se forms perhaps divination by tea-leaves is the simplest, truest,
and most easily learned. Even if the student is disinclined to
attach much importance to what he sees in the cup, the reading of the
tea-leaves forms a sufficiently innocent and amusing recreation for the
breakfast- or tea-table; and the man who finds a lucky sign such as
an anchor or a tree in his cup, or the maiden who discovers a pair
of heart-shaped groups of leaves in conjunction with a ring, will be
suffering no harm in thus deriving encouragement for the future, even
should they attach no importance to their occurrence, but merely treat
them as an occasion for harmless mirth and badinage.

Whether, however, the tea-leaves be consulted seriously or in mere sport
and love of amusement, the methods set forth in succeeding chapters
should be carefully followed, and the significations of the pictures and
symbols formed in the cup scrupulously accepted as correct, for reasons
which are explained in a subsequent chapter.

CHAPTER II

RITUAL AND METHOD OF USING THE TEA-CUP

The best kind of tea to use if tea-cup reading is to be followed is
undoubtedly China tea, the original tea imported into this country and
still the best for all purposes. Indian tea and the cheaper mixtures
contain so much dust and so many fragments of twigs and stems as often
to be quite useless for the purposes of divination, as they will not
combine to form pictures, or symbols clearly to be discerned.

The best shape of cup to employ is one with a wide opening at the top
and a bottom not too small. Cups with almost perpendicular sides are
very difficult to read, as the symbols cannot be seen properly, and
the same may be said of small cups. A plain-surfaced breakfast-cup is
perhaps the best to use; and the interior should be white and have no
pattern printed upon it, as this confuses the clearness of the picture
presented by the leaves, as does any fluting or eccentricity of shape.

The ritual to be observed is very simple. The tea-drinker should
drink the contents of his or her cup so as to leave only about half a
teaspoonful of the beverage remaining. He should next take the cup by
the handle in his left hand, rim upwards, and turn it three times from
left to right in one fairly rapid swinging movement. He should then very
slowly and carefully invert it over the saucer and leave it there for a
minute, so as to permit of all moisture draining away.

If he approaches