Sabine Baring-Gould

“ By the way, talking of tomatoes, who is that red-haired girl who has been about the house?”
“Can't say, ma'am.”
I noticed at once that the eyes of the cook contracted, her lips tightened, and her face assumed a half-defiant, half-terrified look.
“You have not many friends in this place, have you, cook?”
“No, ma'am, none.”
“Then who can she be?”
“Can't say, ma'am.”
“You can throw no light on the matter? It is very unsatisfactory having a person about the house—and she has been seen upstairs—of whom one knows nothing.” ”

“ I was greatly relieved to hear this, and I arrived at much the same conclusion as did Bessie, but was again bewildered, and my mind unsettled by Jane, who came to e just before lunch, when I was alone, and said—
“Please, ma'am, it's only fair to say, but it's not Miss Bessie.”
“What is not Miss Bessie? I mean, who is not Miss Bessie?”
“Her as is spying on me.”
“I told you it could not be she. Who is it?”
“Please, ma'am, I don't know. It's a red-haired girl.”
“But, Jane, be serious. There is no red-haired girl in the house.” ”

“ Bessie, Jane, and I were by this time at the door, and we rushed together to the kitchen stairs, and one after the other ran down them. I was the first to enter, and I saw cook wrapped in flames, and a paraffin lamp on the floor broken, and the blazing oil flowing over it.
I had sufficient presence of mind to catch up the cocoa-nut matting which was not impregnated with the oil, and to throw it round cook, wrap her tightly in it, and force her down on the floor where not overflowed by the oil. I held her thus, and Bessie succoured me. Jane was too frightened to do other than scream. ”

“ I will not accept your notice; we will let matters stand over till we can look into this complaint of yours and discover the rights of it.”
“Thank you, ma'am. I'm very comfortable, here, but it is unpleasant to suppose that one is not trusted, and is spied on wherever one goes and whatever one is about.”
A week later, after dinner one evening, when Bessie and I had quitted the table and left my husband to his smoke, Bessie said to me, when we were in the drawing-room together: “Mamma, it is not Jane.”
“What is not Jane?” I asked.
“It is not Jane who watches me.” ”

“ Conceive, I am supposing, that on each occasion Miss Bessie, or I, were to meet you on the stairs, in a room, on the landing, in the ball, we were to rush on you and force, let us say, castor-oil globules between your lips. You would give notice at once.”
“Yes; so I should, ma'am.”
“Well, try this upon the red-haired girl. It will prove infallible.”
“Thank you, ma'am; what you say seems reasonable.”
Whether Bessie saw more of the puzzling apparition, I cannot say. She spoke no further on the matter to me ”

“ She has done for me, as she has always minded to do, since I scalded her to death.”
The unhappy woman did not recover.
“Dear me! no hope?” said my husband, when informed that the surgeon despaired of her. “And good cooks are so scarce. By the way, that red-haired girl?” ”

“ It is hot weather now, and when I am in my room, occasionally, I leave my door open whilst writing a letter, or doing any little bit of needlework, and then I am almost certain to hear her outside. If I turn sharply round, I see her slipping out of sight. It is most annoying. ”

“ You are much more concerned about your toilet-cover being stained than about my poor cheek which is gashed.”
“You were very clumsy to do it,” was all I could say. Married people are not always careful to preserve the amenities in private life. ”