18430	----	Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 18430-h.htm or 18430-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/8/4/3/18430/18430-h/18430-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/8/4/3/18430/18430-h.zip) OUR ELIZABETH A Humour Novel by FLORENCE A. KILPATRICK Illustrated by Ernest Forbes [Frontispiece: Elizabeth Renshaw.] Thornton Butterworth Limited 62 St. Martin's Lane, London, W.C. 2 Published November 1920 TO CIS AUTHOR'S NOTE Elizabeth is not a type; she is an individuality. Signs and omens at her birth no doubt determined her sense of the superstitious; but I trace her evolution as a figure of fun to some sketches of mine in the pages of Punch. These, however, were only impressions of Elizabeth on a small scale, but I acknowledge the use of them here in the process of developing her to full life-size. Elizabeth, as I say, is a personality apart; there is only one Elizabeth. Here she is. F. A. K. TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1 CHAPTER 11 CHAPTER 2 CHAPTER 12 CHAPTER 3 CHAPTER 13 CHAPTER 4 CHAPTER 14 CHAPTER 5 CHAPTER 15 CHAPTER 6 CHAPTER 16 CHAPTER 7 CHAPTER 17 CHAPTER 8 CHAPTER 18 CHAPTER 9 CHAPTER 19 CHAPTER 10 CHAPTER 20 ILLUSTRATIONS Our Elizabeth . . . . . . _Frontispiece_ Henry and I looked at the Cookery Book The Kid A Bad Sign Marion dropped fifteen stitches Our Friend William 'Wot's 'orrible about it?' 'Oh, must I, Mama?' ''E was starin' at it wild-like.' 'Do you mean the boiler one?' I asked. 'I suppose I'm shocking you terribly.' A slight lowering of the left eye-lid. Henry, being a Scotsman, likes argument. 'A fair razzle-dazzle.' She dashed from the room in a spasm of mirth. 'Am I not a suitable wife for Henry?' 'Carn't you get rid of 'er?' 'Stop, William!' Marion said. 'Oo ses the Signs is wrong?' ''Ere's to us, all of us!' OUR ELIZABETH CHAPTER I If you ask Henry he will tell you that I cannot cook. In fact, he will tell you even if you don't ask. To hold up my culinary failures to ridicule is one of his newest forms of humour (new to Henry, I mean--the actual jokes you will have learned already at your grandmother's knee). I had begun to see that I must either get a servant soon or a judicial separation from Henry. That was the stage at which I had arrived. Things were getting beyond me. By 'things' I mean the whole loathsome business of housework. My _métier_ is to write--not that I am a great writer as yet, though I hope to be some day. What I never hope to be is a culinary expert. Should you command your cook to turn out a short story she could not suffer more in the agonies of composition than I do in making a simple Yorkshire pudding. Henry does not like housework any more than I do; he says the performance of menial duties crushes his spirit--but he makes such a fuss about things. You might think, to hear him talk, that getting up coal, lighting fires, chopping wood and cleaning flues, knives and brasses were the entire work of a household instead of being mere incidents in the daily routine. If he had had to tackle my duties . . . but men never understand how much there is to do in a house. Even when they do lend a hand my experience is that they invariably manage to hurt themselves in some way. Henry seems incapable of getting up coal without dropping the largest knob on his foot. If he chops wood he gashes himself; he cannot go through the simple rite of pouring boiling water out of a saucepan without getting scalded; and when he mounts the steps to adjust the blinds I always keep the brandy uncorked in readiness; you see, he declares that a chap needs something to pull himself together after a fall from a step-ladder. Perhaps you trace in all this a certain bitterness, a veiled antagonism on my part towards Henry; you may even imagine that we are a bickering sort of couple, constantly trying to get the better of each other. If so, you are mistaken. Up to six months before this story opens our married life had been ideal--for which reason I didn't open the story earlier. Ideal marriages (to any one except the contracting parties) are uninteresting affairs. It is such a pity that the good, the laudable, things in life generally are. One of the reasons why our union was ideal (up to six months before this story opens) was that we shared identical tastes. Comradeship is the true basis of--but perhaps you have read my articles on the subject on the Woman's Page of the _Daily Trail_. I always advise girls to marry men of their own temperament. As a matter of fact, I expect they marry the men who are easiest to land, but you're not allowed to say things like that (on the Woman's Page). We have pure and noble ideals, we are tender, motherly