I suppose, though, it isn't your fault; you have no one to teach you," and he sighed a heavy, harassed sigh.
The children's mother had died nearly five years earlier, when Kitty was nine, and Anthony but a year old.

For a time a housekeeper had been employed to manage both children and servants; but so uncomfortable had been her rule, so un-homelike the house, so curbed and dreary the children's lives, that when Kitty reached the mature age of thirteen her father, only too glad to banish the stranger from their midst, had given in to her pleading, and with high hopes of a home which would be happy and homelike once more, allowed her to become housekeeper and mistress of the house.
Unfortunately, though, Kitty had had no training.

Her mother had been an excellent manager; but Kitty was only a little thing when she lost her, and her life had mostly been spent, happily enough, in nursery and schoolroom.

Mrs.Trenire's wish had been that her children should have a happy childhood, so all family troubles, all anxieties, domestic worries and details, were kept from them, and the result was that, beyond the nursery and schoolroom life, they knew nothing.

Kitty had not the least idea how rooms were cleaned, or meals provided, or anything.