t.

"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?"

"Because we have--have not exactly taken to Mrs. Tailleur; if you'll
forgive my saying so."

Miss Keating's smile forgave her. "People do not always take to her. She
is more a favourite, I think, with men." She gave the ball into the o