Countess Kate | Page 4

our lessons."
"That makes you do it. What on earth can Mary be about?"
"Some tiresome woman to speak to her, I suppose."
"I'm sure it can't be as much her business as it is to mind her poor little
sisters. Oh dear! if Papa could only afford us a governess!"
"I am sure I should not like it at all; besides, it is wrong to wish to be
richer than one is."
"I don't wish; I am only thinking how nice it would be, if some one
would give us a famous quantity of money. Then Papa should have a
pretty parsonage, like the one at Shagton; and we would make the
church beautiful, and get another pony or two, to ride with Charlie."
"Yes, and have a garden with a hothouse like Mr. Brown's."
"Oh yes; and a governess to teach us to draw. But best of all--O Sylvia!
wouldn't it be nice not to have to mind one's clothes always? Yes, you
laugh; but it comes easier to you; and, oh dear! oh dear! it is so horrid
to be always having to see one does not tear oneself."
"I don't think you do see," said Sylvia, laughing.
"My frocks always WILL get upon the thorns. It is very odd."
"Only do please, Katie dear, let me finish this sum; and then if Mary is
not come, she can't scold if we are amusing ourselves."
"I know!" cried Kate. "I'll draw such a picture, and tell you all about it
when your sum is over."
Thereon ensued silence in the little room, half parlour, half study,

nearly filled with books and piano; and the furniture, though carefully
protected with brown holland, looking the worse for wear, and as if
danced over by a good many young folks.
The two little girls, who sat on the opposite sides of a little square table
in the bay-window, were both between ten and eleven years old, but
could not have been taken for twins, nor even for sisters, so unlike were
their features and complexion; though their dress, very dark grey linsey,
and brown holland aprons, was exactly the same, except that Sylvia's
was enlivened by scarlet braid, Kate's darkened by black--and
moreover, Kate's apron was soiled, and the frock bore traces of a great
darn. In fact, new frocks for the pair were generally made necessary by
Kate's tattered state, when Sylvia's garments were still available for
little Lily, or for some school child.
Sylvia's brown hair was smooth as satin; Kate's net did not succeed in
confining the loose rough waves of dark chestnut, on the road to
blackness. Sylvia was the shorter, firmer, and stronger, with round
white well-cushioned limbs; Kate was tall, skinny, and brown, though
perfectly healthful. The face of the one was round and rosy, of the other
thin and dark; and one pair of eyes were of honest grey, while the
others were large and hazel, with blue whites. Kate's little hand was so
slight, that Sylvia's strong fingers could almost crush it together, but it
was far less effective in any sort of handiwork; and her slim
neatly-made foot always was a reproach to her for making such
boisterous steps, and wearing out her shoes so much faster than the
quieter movements of her companion did--her sister, as the children
would have said, for nothing but the difference of surname reminded
Katharine Umfraville that she was not the sister of Sylvia Wardour.
Her father, a young clergyman, had died before she could remember
anything, and her mother had not survived him three months. Little
Kate had then become the charge of her mother's sister, Mrs. Wardour,
and had grown up in the little parsonage belonging to the district
church of St. James's, Oldburgh, amongst her cousins, calling Mr. and
Mrs. Wardour Papa and Mamma, and feeling no difference between
their love to their own five children and to her.
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