WHILST engaged in domestic service at a large county house on the
Dorset border, a young scullery-maid, who was ill, told us the lady
had been to see her, but she was, somehow, afraid of her, and she did
not speak. We other three who were there thought this odd, and I
asked what was she dressed in. The girl replied black, and she had
shiny things in her hair and round her neck. I had happened to meet
the lady in the corridor and she was wearing a blue tea gown, so we
persuaded her she had been dreaming. In course of time, I met an old
lady of eighty-five, who had lived in the house in the days of her
youth. She asked me had I seen the ghost. I said no, and asked what
it was like. She replied: “A lady in black with lots of diamonds on;
she used to walk right the length of the first floor. The butler used
to try to catch her, but never could.”
It was part of my duty every evening during the two years I lived
there to shut shutters and fix bells on all the windows on this
particular floor, yet I never saw anything, whereas the poor girl I
have mentioned was in the house only three weeks and was so
frightened.