forts of Marriage," a bride and her bridesmaids are represented conversing together, respecting the colours to be used for the decoration of the bridal dress. It was finally decided, after various colours had been rejected," to mingle a gold tissue with grass-green, this combination being considered symbolical of youth and jollity.

In Scotland the bridesmaid is popularly known as the "best maid," and, in past years, one of her principal duties was to carry the bride's presents on the wedding day to her future home. The first article generally taken into the house was a vessel of salt, a portion of which was sprinkled over the floor as a protection against the malignant influence of the "Evil Eye." And Mr. W. Gregor, describing an old Scotch wedding, tells us, the bridesmaids' position was not unattended with certain risks: "After the church had been opened, the beadle or bellman was in attendance to lead the bridegroom to the bride-steel-that is, the pew that was set apart for the use of those who were to be married. The bride was now led forth and placed beside him, and great care was used to have her placed at the proper side. To have placed her improperly would have been unlucky in the extreme. Next to the bride stood her best maid,' this office, though accounted an honour, not being unattended with risk. Three times a bridesmaid was the inevitable prelude of remaining unmarried.”

Lastly, it was one of the duties of the bridesmaid to remind the bride of guarding against certain omens, which were supposed to be attended

with fatal results. In making a wedding trip, for instance, she was enjoined "to be sure and always go up against the stream, as it was most uncanny to go down the waters."

One of the most interesting antiquities of Jarrow Church, Northumberland, is the chair of the Venerable Bede, kept in the vestry, whither brides, conducted by their bridesmaids, at once repair, after the marriage service, to seat themselves upon it. According to the general belief, this act will, in due time, make them the joyous mothers of children, and no wedding ceremony is considered complete until the bride has been duly enthroned.

Similarly, in days gone by, on the lower declivity of Warton Crag, in the parish of Warton, Lancashire, a seat, locally known as the “Bride's Chair," was commonly resorted to on their wedding day by the brides of the village, where they were solemnly enthroned.

But, on the other hand, in past years every precaution was taken to prevent a bride sitting down on the left seat at the gateway of the entrance to Great Yarmouth Parish Churchpopularly designated the "Devil's Seat," as such an act, it was said, would in days to follow render her specially liable to misfortune.

According to another popular item of folk-lore, "if a horse stood and looked through a gateway, or along a road, where a bride or bridegroom dwelt, it was considered to be a bad omen for that future couple ;" and one most important parting warning to the bride was that she should re

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."