This falls more strictly in line with many of the so-called signs which, like the old woman’s indigo, if good would either sink or swim, she really didn’t know which; or like the predictions of the old almanac makers, who so shrewdly foretold rain in April, and snow in December. [Illustration] IV SIGNS OF ALL SORTS “Authorized by her grandam.”--_Macbeth._ If you sneeze before breakfast, you will have company before dinner. If you pick the common red field lily, it will make you freckled. A spark in the candle denotes a letter in the post office for you. To hand a cup with two spoons in it to any one, is a sign of a coming wedding in the family. If a cat is allowed to get into bed with an infant, the child will be strangled by the animal sucking its breath, or by lying across its chest. If my right ear burns, some one is talking about me, hence the familiar saying, “I’ll make his ears tingle for him.” Pliny records this omen. Also in “Much Ado About Nothing,” Beatrice exclaims, “What fire is in mine ears!” When the right ear itches or burns, the person so affected will shortly cry; when it is the left, he will laugh. One version runs in this wise:-- “Left or right Good at night.” Late blossoming of vines or fruit trees will be followed by much sickness. This probably rests upon the theory that a mild autumn will be a sickly autumn, which is the same thing as saying that unseasonable weather is pretty sure to be unwholesome weather. The same prediction is expressed by the old saying that “A green Christmas makes a fat church-yard.” Both predictions agree with the observations of medical science. A spoon in the saucer and another in the cup denote that the person using them will be a spendthrift, and probably come to want; but two spoons to one dish of ice-cream denote foresight and true thrift. “Sing before you eat, Cry before you sleep.” Or, if you sing before breakfast, you will cry before supper. Pull out one gray hair, and ten will grow in its place. Should you happen to let drop your scissors, or other sharp instrument, and they should stick upright in the floor, it is a sign that you will soon see a stranger.[5] Dropping the dishcloth has the same significance. Two cowlicks, growing on the same person’s head, denote that he will eat his bread in two kingdoms--that is, be a traveller in foreign parts. Should a cow swallow her cud, the animal will die, unless another cud be immediately given her. Hard-hack[6] was thus named by the early colonists, who declared that the tough stalk turned the edge of the mower’s scythe. If you see a white horse, you will immediately after see a red-haired woman. Bubbles gathering on top of a cup of coffee or chocolate indicate, if they cluster at the middle, or “form an island” in prophetic parlance, money coming to you. If, however, the bubbles gather at the sides of the cup, you will not get the money.