Note 3 — OBSERVATIONS ON ANCIENT AND

A coal starting out of the fire prognosticates either a purse or a coffin, as the imagination may figure either one or the other represented upon it: the death-watch, a species of ticking spider, the inseparable companion of old houses and old furniture, is, when heard, a sure prognostic of a death in the family: the sediment of the sugar, in the form of froth, rising to the top of a cup of tea, is an infallible presage of the person going to receive money: the itching of the palm of the hand, which is to be immediately rubbed on wood, “that it may come to good,” or on brass, “that it may come to pass,” &c. is the certain foreboding of being about to have money paid or otherwise transferred.