Another charm consisted in eating an apple. "Take a candle and go alone to a looking-glass; eat an apple before it, and some traditions say you should comb your hair all the time; the face of your conjugal companion _to be_ will be seen in the glass, as if peeping over your shoulder." A third is, "to dip your left shirt-sleeve in a burn where three lairds' lands meet." "You go out, one or more—for this is a social spell—to a south-running spring or rivulet, where three lairds' lands meet, and dip your left shirt-sleeve. Go to bed in sight of a fire, and hang your wet sleeve before it to dry. Lie awake; and some time near midnight an apparition, having the exact figure of the party in question, will come and turn the sleeve, as if to dry the other side of it." A fourth is performed as follows: "Take three dishes; put clean water in one, foul water in another, and leave the third empty; blindfold a person and lead him to the hearth where the dishes are ranged; he (or she) dips the left hand; if by chance in the clean water, the future husband or wife will come to the bar of matrimony a maid; if in the foul, a widow; if in the empty dish, it foretells with equal certainty no marriage at all. It is repeated three times, and every time the arrangement of the dishes is altered." Pennant says that the young women in Scotland determine the figure and size of their prospective husbands by _drawing cabbages blindfolded_. "They must go out, hand in hand, with eyes shut, and pull the first they meet with. Its being little, straight or crooked, is prophetic of the size and shape of the grand object of all their spells—the husband or wife. Earth sticking to the roots indicates a fortune." _St. Agnes' Eve._ Formerly this was a night of great import to maidens who desired to know whom they were to marry. Of such it was required that they should not eat on this day, and those who conformed to the rule called it fasting St. Agnes' fast. Ben Jonson says— And on sweet St. Agnes' night, Please you with the promis'd sight, Some of husbands, some of lovers, Which an empty dream discovers. Old Aubrey gives a form whereby a lad or lass was to attain a sight of the fortunate lover. "Upon St. Agnes' night you take a row of pins, and pull out every one, one after another, saying a Pater Noster, sticking a pin in your sleeve, and you will dream of him or her you shall marry." —Her vespers done Of all its wreathed pearls her hair she frees; Unclasps her warmed jewels one by one; Loosens her fragrant boddice; by degrees Her rich attire creeps rustling to her knees. Half hidden, like a mermaid in sea-weed, Pensive awhile she dreams awake, and sees, In fancy, fair St. Agnes in her bed, But dares not look behind, or all the charm is fled.—_Keates._ _St. Patrick's Birthday._