"I was standing right there at the top of that there staircase,"
she began, gesticulating toward the alcove stairs in the manner of
one who embarks upon the narration of an epic. "Standing there
with your switch in my hand, Miss Neily--and then I looked down
and," her voice dropped, "I saw a gleaming eye! It looked at me
and winked! I tell you this house is haunted!"
"A flirtatious ghost?" queried Miss Cornelia skeptically. She
snorted. "Humph! Why didn't you yell?"
"I was too scared to yell! And I'm not the only one." She started
to back away from the alcove, her eyes still fixed upon its haunted
stairs. "Why do you think the servants left so sudden this morning?"
she went on. "Do you really believe the housemaid had appendicitis?
Or the cook's sister had twins?"
She turned and gestured at her mistress with a long, pointed
forefinger. Her voice had a note of doom.
"I bet a cent the cook never had any sister--and the sister never
had any twins," she said impressively. "No, Miss Neily, they
couldn't put it over on me like that! They were scared away. They
saw--It!"
She concluded her epic and stood nodding her head, an Irish
Cassandra who had prophesied the evil to come.
"Fiddlesticks!" said Miss Cornelia briskly, more shaken by the
recital than she would have admitted. She tried to think of another
topic of conversation.
"What time is it?" she asked.
Lizzie glanced at the mantel clock. "Half-past ten, Miss Neily.
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