SPOILERS!!!
This story is told by Hester, a child's nurse. Hester tells the children that she looks after that their mother, Rosamond, was her first charge. Her parents hired Hester, and she loved Rosamond from the first moment. Rosamond's parents died, and Rosamund is to be in charge of Lord Funivall, who arranges for his little cousin and Hester to live in the family's manor where his great aunt Miss Grace Furnivall and her companion, Miss Stark live.
Hester and Rosamond settle down in the house. Miss Furnivall and Miss Stark are quite subdued, but it is obvious that they enjoy having Rosamond at home. Hester feels welcome by the other servants. On Christmas Eve Hester and another servant go to church and they leave Rosamond under the care of Miss Furnivall. When she returns, the girl is nowhere to be found. They find her outside in the snow, sleeping and very cold. When the girl wakes up, she says that she went with a little girl and her mother, but Hester doesn't believe her. Yet, when she tells Miss Furnivall and the other servants, they react strangely.
One night Hester sees the little girl outside, and Rosamond sobs and begs to let her go with her, but Hester closes the shutters. Rosamond is very uspet, but she eventually gets asleep. Then Hester asks Dorothy, a servant, who is that girl, who seems to come from a different dimension. Then Dorothy tells her that there were two Miss Furnivalls. The older one was Maude, and the younger one is the Miss Furnivall they serve, Grace. Their father, who loved music, invited an Italian musician, and the two girls fell for him. The man was not honest, and he played with the two of them, and the two sisters began to resent each other. The one the musician wanted was Maude, and he took her away and married her secretly. Then she had a baby. Her father didn't know, and Maude visited the baby who she had left in a cottage. The father became sick, and Maude decided to bring the child to the house and hid her in the west wing, where nobody ever went.
When Miss Grace learnt that her sister had married the musician, she was very angry and told her father. The Lord told Maude that she needed to leave with the child. Maude and the baby died in the snow. The Lord also died a year later.
On New Year Hester ais with Miss Furnivall says that she can hear her father's voice, and Hester can also hear the child crying. Rosamond starts to get upset. Then Hester sees an old man and a woman with a child. Rosamond wants to go to the mother and the child, and then she faints when she sees the old man trying to hit the girl with his crutch. Miss Grace begs her father not to hurt the baby and then Miss Grace faints, and shortly afterwards she dies.
This is really a terrifying story.
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