member, "whoever goes to sleep first on the wedding night will be the first to die."

Although, therefore, at the present day, the bride's lady attendants are so many pretty and attractive appendages of the nuptial ceremonysymbols, oftentimes of youth and beauty-they were not only formerly far less elaborately dressed, but, as seen in the previous pages, they had duties to perform of a responsible nature, the omission of which was thought to presage unhappiness to the bride.

Handed from ages down; a nurse's tale,

Which children, open-eyed and mouth'd, devour;
And thus, as garrulous ignorance relates,

We learn it, and believe."

HE life of woman from the cradle to the

TH

grave has always, from the earliest period, been surrounded with all manner of curious beliefs, some of which have already been incidentally alluded to in the preceding pages. And, strange to say, even at the present day, these oldworld fancies-childish as they only too frequently are-exercise, not unfrequently, a strong influence even in high places upon womankind, and oftentimes they crop up in the most unexpected manner when urged in support of some event in a woman's life-either for weal or woe-which, by the credulous, is held to be the natural outcome of fate as expressed in what may be termed folk-lore formulas.

Thus, to give a few popular illustrations, many a woman has attributed her misfortune in life to having been a "May chet"--that is, born in May; for, as the adage runs :—

whilst, in the West of England, a girl's future is still supposed to be, more or less, determined by the day of her birth, for "Sunday's child is full of grace," and as an old couplet says:

"The child of Sunday and Christmas Day
Is good and fair, and wise and gay."

And, in the same way, popular imagination has gathered from certain features of a woman's person supposed indications not only of her character, but also of events likely, sooner or later, to befall her. A mole on the neck, for instance, denotes that there is wealth in store for her, a local rhyme, often quoted in the county of Nottingham, running thus:

"I have a mole above my right eye, And shall be a lady before I die;

As things may happen, as things may fall,

Who knows but that I may be Lady of Bunny Hall?

and, according to another version, of which there are several, we are reminded that

"If you've got a mole above your chin,

You'll never be beholden to any of your kin."

Similarly, inferences of various kinds have, at one time or another, been drawn from the eyes, although these have not always been of a very auspicious character, for it said of the eyebrows

66

They that meet across the nose,

Will never wear their wedding clothes."

Another version being thus :

"If your eyebrows meet across the nose,

You'll never live to wear your wedding clothes." I

But superstitious fancies connected with the eye have existed everywhere, and a piece of Indian folk-lore tells us that

"When the right eye throbs, it's mother or sister coming; When the left eye throbs, it's brother or husband coming;

an omen which, by the by, is very old, being mentioned by Theocritus, who says: "My right eye issues now, and I shall see my love." And this notion survives to-day, for, according to the popular adage, "When the right eye itches, the party affected will shortly cry; if the left, they will laugh." And in the old days, when one of the terrors of daily life was the "evil eye "to which both sexes were thought to be exposed, an allusion to which delusion is made in "Titus Andronicus (act ii. sc. 1), where Aaron speaks of Timora as

66

‘. . . fettered in amorous chains,

And faster bound to Aaron's charming eyes
Than is Prometheus tied to Caucasus ".

See further allusions in the Chapter on the Eyes.

the "wise woman was much in request, her advice in case of emergency having been freely sought to the lucrative profit of her own pocket. Sometimes the woman was the guilty person in the matter of the "evil eye," as appeared from a case brought some years ago before the Guardians of the Shaftesbury Union, in which an appellant for relief stated that he was unable to earn his livelihood through having been "overlooked" by his sister-in-law. It was stated in evidence that, although his wife had resorted for help to a "Wise Woman," it was to no purpose, as her efforts were perfectly ineffectual to remove the spell under which he lay.

Among other indications that some influence, either good or the reverse, is at work, is what is commonly called "cheek burning," and, in case it should be the latter, the following curse has long been repeated at such a time by the fair

sex:

"Right cheek, left cheek, why do you burn?
Cursed be she that doth me any harm :

If she be a maid, let her be staid;

If she be a widow, long let her mourn;

But if it be my own true love-burn, cheek, burn!"

A "blue vein" across the nose has, from time immemorial, been regarded by the fair sex as "a hateful sign," and oftentimes it has been the cause of much needless alarm. Among the many instances given of this folk-lore belief may be quoted one narrative in Hunt's "Popular Romances of the West of England": "A fond