and housewifely (on the Woman's Page). Henry and I were of the same temperament. For one thing, we were equally incompetent at golf. Perhaps I foozled my drive rather worse than Henry, but then he never took fewer than five strokes on the green, whereas I have occasionally done it in four. Then we mutually detested gramophones. But when we discovered that we could both play 'Caller Herrin'' on the piano with one finger (entirely by ear) we felt that we were affinities, and got married shortly afterwards. Stevenson once said, 'Marriage is not a bed of roses; it is a field of battle.' At the epoch of which I write Henry and I had not got to turning machine-guns on each other. At the most we only had diplomatic unpleasantnesses. The position, however, was getting strained. I realized quite clearly that if we didn't obtain domestic help of some sort very soon it might come to open hostilities. Isn't it surprising how the petty annoyances of life can wear away the strong bulwarks of trust and friendship formed by years of understanding? Our particular bulwarks were becoming quite shaky through nothing else but having to muddle through the dull sordid grind of cooking and housework by ourselves. We were getting disillusioned with each other. No 'jaundiced eye that casts discolouration' could look more jaundiced than Henry's when I asked him to dry up the dinner things. Having explained all this, you will now understand something of my feelings when, on going to answer a knock at the door, I was confronted by a solid female who said she had been sent from the Registry Office. Oh, thrice blessed Registry Office that had answered my call. 'Come in,' I said eagerly, and, leading the way into the dining-room, I seated myself before her. With lowered eyes and modest mien I was, of course, waiting for her to speak first. I did not wait long. Her voice, concise and direct, rapped out: 'So you require a cook-general?' 'Yes--er--please,' I murmured. Under her searching gaze my knees trembled, my pulses throbbed, a slight perspiration broke out on my forehead. My whole being seemed to centre itself in the mute inquiry: 'Shall I suit?' There was a pause while the applicant placed her heavy guns. Then she opened fire immediately. 'I suppose you have outside daily help?' 'Er--no,' I confessed. 'Then you have a boy to do the windows, knives and boots?' 'No.' 'Do you send everything to the laundry?' 'Well . . . no . . . not quite.' I wanted to explain, to modify, to speak airily of woollens being 'just rubbed through,' but she hurried me forward. 'Have you a hot water circulator?' 'No.' 'A gas cooking-range?' 'No.' It was terrible. I seemed to have nothing. I stood, as it were, naked to the world, bereft of a single inducement to hold out to the girl. 'Do you dine late?' At this point, when I longed to answer 'No,' I was compelled to say 'Yes.' That decided her. She rose at once and moved towards the door. 'I'm afraid your situation won't do for me,' she remarked. That was all she said. She was perfectly dignified about it. Much as she obviously condemned me, there was no noisy recrimination, no violent vituperative outburst on her part. I followed in her wake to the door. Even at the eleventh hour I hoped for a respite. 'Couldn't something be arranged?' I faltered as my gaze wandered hungrily over her capable-looking form. 'We might get you a gas-cooker--and all that.' Do not condemn me. Remember that my will had been weakened by housework; six months of doing my own washing-up had brought me to my knees. I was ready to agree to any terms that were offered me. The applicant shook her head. There were too many obstacles in the way, too many radical changes necessary before the place could be made suitable for her. I realized finality in her answer, 'No, nothink,' and closing the front door behind her, I returned to the study to brood. I was still there, thinking bitterly, the shadows of the evening creeping around me, when Henry came in. 'Hallo,' he said gruffly. 'No signs of dinner yet? Do you know the time?' And only six months ago (before this story opens) he would have embraced me tenderly when he came in and said, 'How is the little wifie-pifie to-night? I hope it hasn't been worrying its fluffy little head with writing and making its hubby-wubby anxious?' Perhaps you prefer Henry in the former role. Frankly, I did not. 'You needn't be so impatient,' I retorted. 'I expect you've gorged yourself on a good lunch in town. Anyhow, it won't take long to get dinner, as we're having tinned soup and eggs.' 'Oh, damn eggs,' said Henry. 