But, if she did, the alternatives were grim. She would have either to go back to her own people, or to look after somebody's children, or an invalid. Her own people were not interested in Miss Keating. Children and invalids demanded imperatively that she should be interested in them. And Miss Keating, unfortunately, was not interested in anybody but herself.
So interested was she that she had forgotten the old lady who sat knitting in the window, who, distracted by Miss Lucy's outburst, had let her ball roll on to the floor. It rolled away across the room to Miss Keating's feet, and there was a great tangle in the wool. Miss Keating picked up the ball and brought it to the old lady, winding and disentangling it as she went.
"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.