SUPERSTITIONS AND HAUNTINGS 257 



To return to the house from which the phantom 

 hunt is supposed to start. It is occupied now, but 

 first — two priests lived in it last year before anyone 

 would stay there, and said masses in every room. 



The man in the pink hunting coat is said to 

 trouble it no more, before that he had been seen 

 by not one but several very sceptical people. 



" It might be as lucky." It is the stable word 

 here. Luck and ill-luck rule the world. 



I found ivy to-day growing through the plaster 

 of my very old porch and called someone to cut 

 it away. 



But they say " it's lucky, ma'am, for it to grow 

 into a house like that." 



To put the ill wish on you they thoroughly 

 believe in. The person or animal ill wished dies 

 away gradually. 



To be overlooked is another phase of it. If 

 anyone tells you how well you are looking, or 

 that they've never seen you as happy, there is 

 grave danger of being * overlooked,' especially 

 with children. I think at the back of their minds 

 there is some idea of calling the attention of the 

 Fates to too much prosperity, which, if their 

 elbows are not jogged, they might never see. 



My mother who had the happiest of expressions, 

 was just starting home from Limerick, when 

 a friend hailing her, asked her chafhngly, if she 

 ever had had a trouble. 



When in a short time my father died and she 



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