“Well, sure,” observed a third, “Father Mullen is goin’ to read her out next Sunday from the althar.  She has been banished from every parish in the counthry.  Indeed, I believe he’s goin’ to drown the candles against her, so that, plaise the Lord, she’ll have to tramp.”

“How does she live and maintain herself?” asked the stranger again.

“Why, sir,” replied the man, “she tuck possession of a waste cabin and a bit o’ garden belongin’ to it; and Larry Sullivan, that owns it, was goin’ to put her out, when, Lord save us, he and his whole family were saized with sickness, and then he sent word to her that if she’d take it off o’ them and put it on some one else he’d let her stay.”

“And did she do so?”

“She did, sir; every one o’ them recovered, and she put it on his neighbor, poor Harry Commiskey and his family, that used to visit them every day, and from them it went over the country—­and bad luck to her!  Devil a man of us would have had luck or grace in the fair to-day if we had met her.  That’s another gift she has—­to bring bad luck to any one that meets her first in the mornin’; for if they’re goin’ upon any business it’s sure not to thrive with them.  She’s worse than Mrs. Lindsay; for Mrs. Lindsay, although she’s unlucky to meet, and unlucky to cattle, too, has no power over any one’s life; but they say it has always been in her family, too.”

The equestrians then proceeded at a rather brisk pace until they had got clear of the peasants, when they pulled up a little.

“That is a strange superstition, sir,” said Woodward, musingly.

“It is a very common one in this country, at all events,” replied the other; “and I believe pretty general in others as well as here.”

“Do you place any faith in it?” asked the other.

The stranger paused, as if investigating the subject in question, after which he replied,

“To a certain extent I do; but it is upon this principle, that I believe the force of imagination on a weak mind constitutes the malady.  What is your own opinion?”

“Why, that it is not a superstition but a fact; a fact, too, which has been frequently proved; and, what is more, it is known, as the man said, to be hereditary in families.”

“I don’t give credence to that,” said the stranger.

“Why not, sir?” replied Woodward; “are not the moral qualities hereditary? are not the tempers and dispositions hereditary, as well as decline, insanity, scrofula, and other physical complaints?”

The stranger paused again, and said, “Perhaps so.  There is certainly much mystery in human nature; more, probably, than we can conceive or be aware of.  Time, however, and the progress of science, will develop much.  But who was this Mrs. Lindsay that the man spoke of?”

“That lady, sir,” replied the other, “is my mother.”

The stranger, from a feeling of delicacy, made no observation upon this, but proceeded to take another view of the same subject.