The Banshee, Lady Wilde says, is very often seen in this apartment, sometimes appearing shrouded in a dark, mist-like mantle; and at other times as a very lovely young girl with long, red-gold hair, clad in a scarlet cloak and green kirtle, adorned with gold. Lady Wilde goes on to tell us no harm ever comes of the Banshee's visit, unless she is seen in the act of crying, when her wails may be taken as a certain sign that some member of the family will shortly die. Mr McAnnaly corroborates this by stating that on one occasion one of the O'Neills of Shane Castle heard the Banshee crying, just as he was about to set out on a journey, and perished soon afterwards, which is somewhat unusual, because in the majority of cases I have come across the Banshee does not manifest itself at all to the person whose death it predicts. A very old, probably the oldest, branch of the O'Neills now resides in Portugal, but up to the present I have not succeeded in obtaining any evidence to warrant the assumption that the Banshee haunting has been experienced in that country. Indeed, the Banshee seems to be just as erratic and wayward as any daughter of Eve, for there is no consistency whatever in her movements. The very families one thinks she would haunt, she often studiously avoids, and not infrequently she concentrates her attention on those who are utterly obscure, albeit, always of _bona fide_ Irish extraction. CHAPTER V CASES OF MISTAKEN IDENTITY In previous chapters I have dealt exclusively with cases that are, without doubt, those of genuine Banshee haunting. I now propose to narrate a few cases which I will term cases of doubtful Banshee haunting--that is to say, cases of haunting which, although said to be Banshee, cannot, in view of the phenomena and circumstances, be thus designated with any degree of certainty. To begin with I will recall the case relating to the R----s, a family living in Canada. Their house, a long, low, two-storied building, stood on a lonely spot on the road leading to Montreal, and a young lady, whom I will designate Miss Delane, was visiting them when the incidents I am about to narrate took place. The weather had been more than commonly fine for that time of year, but at last the inevitable and unmistakable signs of a break had set in, and one evening black clouds gathered in the sky, the wind whistled ominously in the chimneys and savagely shook the many-coloured maple leaves, while, after a time, the moon, which had been hanging like a great red globe over the St Lawrence, became suddenly obscured, and big drops of rain came spluttering against the windows.