"Thank Heavens, it's gone!"

"What was it?" asked the Count.

"Nothing human," replied the Colonel--"nothing belonging to this world.
It was a woman of no earthly type, with a queer-shaped, gleaming face, a
mass of red hair, and eyes that would have been beautiful but for their
expression, which was hellish. She had on a green hood, after the
fashion of an Irish peasant."

An American lady present suggested that the description tallied with
that of the Banshee, upon which the Count said:

"I am an O'Neill--at least I am descended from one. My family name is,
as you know, Neilsini, which, little more than a century ago, was
O'Neill. My great-grandfather served in the Irish Brigade, and on its
dissolution at the time of the French Revolution had the good fortune to
escape the general massacre of officers, and in company with an O'Brien
and a Maguire fled across the frontier and settled in Italy. On his
death his son, who had been born in Italy, and was far more Italian than
Irish, changed his name to Neilsini, by which name the family has been
known ever since. But for all that we are Irish."

"The Banshee was yours, then!" ejaculated the Colonel. "What exactly
does it mean?"

"It means," the Count replied solemnly, "the death of some one very
nearly associated with me. Pray Heaven it is not my wife or daughter."