'I'm sick of the sight of 'em.' You can see for yourself how unrestrained we were getting. The thin veneer of civilization (thinner than ever when Henry is hungry) was fast wearing into holes. There was a pause, and then I coldly remarked: 'You didn't kiss me when you came in.' It was a custom to which I was determined to cling with grim resolution. If I allowed his treatment of me to become too casual we might continue to drift apart even when we had some one to do the washing-up. Henry came over to me and bestowed a labial salute. It is the only adequate description I can give of the performance. Then I went to the kitchen and got out the cookery-book. It is a remarkable thing that I am never able to cook anything without the aid of the book. Even if I prepare the same dish seven times a week I must have the printed instructions constantly before me, or I am lost. This is especially strange, because I have a retentive memory for other things. My mind is crammed with odd facts retained from casual reading. If you asked me, the date of the Tai-ping Rebellion (though you're not likely to) I could tell you at once that it originated in 1850 and was not suppressed until 1864, for I remember reading about it in a dentist's waiting-room when I was fifteen. Yet although I prepared scrambled eggs one hundred times in six months (Henry said it was much oftener than that) I had to pore over the instructions as earnestly when doing my 'century' as on the first occasion. The subsequent meal was taken in silence. The hay-fever from which I am prone to suffer at all seasons of the year was particularly persistent that evening. A rising irritability, engendered by leathery eggs and fostered by Henry's expression, was taking possession of me. Quite suddenly I discovered that the way he held his knife annoyed me. Further, his manner of eating soup maddened me. But I restrained myself. I merely remarked: 'You have finished your soup, I _hear_, love.' We had not yet reached the stage of open rupture when I could exclaim: 'For goodness' sake stop swilling down soup like a grampus!' I have never heard a grampus take soup. But the expression seems picturesque. Henry, too, had not quite lost his fortitude. My hay-fever was obviously annoying him, but he only commented: 'Don't you think you ought to go to a doctor--a really reliable man--with that distressing nasal complaint of yours, my dear?' I knew, however, that he was longing to bark out: 'Can't you do something to stop that everlasting sniffing? It's driving me mad, woman.' How long would it be before we reached this stage of debacle? I brooded. Then the front door bell rang. 'You go,' I said to Henry. 'No, you go,' he replied. 'It looks bad for a man if he is master of the house to answer the door.' I do not know why it should look bad for a man to answer his own door unless he is a bad man. But there are some things in our English social system which will ever remain unquestioned. I rose and went to open the front door. The light from the hall lamp fell dimly on a lank female form which stood on the doorstep. Out of the dusk a voice spoke to me. It said, 'I think you're wantin' a cook-general?' I cried out in a loud voice, saying, 'I am.' 'Well, I'm Elizabeth Renshaw. You wrote to me. I got your letter sent on from the Registry Office along with ninety others. But I liked yours the best, so I thought there'd be no 'arm in coming to see----' 'Come in, Elizabeth,' I said earnestly. 'I'm glad you liked my letter.' I began to wonder if I was not a great writer after all. CHAPTER II I piloted Elizabeth in and bade her be seated. Strangely enough, my usual hopeful expectations entirely deserted me at that moment. I felt that the interview would be fruitless. They say hope springs eternal in the human breast, but my breast didn't feel human just then. It was throbbing with savage and sanguinary thoughts. Perhaps it was the eggs. Many animals are rendered ferocious by an over-diet of meat. I can testify (so can Henry) that an over-diet of eggs has exactly the same effect on human beings. I think they stimulate the wrong kind of phagocytes. They can make the mildest and most forgiving person wild and vindictive. Henry always declares, when he reads of a man murdering his wife under exceptionally brutal circumstances, that she must have been giving him too many scrambled eggs. In fact, he wrote articles about it, entitled 'The Psychology of Diet,' in the Sunday papers, signed 'By a Physician.' Henry is not a physician. Neither is he 'An Eminent Surgeon,' 'A Harley Street Expert,' an 'Ex-M.P.,' 'A Special Crime Investigator,' or 'A Well-known Bishop,' although he has written under all these pseudonyms. Do not blame Henry. In private life he seeks the truth as one who seeks the light, but by profession he is a journalist. Not being an expert in anything, he can write about everything--which is the true test of the born journalist. But to return to Elizabeth. With the remembrance of the similar interview of only a few hours before still rankling in my mind, I looked at her a little austerely. This time it was I who began the causerie. 