But, if she did, the alternatives were grim. She would have either to go back to her own people, or to look after somebody's children, or an invalid. Her own people were not interested in Miss Keating. Children and invalids demanded imperatively that she should be interested in them. And Miss Keating, unfortunately, was not interested in anybody but herself. So interested was she that she had forgotten the old lady who sat knitting in the window, who, distracted by Miss Lucy's outburst, had let her ball roll on to the floor. It rolled away across the room to Miss Keating's feet, and there was a great tangle in the wool. Miss Keating picked up the ball and brought it to the old lady, winding and disentangling it as she went. "Thank you; my wool is a nuisance to everybody," said the old lady. And she began to talk about her knitting. All the year round she knitted comforters for the deep-sea fishermen, gray and red and blue. When she was tired of one colour she went to another. It would be red's turn next. Miss Keating felt as if she were being drawn to the old lady by that thin thread of wool. And the old lady kept looking at her all the time. "Your face is familiar to me," she said. (Oddly enough, the old lady's face was familiar to Miss Keating.) "I have met you somewhere; I cannot think where." "I wonder," said Miss Keating, "if it was at Wenden, my father's parish?" The old lady's look was sharper. "Your father is the vicar of Wenden?" "Yes." "I thought so." "Do you know him?" The ball slipped from Miss Keating's nervous fingers and the wool was tangled worse than ever. "No, no; but I could tell that you were----" she hesitated. "It was at Ilkley that I met you. It's coming back to me. You were not then with Mrs. Tailleur, I think? You were with an invalid lady?" "Yes; I was until I broke down." "May I ask if you knew Mrs. Tailleur before you came to her?" "No. I knew nothing of her. I know nothing now." "Oh," said the old lady. It was as if she had said: that settles it. The wool was disentangled. It was winding them nearer and nearer. "Have you been with her long?" "Not more than three months." There were only five inches of wool between them now. "Do you mind telling me where you picked her up?" Miss Keating remembered with compunction that it was Kitty who had picked _her_ up. Picked her up, as it were, in her arms, and carried her away from the dreadful northern Hydropathic where she had dropped, forlorn and exhausted, in the trail of her opulent invalid. "It was at Matlock, afterward. Why?" "Because, my dear--you must forgive me, but I could not help hearing what that young lady said. She was so very--so very unrestrained." "Very ill-bred, I should say." "Well, I should not have said that. You couldn't mistake the Lucys for anything but gentlepeople. Evidently I was meant to hear. I've no doubt she thinks us all very unkind." "Unkind? Why?"