With regard to their house, there certainly was something peculiar, since in it was one room that was invariably kept locked, and in connection with this room it was said there existed a mystery of the most frightful and harrowing description. My relative often had it on the tip of her tongue to refer to the room, just to see what effect it would have on the two old ladies, but she could never quite sum up the courage to do so. One afternoon, however, when she was calling on them, the subject was brought to their notice in a very startling manner. The elder of the two sisters, Miss Georgina, who was presiding at the tea table, had just handed Miss S---- a cup of tea and was about to pour out another for herself, when into the room, with her cap all awry and her eyes bulging, rushed one of the servants. "Good gracious!" Miss Georgina exclaimed, "whatever's the matter, Bridget?" "Matter!" Bridget retorted, in a brogue which I will not attempt to imitate. "Why, someone's got into that room you always keep locked and is making the devil of a noise, enough to raise all the Saints in Heaven. Norah" (Norah was the cook) "and I both heard it--a groaning, and a chuckling, and a scratching, as if the cratur was tearing up the boards and breaking all the furniture, and all the while keening and laughing. For the love of Heaven, ladies, come and hear it for yourselves. Such goings on! Ochone! Ochone!" Both ladies, Miss S---- said, turned deadly pale, and Miss Harriet, the younger sister, was on the brink of tears. "Where is cook?" Miss Georgina, who was by far the stronger minded of the two, suddenly said, addressing Bridget. "If she is upstairs, tell her to come down at once. Miss Harriet and I will go and see what the noise is that you complain about upstairs. There really is no need to make all this disturbance"--here she assumed an air of the utmost severity--"it's sure to be either mice or rats." "Mice or rats!" Bridget echoed. "I'm sorry for the mice and rats as make all those noises. 'Tis some evil spirit, sure, and Norah is of the same mind," and with those parting words she slammed the door behind her. The sisters, then, begging to be excused for a few minutes, left the room, and returned shortly afterwards looking terribly white and distressed. "I am sure you must think all this very odd," Miss Georgina observed with as great a degree of unconcern as she could assume, "and I feel we owe you an explanation, but I must beg you will not repeat a word of what we tell you to anyone else." Miss S---- promised she would not, and then composed herself to listen. "We have in our family," Miss O'Rorke began, "a most unpleasant attachment; in other words, a most unpleasant Banshee. Being Irish, you will not laugh, of course, as many English people do, at what I say. You know as well as I do, perhaps, that many of the really ancient Irish families possess Banshees."