Kate pouted a little, thinking to herself that her mother always opposed her wishes, and finding that Emberance was deep in a piece of fancy-work and unwilling to leave it, set off to finish her walk by herself.
There was no absolute embargo on solitary rambles, and though Kate well knew that her mother did not like her to walk alone in the village, in her present mood she did not feel inclined to regard an unspoken prohibition.
She turned away from the path towards the Vicarage; with a shy unwillingness to be met there by herself; yet her thoughts as she walked along were not wrapped in the sunny haze proper to a young maiden just awaking to a sense of preference given and received. Kate did not dream, she thought and speculated on her own life. Only her thoughts were confused and formless. “What was wrong? Why did no one answer her questions? And what questions after all did she want to ask?”
She had turned down a lane that led away from the sea; and having no special object in pursuing her walk, was about to turn back, when she was overtaken by one of the fisher-women who sold fish about the neighbourhood. There was nothing very characteristic or picturesque about the class, they wore the ordinary dress of labouring women, except that their petticoats were very short, and they were generally as rough and ignorant as might be expected of the inhabitants of a place which had enjoyed so few advantages as Kingsworth.
This one was a handsome woman, with a keen intelligent face, and bright eyes looking out from under her flattened bonnet.
“Good morning to you, my lady,” she said.
“Good morning,” said Kate graciously,—she had grasped enough of her rôle to know that graciousness was her people’s due.
“Fine weather, miss, for the time of year. Is it Miss Katharine then that I’m talking to?”
“Yes,” said Kate. “And what is your name? I don’t know any one, as I was never here till last September.”
“Alice Taylor’s my name, if you please, miss. But begging your pardon, Miss Katharine, you was here eighteen years ago, as I ought to know, as I was your nursemaid.”