"Gerrls is very frightful!" broke in an unexpected voice; "owld
standards like meself maybe wouldn't feel it!"

A large basket of linen had suddenly blocked the scullery door, and
from beneath it a little woman, like an Australian aborigine, delivered
herself of this dark saying.

"What are you talking about, Mrs. Griffen?" demanded Mrs. Alexander,
turning in vexed bewilderment to her laundress, "what does all this
mean?"

"The Lord save us, ma'am, there's some says it means a death in the
house!" replied Mrs. Griffen with unabated cheerfulness, "an' indeed
'twas no blame for the little gerrls to be frightened an' they meetin'
it in the passages--"

"Meeting _what_?" interrupted her mistress. Mrs. Griffen was an old and
privileged retainer, but there were limits even for Mrs. Griffen.

"Sure, ma'am, there's no one knows what was in it," returned Mrs.
Griffen, "but whatever it was they heard it goin' on before them always
in the panthry passage, an' it walkin' as sthrong as a man. It whipped
away up the stairs, and they seen the big snout snorting out at them
through the banisters, and a bare back on it the same as a pig; and the
two cheeks on it as white as yer own, and away with it! And with that
Mary Anne got a wakeness, and only for Willy Fennessy bein' in the
kitchen an' ketching a hold of her, she'd have cracked her head on the
range, the crayture!"