UNDER THE NEW MOON
THE white crescent of the little new moon blinked at us through the yew boughs. As you walk up the churchyard you see thirteen yews on each side of you, and yet, if you count them up, they make twenty-seven, and it has been pointed out to me that neither numerical fact can be without occult significance. The jugglery in numbers is done by the seventh yew on the left, which hides a shrinking sister in the amplitude of its shadow.
The midsummer day was dying in a golden haze. Amid the gathering shadows of the churchyard her gown gleamed white, ghostlike.
"Oh, there's the new moon," she said. "I am so glad. Take your hat off to her and turn the money in your pocket, and you will get whatever you wish for, and be rich as well."
I obeyed with a smile, half of whose meaning she answered.
"No," she said, "I am not really superstitious; I'm not at all sure that the money is any good, or the hat, but of course everyone knows it's unlucky to see it through glass."
"Seen through glass," I began, "a hat presents a gloss which on closer inspection—"
"No, no, not a hat, the moon, of course. And you might as well pretend that it's lucky to upset the salt, or to kill a spider, especially on a Tuesday, or on your hat."
"Hats," I began again, "certainly seem to—"