She was glad, though, to be warned that there was need of special care--in fact, dear Lady Kitson had hinted at very much the same thing.
So the paths of Katherine and Elizabeth were strewn with thorns and stumbling-blocks from the outset, and, unfortunately, they were not the girls to see and avoid them, or even guess they were there until they fell over them.
Anna, having been brought up under her mother's eye, was, of course, quite, quite different; Anna was really a credit to the care which had been lavished on her.

Miss Richards and Miss Melinda did not doubt it; they declared that it was evident at the first glance, and acted accordingly.

Which was, no doubt, pleasant for Anna, but, on the whole, turned out in the end worse for her than for her cousins.
Anna certainly had been well trained in one respect--she could learn her home lessons and prepare her home work under any conditions, it seemed, and she always did them well.

Kitty had an idea, a very foolish one, of course, that she could only work when alone and quiet, say in her bedroom, or in the barn, or lying in the grass in the garden, or in the woods.

All of which was inelegant, unladylike, and nonsensical.
Kitty must get the better of such ideas at once, and must learn her lessons as Anna did, sitting primly at the square table in the playroom.
Anna learnt her lessons by repeating them half aloud, and making a hissing noise through her teeth all the time.