Part 18 (2/2)
”Did you see her face?”
”No, ma'am; she put her arm up and turned and ran downstairs, and I went after her, but I never found her.”
”You followed her--how far?”
”To the kitchen. Cook was there. And I said to cook, says I: 'Did you see a girl come this way?' And she said, short-like: 'No.'”
”And cook saw nothing at all?”
”Nothing. She didn't seem best pleased at my axing. I suppose I frightened her, as I'd been telling her about how I was followed and spied on.”
I mused a moment only, and then said solemnly--
”Jane, what you want is a _pill_. You are suffering from hallucinations.
I know a case very much like yours; and take my word for it that, in your condition of liver or digestion, a pill is a sovereign remedy. Set your mind at rest; this is a mere delusion, caused by pressure on the optic nerve. I will give you a pill to-night when you go to bed, another to-morrow, a third on the day after, and that will settle the red-haired girl. You will see no more of her.”
”You think so, ma'am?”
”I am sure of it.”
On consideration, I thought it as well to mention the matter to the cook, a strange, reserved woman, not given to talking, who did her work admirably, but whom, for some inexplicable reason, I did not like. If I had considered a little further as to how to broach the subject, I should perhaps have proved more successful; but by not doing so I rushed the question and obtained no satisfaction.
I had gone down to the kitchen to order dinner, and the difficult question had arisen how to dispose of the sc.r.a.ps from yesterday's joint.
”Rissoles, ma'am?”
”No,” said I, ”not rissoles. Your master objects to them.”
”Then perhaps croquettes?”
”They are only rissoles in disguise.”
”Perhaps cottage pie?”
”No; that is inorganic rissole, a sort of protoplasm out of which rissoles are developed.”
”Then, ma'am, I might make a hash.”
”Not an ordinary, barefaced, rudimentary hash?”
”No, ma'am, with French mushrooms, or truffles, or tomatoes.”
”Well--yes--perhaps. 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 a.s.sumed a half-defiant, half-terrified look.
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