Oh, hello again, Miss Hargreaves!

I've been reading Mr. Allenby Loses The Way by Frank Baker, author of my much-loved Miss Hargreaves, and I've even been able to call it work - hopefully it'll be useful for the chapter I'm writing at the moment.  It's about a man who is given five wishes by a fairy... but nowhere near as twee as that sounds.  Anyway, this isn't a review of the novel (not least because I've only read the first 50 pages) but something else entirely.  I was merrily reading along, when I came across this seemingly incidental piece of dialogue:

"All snatches of overheard conversation have something of interest in them.  I once listened to an elderly lady who travelled with me in the same carriage from Bath to Cornford, telling her neighbour about a creature called 'Agatha.'  But who, or what, was Agatha?  I never discovered; I never wanted to discover."

Does that mean anything to you?

Perhaps, even probably, not.  You haven't read Miss Hargreaves six times; you don't love its every word with the passion that I do.  But maybe you do remember that it was set in Cornford; that Miss Hargreaves arrived on a train from Bath; that Norman made up Agatha and was told she was "sinking", without ever knowing what sort of animal/person Agatha was...

Sorry if that was gibberish for those of you who haven't read Miss Hargreaves (if you haven't, I'll want to know a VERY good reason why you haven't).  But I can't tell you how thrilled I was to see her mentioned in this novel, published six years after Miss Hargreaves.  It's my favourite novel, and she is my favourite of all characters - any small sign that she broke out of the bounds of her book delights me.  It was so unexpected, and a treat for those with keen eyes and a good memory.  Or, y'know, a borderline obsession with Miss H.

Have you ever come across this?  A character slipping outside their book and popping up in another?  Not in a series, that's no surprise, but a brief waft past, like this - a little gift from the author to the observant reader.  Hmm?