Note 34 — A FEW PASSAGES CONCERNING OMENS, DREAMS, APPEARANCES, &c.

The story given by Eusebius is very probably of his own manufacture. It is this. Some years ago, when all the world were mad upon lotteries, the cook of a middle-aged gentleman drew from his hands the savings of some years. Her master, curious to know the cause, learned that she had repeatedly dreamed that a certain number was a great prize, and she had bought it. He called her a fool for her pains, and never omitted an occasion to tease her upon the subject. One day, however, the master saw in the newspaper, or at his bookseller's in the country town, that the number was actually the L.20,000 prize. Cook is called up, a palaver ensues—had known each other many years, loth to part, &c.—in short, he proposes and is accepted, but insists on marriage being celebrated next morning. Married they were; and, as the carriage took them from the church they enjoy the following dialogue. "Well, Molly—two happy events in one day. You have married, I trust, a good husband. You have something else—but first let me ask you where you have locked up your lottery-ticket." Molly, who thought her master was only bantering her again on the old point, cried—"Don't ye say no more about it. I thought how it would be, and that I never should hear the end on't, so I sold it to the baker of our village for a guinea profit. So you need never be angry with me again about that."