“Your grandmother was my mother’s sister.”
“I know that.”
“My mother was the prettiest maid in Nether Applewhite; clever, too, quick with her tongue, as you are—and quick with her needle, as you aren’t.”
“Now, Uncle Ben!”
His voice lost its more familiar intonations and became impersonal and dreamy.
“She became lady’s maid to Sir Geoffrey’s grandmother, Lady Alicia Pomfret. She went about with her everywhere. She ran away with my father. And when I was born she—died.”
Prudence shivered.
“Oh, dear! You never saw your own mother?”
He picked up the miniature.
“This, child, is her portrait.”