This is to introduce my own strongest superstition, which is a horror of seeing the new moon for the first time through glass. _Breaking_ glass is almost as disastrous in my experience, even if the article itself only costs a few pence. Now I do not for one moment suggest that either one or other is the _cause_ of my subsequent misfortunes. No one surely can be childish enough to suppose such a thing; yet I have known sensible people labour this point in order to show me the folly of my ways--and thoughts. Again, I am quite aware that some people may break as much glass or china as the proverbial bull, and see the moon through the former medium every month of their lives, and not be a penny the worse for it--beyond the amount of their breakages. I only maintain that for _me_ these two things are invariably the precursors of misfortune. When people say to me: "How can a sensible woman like yourself be so foolish as to think such things?" I can only truthfully answer that I should be very much _more_ foolish if so many years of my life had passed without my noticing the sequence of events. But to _explain_ the phenomena is quite another matter. It seems to me quite reasonable that, allowing the possibility of influences coming to us from the other side, some sign--no matter how trivial--might be impressed upon us as a gentle warning to be prepared for disasters, more or less severe. Another curious thing is this: I have never found that avoiding seeing the moon through glass _in any artificial way_ prevents disaster. I used to let kind friends, indulgent to my "folly," lead me blindfold up to the window, carefully thrown open for my benefit. I can remember a most elaborate scene of precaution once, in an American railway carriage between Philadelphia and Boston, when a charming American lady, about to lecture on Woman's Suffrage, and grateful to me for some points I had given her with regard to the woman's question in New Zealand, insisted upon having a heavy window pulled up by a negro attendant, when she found out my little weakness. It was all of no avail. Left alone, I should most certainly have seen the moon through glass on that occasion, and I felt, even at the moment, that I had not really altered anything by falling in with the kind American lady's suggestion. In September 1906 I was going through a course of baths at Buxton, and on a certain Sunday (2nd September) I saw the moon through glass in my bedroom window in the most unmistakable way. There was no friendly cloud, no other twinkling light to throw the smallest shadow of doubt upon the fact. There was much good-humoured laughter over my "superstition" in the house; but I knew _some_ trouble was on its way, little dreaming that it was one which would alter my whole life.