“Indeed, Papa, I did not say locked—Charlie and Sylvia said that.”
“But did you correct them?”
“O Papa, I did not mean it! But I am naughty now! I always am naughty, so much worse than I used to be at home. Indeed I am, and I never do get into a good vein now. O Papa, Papa, can’t you get me out of it all? If you could only take me home again! I don’t think my aunts want to keep me—they say I am so bad and horrid, and that I make Aunt Jane ill. Oh, take me back, Papa!”
He did take her on his knee, and held her close to him. “I wish I could, my dear,” he said; “I should like to have you again! but it cannot be. It is a different state of life that has been appointed for you; and you would not be allowed to make your home with me, with no older a person than Mary to manage for you. If your aunt had not been taken from us, then—” and Kate ventured to put her arm round his neck—“then this would have been your natural home; but as things are with us, I could not make my house such as would suit the requirements of those who arrange for you. 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.”