“Thank you, miss; good morning,” said Mrs Taylor civilly enough.
Katharine hurried home, full of her new subject. “Oh, mamma,” she cried, “I have met a woman who says she was my nurse! Alice was her name—and now she is Mrs Taylor. She says she was suspected of doing something wrong; but that it was not true. Do you remember her?”
“Your nurse,” said Mrs Kingsworth briefly, “turned out dishonest. She took a pair of my gold earrings, and was dismissed.”
“But, mamma, she says that she was accused falsely. Won’t you go and hear what she has to say?”
“My dear, after all these years it would be impossible to renew the subject. Besides, she did take the earrings. I forget the details now; but there was no doubt of it at the time. She was not a desirable person.”
“I think she was angry with us about it,” said Kate.
“Possibly. She had no right to speak to you at all.” Kate did not feel inclined to repeat all Alice Taylor’s remarks, and indeed was more easily silenced than usual; but the incident added its quota to the weight on her mind. She felt quite sure that Alice Taylor believed her to be the wrong woman in the wrong place.