The sun sank behind the western hills, tinging the soft, fleecy clouds with its golden glory. Slowly changing from purple and gold to faint yellow, to dark blue, the clouds gradually assumed the night hue, and sombre shadows crept adown the western mountains' sides, flinging their dark mantle over the waters, from shore to shore. The sturdy farmer has shouldered his scythe, and reluctantly he leaves the half-mown lot to seek his evening repast at the family table. Then he discovers me, leaning over the gate-bar, rapt in dreamy forgetfulness, and with a hearty salutation extends to me the hospitality, so proverbially cordial, of the old New England farmer. He shows me his pigs in the pen, and his "stock" in the barn-yard, and reaching the house, he calls "mother," who, appearing in calico and homespun, though with a cheerful and smiling face, is introduced to me as his wife. "A stranger, belated, and I guess pretty tired-like, climbing up here; and I won't take no excuses from him; so he stays with us to-night." [Illustration: THE CHARMER DIVULGES HER SECRET.] I talk with the lady, I play with the babies, I even toy with Towser and Tabby, till tea is set. Now I am introduced to the old lady. I thought I would get to it at last. She was seventy odd years of age, a deaf, but devout old lady, who was easily wheedled into divulging to me her secret of "charming." She told me she had the "rheumatiz," and by my tender sympathies and a roll of plaster for her lame back, I got into her own room before bed-time. O, but I came out soon after! She was very deaf. "You see," said she, "a woman can't learn it to another woman--only to a male. He must be a _good_ man." I nodded assent. "Yes; well, you must have faith." Again I nodded--she was very deaf. "You must touch the painful part and say--" Here she bent down her lips to my ear and whispered something in seven words which she said I must never tell, and she compelled me to promise never to divulge the secret while I lived, under pain of God's great displeasure. Perhaps I had better keep my promise, though the good old lady has long since "gone to her reward." CUI BONO? The question is repeated every time there is a great robbery or a murder committed,-- "Why do not the clairvoyants tell who has committed this crime?" Simply because those who consult them do not know. If a person knew where the stolen property was secreted, and he consulted a true clairvoyant, he or she _might_ describe the property and the place where it is secreted. Not otherwise. The same with the murderer. Therefore, of what good is it? In order to do justice to this subject, to present and explain it in all its various phases, we would require a volume, instead of the space allotted in this chapter. But whatever name one may apply to it,--animal magnetism, Mesmerism, clairvoyance, spiritual or trance mediumship,--its success depends mostly upon the credulity of the person.