”
“They never will come right; but never mind, I must have them. That is Lady Ethelinda’s dear good cousin, Maximilian; he is a lawyer—don’t you see the parchment sticking out of his pocket?”
“Just like Armyn.”