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.

On the Wednesday morning (5th September) I received the first intimation
of what proved to be the last illness of a brother who has been
mentioned in these pages already, and who had been an invalid for nearly
thirty years. A point to be noticed is that on the Sunday, when the sign
came to me, he was in his usual health, and even on Monday went out for
a long drive. The first attack of angina pectoris only came on in the
middle of the ni