of ninety years had in the pocket of the dress that she was wearing at the
very moment when she died, for her death was sudden, an iron horseshoe."

"What did it mean? Could her daughter explain it?"

"That she proceeded at once to do. 'Do you remember, sir,' she said,
'how that horseshoe used to hang on a nail over the chimneypiece?' 'I do
remember having observed it there,' I answered; 'for once when I took
notice of it, I said to your mother, laughing, "I hope you are not afraid
of witches, Mrs. Aylmer?" And she looked a little offended, and assured me
to the contrary.' 'Well,' her daughter went on, 'about three months ago, I
missed it. My mother would not tell me anything about it. And here it is!
I can hardly think she can have carried it about all that time without me
finding it out, but I don't know. Here it is, anyhow. Perhaps when she felt
death drawing nearer, she took it from somewhere where she had hidden it,
and put it in her pocket. If I had found it in time, I would have put it
in her coffin.' 'But why?' I asked. 'Do tell me the story about it, if you
know it.' 'I know it quite well, for she told me all about it once. It is
the shoe of a favourite mare of my father's--one he used to ride when he
went courting my mother. My grandfather did not like to have a young man
coming about the house, and so he came after the old folks were gone to
bed. But he had a long way to come, and he rode that mare. She had to go
over some stones to get to the stable, and my mother used to spread straw
there, for it was under the window of my grandfather's room, that her shoes
mightn't make a noise and wake him. And that's one of the shoes,' she said,
holding it up to me. 'When the mare died, my mother begged my father for
the one off her near forefoot, where she had so often stood and patted her
neck when my father was mounted to ride home again.'"

"But it was very naughty of her, wasn't it," said Wynnie, "to do that