V quick Downton question

[DuffyMoon]

Why does youngest daughter keep visiting a small child and her family on the estate ... I cannot remember

Its her daughter.

She's her daughter.

The little girl is hers. And she was the middle daughter. Youngest fief in childbirth

Ohhhhhhhh I think I have missed a series somewhere...ummm why isn't she at t'big house

Because the daughter is illegitimate and only a couple of the family know about the baby, it was a huge secret that's about to come out

Hmm that is vaguely ringing a bell...How did the family in particular end up with her then?

As I recall the pig farmer was seen to be a nice man and I think had taken in a child already from his wife's family (I may have that bit wrong tho). The grandma knows about it.

Violet and Aunt Rosamund both know about the secret daughter. In a nutshell, Lady Edith fell in love with her newspaper editor (married, wife is mad so no hope of divorce). He then went to Germany on an investigative trip, apparently got beaten up by some thugs and then disappeared. Never been heard of since. Edith discovered she was preg and was whisked off to Switzerland by Rosamund for many months under the pretext of improving her language skills to give birth and have the baby adopted. Then Edith changed her mind, asking the nice pig farmer to take the kid in, pretending that she was the daughter of friends of Edith who had died. Nice pig farmer has since sussed out that the little girl is actually Edith's and they are now pretending that Edith is a sort of godmother figure and taking an interest in the poor little 'orphan'.