'First of all I must tell you,' I said, 'that we have no hot water circulator.' 'Carn't abide them things,' commented Elizabeth; 'they bust sometimes and blows folks up.' 'We have no outside help,' I continued. 'An' a good thing, too. One place I was in the char 'elped 'erself to things an' it was me who was blamed fer it.' 'We have no gas-cooker.' 'Well, that's all right, then. Don't understand 'em. Give me a proper kitchen range, that's all I ask.' I looked up hopefully. If all she asked for was a kitchen range I should be glad enough to give her a little thing like that. But the supreme test was yet to come. 'We don't send everything to the laundry,' I began. 'I 'ope you don't,' she broke in, 'leastways my clothes. The state they send 'em back, 'arf torn to ribbons. A girl never 'as 'er 'and out of 'er pocket buying new things. Besides, I like a bit o' washin'--makes a change, I always say.' My heart began to beat so loudly with hope that I could hardly hear my own voice as I asked, 'How . . . how soon can you come?' 'To-morrow, if you like,' she answered casually. 'I've 'ad a row with the friend I'm stayin' with and I can't abide living-in with folks I've fallen out with.' I struggled to reconstruct this sentence and then, remembering what was required of me, I remarked, 'And your references?' She gave me the address of her last place. 'Are they on the 'phone?' I questioned eagerly. 'If so, I'll settle the thing at once.' It seemed they were. I tottered to the telephone. My call was answered by a woman with a thin, sharp voice. 'I am sorry,' she said in answer to my query, 'I must refuse to answer any questions concerning Elizabeth Renshaw.' 'But you only need say "yes" or "no." Is she honest?' 'I am not in a position to give you a reply.' 'Am I to understand that she isn't sober?' 'I cannot answer that question.' 'Look here, she hasn't murdered any one, has she?' 'I am not in a position----' 'Oh, hang the woman,' I muttered, jerking up the receiver. But I felt the situation was an awkward one. What sinister and turbid happenings were connected with Elizabeth and her last place? I meditated. If she were not sober it was, after all, no business of mine so long as she got through her work. And if she didn't we should be no worse off than we were at present. If she were dishonest it might be awkward, certainly, but then there was nothing of very much value in the house, Henry and I merely being writers by profession. Most of our friends are writers, too, so we have not the usual array of massive silver wedding gifts about the place, but quite a lot of autograph photos and books instead. The value of these might not be apparent to the casual pilferer. My meditations got no further. I decided to lock up my silk stockings and best handkerchiefs and engage Elizabeth without delay. As a matter of fact, I afterwards discovered that her career had been blameless, while she had every foundation for her favourite declaration, 'I wouldn't take a used postage stamp, no, nor a rusty nail that wasn't my own.' I do not condemn the woman I interviewed on the telephone, reprehensible as was her conduct. Perhaps she, too, was living on eggs and it had warped her better nature. 'I suppose you can cook all right?' I asked Elizabeth as ten minutes later, all arrangements made, I accompanied her to the door. 'Me? I'm a rare 'and at cookin'. My friend's 'usband ses 'e's never come across any one who can cook a steak like I can.' 'A steak,' I murmured ecstatically, 'richly brown with softly swelling curves----' 'Rather underdone in the middle,' supplemented Elizabeth, 'just a little bit o' fat, fairly crisp, a lump o' butter on the top, and I always 'old that a dash o' fried onion improves the flavour.' 'How beautiful,' I murmured again. It sounded like a poem. Swinburne or de Musset have never stirred me so deeply as did that simple recitation. Elizabeth, seeing that she had an attentive audience, continued, 'Take roast pork, now. Well, I always say there's a lot in the cookin' o' that, with crisp cracklin', apple sauce an' stuffin'-----' 'Don't go on,' I, broke in, feeling in my weakened state, unable to stand any more. Tears that men weep had risen to my eyes. 'Promise,' I said, taking her toil-worn hand, 'that you will come to-morrow.' 