hoed
with buzzing voices, but to her it seemed as if she must speak louder
than these. At the very moment her son had ended she cried out
unconsciously, violently throwing herself against the lattice-work:

"God! living God! shall I not now speak?" A dead silence followed this
outcry. Nearly all had recognized this voice as that of the "silent
woman." A miracle had taken place!

"Speak! speak!" resounded the answer of the rabbi from the men's seats
below. "You may now speak!"

But no reply came. Veile had fallen back into her seat, pressing both
hands against her breast. When the women sitting beside her looked at
her they were terrified to find that the "silent woman" had fainted.
She was dead! The unsealing of her lips was her last moment.

Long years afterwards the rabbi died. On his death-bed he told those
standing about him this wonderful penance of Veile.

Every girl in the _gasse_ knew the story of the "silent woman."

FOOTNOTE:

[D] Copyright, 1890, by Harper Bros.

BANSHEES[E]

Of all Irish ghosts, fairies, or bogles, the Banshee (sometimes called
locally the "Boh[=ee]ntha" or "Bank[=ee]ntha") is the best known to the
general public: indeed, cross-Channel visitors would class her with
pigs, potatoes, and other fauna and flora of Ireland, and would expect
her to make manifest her presence to them as being one of the sights of
the country. She is a spirit with a lengthy pedigree--how lengthy no man
can say, as its roots go back into the dim, mysterious past. The most
famous Banshee of ancient times was that attached to the kingly house of
O'Brien, Aibhill, who haunted the rock of Craglea above Killaloe, near
the old palace of Kincora. In A.D. 1014 was fought the battle of
Clontarf, from which the aged king, Brian Boru, knew that he would never
come away alive, for the previous night Aibhill had appeared to him to
tell him of his impending fate. The Banshee's method of foretelling
death in olden times differed from that adopted by her at the present
day: now she wails and wrings her hands, as a general rule, but in the
old Irish tales she is to be found washing human heads and limbs, or
blood-stained clothes, till the water is all dyed with human blood--this
would take place before a battle. So it would seem that in the course of
centuries her attributes and characteristics have changed somewhat.

Very different descriptions are given of her personal appearance.
Sometimes she is young and beautif