“Just happened so, that’s all.”
“You’re as unbelieving as Thomas—Oh, Lord have mercy upon us! Look there; there it is again! and no Banshee neither, but the spirit of my young mistress, with her very face and form, only looking as if she had risen from the grave. Look, look, oh!” cried the woman, covering her face with her hands, and shaking with terror.
Again all looked fearfully towards the window.
Jessup wrung his neck nearly in two in the effort to look behind his back; and upon this occasion perseverance was rewarded. Pressed against the outside of the window, they all saw a fair, wan young face, that sank out of sight the instant it was detected.
“That’s neither a Banshee nor a spirit; it’s a mortal girl!” exclaimed Jessup, springing up, overturning his chair, and rushing out of the room.
The remainder of the party held their breaths in suspense until Jessup pushed open the door and reappeared, dragging after him the pale, weary, half-starved, dripping wet figure of a young girl, whom he pulled up before the astonished housekeeper, saying, mockingly:
“There—there’s your Banshee! A girl as has been caught out in the storm, and was frightened at ringing the door-bell at such a great house as this.”
“The very form, the very face! I never, no, I never did see such a likeness; the express image of my young missus, only thinner, and paler, and smaller. Come to the fire, my lass. What is your name, and how came you out in the storm? You are not one of the village girls?” inquired the housekeeper, drawing the chilled stranger to the bright little coal fire that the dampness of the evening made very comfortable even at this season.
Then seeing in the glare of the light that the girl was wet to the skin, she exclaimed:
“Oh, deary me; you haven’t a dry thread on you! You must have been out in the whole storm; come into my chamber and get a suit of dry clothes on your back, and then you shall have some hot supper before you answer any of my questions.”