'Right-o,' said Elizabeth, and her lank form disappeared in the darkness. I staggered into the dining-room. Henry was sitting at the disordered dinner table jotting down notes. At any other time this would have irritated me, because I knew it was a preliminary to his remark that as he had an article to write which must be finished that evening he would not be able to help me with the washing-up. A hackneyed dodge of his. Oh, I could tell you a tale of the meanness of men. 'Henry, something has happened,' I began. Without looking round he remarked, 'Don't disturb me. I must write up a brief biographical sketch of Courtenay Colville, the actor. He's been taken seriously ill and may be dead just in time for the morning papers.' In this way do journalists speak. To them life and death, all the tremendous happenings of the world--wars, revolutions, or even weddings of revue actresses--are just so much matter for printed and pictorial display. Do you think, if a great and honoured statesman dies, sub-editors care two pins about his public services? Not they. All they worry about is whether he is worth double-column headings, a long primer intro., and a line across the page. 'I didn't know Courtenay Colville was so ill,' I commented mildly. What I did know was that he was reported to have sprained his right toe at golf, and only an hour previously I should have commented caustically on Henry's description of this 'serious illness.' Now I came up to him and put my arm about his neck. 'I've just put on a clean collar--be careful,' he said, shaking off my hand. 'Henry, dear, I've landed a servant at last,' I breathed. He looked up and, for a moment, I felt that I ought not to have told him so suddenly. But joy does not often kill. I went and knelt beside him. 'Dearest,' I whispered, 'it seems as though all the bitterness and misunderstanding between you and me is to be swept away at last. She can cook steaks, dear--juicy steaks, pork with crackling----' 'Sage and onion stuffing?' burst in a hoarse murmur from Henry. 'Yes, and large mutton chops, rich in fat----' 'Dearest, how splendid,' whispered Henry. Our lips met in ecstacy. That evening was one of the happiest we have ever spent. Henry and I sat together on the divan and looked at the cookery-book. There was no doubt about it. Henry said, that Mrs. Beeton was a wonderful woman. We felt that she and Mr. Beeton must have been tremendously happy in their married life. [Illustration: Henry and I looked at the Cookery Book.] The illustrations to the book delighted us, too, with their bold outlines, vigorous colouring, and, attention to detail. Henry and I rather favour the impressionist school in art, but when you're admiring a picture of salmon mayonnaise it refreshes you to distinguish the ingredients. Elizabeth arrived the next day, bringing with her a small--perplexingly small--brown paper parcel. The rest of her luggage, she said, was on the way. It remained on the way so long that I finally got uneasy and began to question her about it. She did not seem so disturbed at the prospect of its being lost as I did. At last, when I declared my intention of writing Carter Paterson's about it on her behalf, she confessed. Frankness is one of her distinguishing qualities. 'My box is still at my friend's,' she explained. 'You see, when I goes to a new place I never 'ave my luggage sent on until I feel I'm going to settle. It saves a lot o' bother--if I don't stop.' 'I hadn't thought of that,' I commented feebly. 'I brought a clean cap and another pair o' stockings with me, so I'm all right for a fortnight,' she went on. Her creed, like her change of underclothing, was obviously simple. Mournfully I withdrew from the kitchen to meditate. So we were on probation. It was a tremulous time. I bade Henry tread softly and not to forget to rub his feet on the mat. I gave all my orders to Elizabeth in a voice which blended deference with supplication. I strove hard to live up to what I thought must be her conception of the Perfect Mistress. And when, the fortnight expired, Carter Paterson drove up and deposited a small corded box on the hall mat, I felt it to be a personal triumph. But Henry said I had nothing to do with it. To this day he declares that Elizabeth decided to stop because she so earnestly desired to serve such a gentle master. CHAPTER III No doubt you will have guessed that Henry is a better and sounder writer than I. He has helped me a lot with his criticism and advice, for he is fastidious regarding style. There used to be a time, before he came along, when I walked in darkness, often beginning sentences with conjunctions and ending them with adverbs; I have even split infinitives and gone on my way rejoicing. I am now greatly improved, though one of the incurable things I shall never eradicate from my system is a weakness for beginning sentences with 'but.' But if you observe it, I hope you will kindly pass it over without remark. Henry often talks to me about construction. 