y for the Graysons. For she was sure that Bep knew
whereof she spoke. She knew the laws of the superstitious country in
which she dwelt, did Bep: a country where if you sing before you eat,
you're bound to cry before you sleep; where, if you put your
corset-waist on wrong side out, and are hardy enough to change it, you
deserve what you're likely to get; where no sane girl will tempt
Providence by walking on a crack; where, if you lose something, you have
only to spit in the palm of your hand,--if you're dowered in the matter
of saliva,--strike the tiny pool sharply, and say:

"Spit, spit, spider!
If you show me where my pencil is
I'll give you a keg of cider!"

Then note the direction which the escaping particles of saliva take, and
there you are! or, rather, there it is--the lost article.

Or there it ought to be, unless you have been guilty of some inexcusable
act, such as omitting to wish at the very instant a star is falling, or
the first time you taste each new fruit in season, or if you have
forgotten to say:

"Star light, star bright,
First star I've seen to-night,
I wish I may, I wish I might
Have the wish I wish to-night!"

It was Bep who taught Frank to count white horses; to pick up a pin when
its head was turned toward her, to let it lie when it pointed the other
way; to bite the tea-grounds left in a cup, and declare gravely, if
soft, that a female visitor might be expected, and, if hard, a male;
never to cut friendship by giving or accepting a knife, a pin--indeed,
anything sharp; and never, by any chance, to tempt the devil of bad luck
by going out of a house by a different door than that by which she had
entered.

The versatile Frank was most teachable. When Bep was "collecting bows,"
Frances would obligingly bow and bob for her minutes at a time, like a
Chinese mandarin, or like some small priestess observing a solemn rite.
What the Bad Luck was, the terrible alternative of all these
precautions, poor Frank could form no idea. But she had come to
associate it with the babbling tank, which seemed at night, when all was
still, to be gurgling, "Bad Luck--Bad Luck!" threateningly at her.

Then she would go over her conduct during the day, carefully
scrutinizing her every action that might have given this chuckling Bad
Luck a hold over her.

Not a crack had been stepped on that she could remember; not a pin
picked up that should have been let lie; not--

The scream