A haunted house in Kingstown, Co. Dublin, was investigated by Professor
W. Barrett and Professor Henry Sidgwick. The story is singularly well
attested (as one might expect from its being inserted in the pages of the
_Proceedings S.P.R._[3]), as the apparition was seen on three distinct
occasions, and by three separate persons who were all personally known to
the above gentlemen. The house in which the following occurrences took
place is described as being a very old one, with unusually thick walls.
The lady saw her strange visitant in her bedroom. She says: "Disliking
cross-lights, I had got into the habit of having the blind of the back
window drawn and the shutters closed at night, and of leaving the blind
raised and the shutters opened towards the front, liking to see the trees
and sky when I awakened. Opening my eyes now one morning, I saw right
before me (this occurred in July 1873) the figure of a woman, stooping
down and apparently looking at me. Her head and shoulders were wrapped in
a common woollen shawl; her arms were folded, and they were also wrapped,
as if for warmth, in the shawl. I looked at her in my horror, and dared
not cry out lest I might move the awful thing to speech or action. Behind
her head I saw the window and the growing dawn, the looking-glass upon
the toilet-table, and the furniture in that part of the room. After what
may have been only seconds--of the duration of this vision I cannot
judge--she raised herself and went backwards towards the window, stood at
the toilet-table, and gradually vanished. I mean she grew by degrees
transparent, and that through the shawl and the grey dress she wore I saw
the white muslin of the table-cover again, and at last saw that only in
the place where she had stood." The lady lay motionless with terror until
the servant came to call her. The only other occupants of the house at
the time were her brother and the servant, to neither of whom did she
make any mention of the circumstance, fearing that the former would laugh
at her, and the latter give notice.