A shoulder-blade sage in Tiree sat dawn to a substantial feast, to which he had been specially invited, that he might divine whether a certain friend was on his way home or not. He examined the shoulder-bone of the wedder killed on the occasion critically, unable to make up his mind. “Perhaps,” he said, “he will come, perhaps he will not.” A boy, who had hid himself on the top of a bed in the room, that he might see the fun, could not help exclaiming, “They cannot find you untrue.” The bed broke, and the diviner and his companions, thinking the voice came from the skies, fled. When the boy recovered he got the dinner all to himself. _Palmistry (Dearnadaireachd)._—Of this mode of divination, as practised in the Highlands, nothing seems now to be known beyond the name. Probably from the first the knowledge of it was confined to gipsies and such like stray characters. _Divination by Tea, or Cup-reading (Leughadh chu-paichean)._—When tea was a luxury, dear and difficult to get, the ‘spaeing’ of fortunes from tea-cups was in great repute. Even yet young women resort in numbers to fortune-tellers of the class, who for the reward of the tea spell out to them most excellent matches. After drinking the tea, the person for whom the cup is to be read, turning the cup _deiseal_, or with the right-hand turn, is to make a small drop, left in it, wash its sides all round, and then pour it out. The fortune is then read from the arrangement of the sediments or tea-leaves left in the cup. A large quantity of black tea grounds (_smùrach du_) denotes substance and worldly gear. The person consulting the oracle is a stray leaf standing to the one side of it. If the face of the leaf is towards the grounds, that person is to come to a great fortune; if very positively its back, then farewell even to the hope “that keeps alive despair.” A small speck by itself is a letter, and other specks are envious people struggling to get to the top, followers, etc. Good diviners can even tell to their youthful and confiding friends when the letter is likely to arrive, what trade their admirer follows, the colour of his hair, etc. CHAPTER X. DREAMS AND PROPHECIES.