“Not richer, I presume,” returned Aunt Edith, “than among your more enlightened dwellers in cities.”
“True, we have fortune-tellers and astrologers in abundance, and they appear to find enough silly people to encourage and support them. But what is the nature of these love tests that so many of your country maidens apply on Hallow-Eve?”
Aunt Edith smiled as she answered,
“They are of various kinds. Among the most common is burning nuts on the hearth. A young maiden will take two nuts, and naming one for the man who is, or whom she would like to have for her sweetheart, and the other for herself, she puts them in the fire, and accordingly as they burn quietly together, or start from beside one another, will be the future relation toward each other by the lad and lassie. Don’t you remember these verses in Burns’ “Halloween”:
The auld guidwife’s well hoordit nits
Are round an’ round divided
An’ monie lads’ an’ lassies’ fates
Are there that night decided;
Some kindle, couthie,[[1]] side by side,
And burn thegither trimly;