Egypt, in the spring of 1857, she installed herself in a villa in the neighbourhood of Montpellier. There she received a visit from the poet Ponsard and Arséne Houssaye, the latter of whom was making a tour as inspector of the Departmental Museums. "Do you recollect the dinner we had at the house of Victor Hugo, at the close of the repetition of _L'Angelo_?" she said to the former. "You remember there were _thirteen_ of us. There was Hugo and his wife, you and your wife, Rebecca and I, Girardin and his wife, and some others. Well! where to-day are the thirteen? Victor Hugo and his wife are in Jersey; your wife is dead; Madame de Girardin is dead; my poor Rebecca is dead; Gerard de Nerval, Oradie, Alfred de Musset are dead. I--say no more. There remain but Girardin and you. Adieu! my friends. Never laugh at thirteen at a table!" Anecdotes, indeed, relating to this superstition are without number, and form many an amusing episode in the lives of noted characters. It may be mentioned here that the number thirteen is considered ominous in other ways. Fuller, by way of example, tells us how a covetous courtier complained to King Edward VI. that Christ College, Cambridge, was a superstitious foundation, consisting of a master and twelve fellows, in imitation of Christ and His twelve Apostles. He, therefore, advised the king to take away one or two fellowships, so as to dissolve that unlucky number. "Oh, no," replied the king, "I have a better way than that to mar their conceit; I will add a thirteenth fellowship to them," which he accordingly did. Another equally popular superstition is the ill-luck supposed to attach to salt-spilling: one notion being that to upset the salt-cellar while in the act of handing it to any one is a sign of an impending quarrel between the parties. It is also said to indicate sorrow or trouble to the person spilling it, and to counteract the evil consequences of this unlucky act one should fling some salt over the shoulder. Gay speaks of this popular fancy in the fable of the "Farmer's Wife and the Raven":-- "The salt was spilt, to me it fell, Then to contribute to my loss, My knife and fork were laid across." Indeed constant allusions are found to this widespread superstition both in our old and modern writers. Gayton, describing two friends, says:-- "I have two friends of either sex, which do Eat little salt, or none, yet are friends too, Of both which persons I can truly tell, They are of patience most invincible Whom out of temper no mischance at all Can put--no, if towards them the salt should fall."