“Were you?” said Kate warmly. “Did you live with my mother? Where do you live now? I am sure then I might come and see you.”
“Well, you see, miss, there’s evil tongues everywhere, and poor servants even have their enemies. But I was as innocent as the babe unborn, of what I was accused of, and perhaps there were some that had reason to be sorry for what they did,” she concluded spitefully with a glance at Kate.
“Were you accused of doing wrong?” said Kate.
“Ah, never mind, my dear young lady, it’s all too long ago to go back to. And so Mr James’s daughter is staying here. She’s a fine young lady. Who would have thought when Mr James came of age how things would be?”
“What did they do when he came of age?” said Kate, with an odd sense of fascinated curiosity.
“Dear me, miss, there was such rejoicings! Dinner for all the place, and compliments to your great-grandfather who won the place back again to the family, and Mr James so handsome and condescending like. Mr George, he was always a quiet one.”
“That was my father?”
“Yes, miss, but he being the younger wasn’t thought so much of—you’ll excuse my saying so.”
There was something in the tone which Katharine instinctively felt to be an impertinence, and as they came to a turn of the road she said,—
“Well, good morning, Mrs Taylor. I believe I ought to go home. I’ll ask mamma if I may come and see you.”