same result is supposed to follow, if at a social gathering a girl is inadvertently placed between a man and his wife.

Imaginary impediments to matrimony of this kind are very numerous in a woman's folk-lore, and it is through the same fear that Swedish young ladies abstain from looking into the glass after dark, or by candlelight, for fear of forfeiting the good opinion of the opposite sex. Similarly, in this and other countries, there is a strong antipathy among the fair sex for one to even look at a man, however attractive he may be, whose name commences with the same letter as her own; for, in marriage—

"To change the name and not the letter,

Is a change for the worse and not the better."

And we may note here that among the many reasons assigned for the ill-luck of May marriages is that not only from such union, "All the bairns die and decay," but that women disobeying the rule would be childless; or, if they had children, that the first-born would be an idiot, or have some physical deformity; or that the married couple would not live happily in their new life, but in a very short time grow weary of each other's society-popular fancies which are still held by

women.

Strange to say, a somewhat similar penalty is said, in the North of England, to overtake the rash young lady who is present at church when the banns of marriage are put up, as any children she may hereafter have run the risk of being born

deaf and dumb. The same notion prevails in Worcestershire, and some years ago a correspondent of Notes and Queries tells how a girl urged as an excuse for not hearing the publication of her banns the risk of bringing the curse of dumbness on her offspring, adding that one of her friends who had transgressed this rule "by hearing herself asked out at church," in due course had six children, all of whom were deaf and dumb.

Omens from dreams have, at all times, held a prominent place in a woman's folk-lore, and one may often hear a Shropshire damsel use the proverbial old couplet which tells how

"A Friday night's dream on Saturday told,
Is due to come true be it never so old";

which is much after the same fashion as a couplet current in Gloucestershire :

"Friday night's dream mark well,

Saturday night's dream ne'er tell."

Indeed, Friday's dreams would seem to be regarded by women with special favour, in illustration of which belief may be quoted a rhyme current in Norfolk :

"To-night, to-night, is Friday night,
Lay me down in dirty white,
Dream whom my husband is to be;
And lay my children by my side,
If I'm to live to be his bride."

The interpretation of dreams has, in most countries, been made the subiect of much ingenious

speculation, and many a "Dictionary of Dreams has been framed to help the fair sex in this matter. But, of the thousand and one incidents which are ever nightly being repeated in dreamland, there would seem to be a consensus of opinion in dream books that dreaming of balls and dancing indicates some stroke of good luck in the marriage way to the young lady, it being said

that those

"Who dream of being at a ball

No cause have they for fear,
For soon will they united be

To those they hold most dear."

And a further example we may quote from "Mother Bunch's Closet Newly Broke Open (Percy Society, xxiii. 10-11), because this mode of divination has been one, perhaps more than any other, practised both at home and abroad by young girls anxious to gain a sweetheart :

"Yet I have another pretty way for a maid to know her sweetheart, which is as follows: Take a summer apple of the best fruit, stick pins close into the apple to the head, and as you stick them, take notice which of them is the middlemost, and give it what name you fancy, put it into thy left-hand glove, and lay it under thy pillow on Saturday night when thou gettest into bed, then clap thy hands together, and say these words:

66

CHAPTER XXIV

WOMAN'S TEARS

HE propensity for a woman to shed tears

TH

on the slightest emotion has long been the subject of frequent comment in proverbial literature, and, according to Ricard, "Women never weep more bitterly than when they weep with spite." This common occurrence of everyday life is thus noticed in a popular Scotch adage, which tells us that "It's nae mair ferlie to see a woman greet than to see a guse gang barefit "the meaning being that it is no more wonder to see a woman cry than to see a goose "go barefoot." Indeed, this characteristic of woman, it might be expected, has not escaped ridicule and censure, for, according to an old Latin proverb, "The laughter, the tears, and the song of a woman are equally deceptive;" which is somewhat after the same fashion as the French maxim, "A woman's tears are a fountain of craft ;" and

"A woman's tears and a the Spanish proverb, dog's limping are not real." How little is required to make a woman weep has been noticed by Sir Walter Scott, who pictured aright human life when he wrote:

"A child will weep at a bramble's smart,

A maid to see her sparrow part,

A stripling for a woman's heart;
But woe awaits a country when

She sees the tears of bearded men."

And, among the many proverbial maxims which
endorse this view, we may quote this couplet:

"Deceit, weeping, spinning, God hath give
To women, kindly, while they may live.”

:

Much to the same purport is the Italian adage

"A woman complains, a woman's in woe;
A woman is sick when she likes to be so; "

and the old French saying, which says, "Women laugh when they can and weep when they will.” But, as Joanna Baillie, in "Basil," truly writes :

a statement borne out by the popular saying, which likens her tears to an April shower, which is generally sharp and soon over.

But, given as a woman is to tears, grief would not seem to injure her, if there be any truth in the proverb which says, "A cat has nine lives,