You should spend New Year’s eve with a small circle of near and dear friends, around a punch-bowl, while you seek to inquire what the future has in store for you. In the first place this may be done with _melted lead or wax_. Some of you, perhaps, are acquainted with this method of inquiring of the future, yet there may be many among your number who are still ignorant of it. Now, as it is of the highest interest in the world that these should know the process, I will here give, for their benefit, a short explanation of it, which the others may skip over. THE LEAD AND WAX SPELL. Take a good-sized piece of lead or wax, (the former is better,) place it in a melting-ladle, and dissolve it over the coals, or over a spirit-lamp, into which you have poured a little alcohol. You must then take a vessel full of water, (a bowl is best, that is not too deep nor too shallow,) and pour into it the lead or wax, and from the various figures which it forms in the water you endeavor to tell your fortune. THE SAUCER CHARM. The following is another method: you take four saucers; in one you put a _ring_, in another a _sprig of myrtle_, in the third a _piece of money_, and in the fourth _nothing_. The individuals composing the company must now walk around the table, blindfold, one after the other, and choose one of the saucers, which, in the mean time, have been changed as to place. Those among the company who choose the ring, will be _betrothed_ in the course of the year; _myrtle_ signifies wedlock, the _piece of money wealth_, the _empty saucer_ no change of circumstances. HOW TO TELL THE FIRST LETTER OF YOUR FUTURE WIFE OR HUSBAND’S NAME. If you wish to know the letter with which your future wife or husband’s name commences, write all the letters of the alphabet, separately, upon small pieces of paper, put these pieces in a box, and draw one out blindfold. All this may be done before twelve o’clock. Exactly at the stroke of midnight, however, you can summon up your future husband or wife, and behold his or her image _up the chimney_. THE CANDLE SPELL. The following is another method: Take _two candles_, go a little before twelve o’clock into an adjoining chamber—no one on any account must follow you—place yourself before the _mirror_, and exactly as it strikes _twelve_, call out your own name in full, _three times_. When the last sound has died away, you will see in the glass your future husband looking over your shoulder.