'Where does she come from?--is she a French or a Swiss one, or is she a Canada woman? I remember one of _them_ when I was a girl, and a nice limb _she_ was, too! And who did she live with? Where was her last family? Not one of us knows nothing about her, no more than a child; except, of course, the Master--I do suppose he made enquiry. She's always at hugger-mugger with Anne Wixted. I'll pack that _one_ about her business, if she doesn't mind. Tattling and whispering eternally. It's not about her own business she's a-talking. Madame de la Rougepot, I call her. She _does_ know how to paint up to the ninety-nines--she does, the old cat. I beg your pardon, Miss, but _that_ she is--a devil, and no mistake. I found her out first by her thieving the Master's gin, that the doctor ordered him, and filling the decanter up with water--the old villain; but she'll be found out yet, she will; and all the maids is afraid on her. She's not right, they think--a witch or a ghost--I should not wonder. Catherine Jones found her in her bed asleep in the morning after she sulked with you, you know, Miss, with all her clothes on, what-ever was the meaning; and I think she has frightened _you,_ Miss and has you as nervous as anythink--I do,' and so forth. It was true. I _was_ nervous, and growing rather more so; and I think this cynical woman perceived and intended it, and was pleased. I was always afraid of her concealing herself in my room, and emerging at night to scare me. She began sometimes to mingle in my dreams, too--always awfully; and this nourished, of course, the kind of ambiguous fear in which, in waking hours, I held her. I dreamed one night that she led me, all the time whispering something so very fast that I could not understand her, into the library, holding a candle in her other hand above her head. We walked on tiptoe, like criminals at the dead of night, and stopped before that old oak cabinet which my father had indicated in so odd a way to me. I felt that we were about some contraband practice. There was a key in the door, which I experienced a guilty horror at turning, she whispering in the same unintelligible way, all the time, at my ear. I _did_ turn it; the door opened quite softly, and within stood my father, his face white and malignant, and glaring close in mine. He cried in a terrible voice, 'Death!' Out went Madame's candle, and at the same moment, with a scream, I waked in the dark--still fancying myself in the library; and for an hour after I continued in a hysterical state. Every little incident about Madame furnished a topic of eager discussion among the maids. More or less covertly, they nearly all hated and feared her. They fancied that she was making good her footing with 'the Master;' and that she would then oust Mrs. Rusk--perhaps usurp her place--and so make a clean sweep of them all. I fancy the honest little housekeeper did not discourage that suspicion.