'If you are writing a book,' he says, 'don't introduce all your characters in the first chapter. Let them develop gradually.' Now that is sound advice. It was not, however, for the sake of construction that I refrained from telling you about The Kid at the very beginning. I was impelled to silence by the same reason which kept me from mentioning The Kid to Elizabeth until her box had arrived and she had settled down. I feel sure you do not want to hear about The Kid any more than Elizabeth did. It is annoying to read about children. If they are good they cloy, and if bad they irritate. The Kid is neither. In any case, it is time she came home now, so she will have to drop in here. During my servantless period she stayed with friends--which was a good thing for her digestion and my nervous system. Now there was no longer any excuse--I mean, it was now time for her to return. [Illustration: The Kid.] She is what you would call a boisterous child, overflowing with ebullition of spirits, _joie de vivre_, bonhomie, and all those attributes which cause people possessing them to make a noise. When she enters a room you always think of those lines, 'the mountains skipped like rams, and the little hills like young sheep.' She descended on Henry and me just a year after our marriage. As we have now been married ten years you will be able to calculate her age if you are good at arithmetic. Elizabeth did not disapprove of The Kid. It might have been awkward if she had. As a matter of fact, they became close companions at sight. There were certain affinities between them. Elizabeth, for example, although perhaps not so habitually sticky as The Kid, like her didn't seem able to remain clean or tidy for longer than half an hour at a time. Also, Elizabeth believing in Signs, The Kid revered her for her mysticism--about the only person who ever did. She used to beg to be allowed to study her Dream Book, and every evening before bedtime would go into the kitchen and--sitting amid that wild disorder that is necessary to Elizabeth before she can really feel at home--'look up' her dream of the previous night. Try as she would, the poor child never seemed to have the sort of vision that, in the words of the book, had 'excellent portent.' 'I don't get the nice things,' I once heard her remark, 'like white horses, you know, which, it says, portend honours, riches and rare gifts. Did you ever dream of white horses, Elizabeth?' 'That I did--wunst.' 'And did you get the honours, and all those things, Elizabeth?' 'Well, I got the rare gifts in a manner o' speaking. My gran'mother died a month later an' left me a pair o' jet earrings and a jet bracelet to match--one o' them stretchin' ones, on elastic, you know.' That incident established Elizabeth in The Kid's estimation as a prophet. Old Moore himself couldn't have done better. I did not pay much attention to these things; and it was not until Elizabeth had been with me for some time that I discovered her intense fatalism. She ordered her life by Signs, in fact. You or I might drop a tablespoon on the floor and think nothing of it, but she would tell you at once it was a Sign that a tall dark lady was coming to the house. If a knife fell you would hear her mutter '_That's_ a man.' According to Elizabeth, success in life is in no wise due to personal effort--it all depends on whether you are 'born lucky.' Unfortunately Elizabeth was 'born unlucky'--unfortunately for me as well as her. Destiny, having now woven my life with hers, it made me unlucky, too. For example, she would come to me and announce, 'I've been unlucky an' broke the teapot this mornin'. That means I'll break another two things afore the week's out. It always goes in threes.' 'Then hadn't you better smash something that is of no value at once,' was my obvious suggestion, 'and get it over?' But Elizabeth, entrenched in her convictions, would shake her head. 'That's no good. I've tried that afore an' it didn't work. You see, it 'as to be done unexpected to break the spell.' So the spell had to be broken also. Clearly, human intervention was no good at all. Fate was against both of us. There is something positively uncanny in the way misfortune lies in wait for that girl. You would think that after causing her to break two full breakfast services it would leave her alone for a while. But no; she was half-way through the third before her luck showed any signs of changing. Spilling the salt accounted for three burnt saucepans and the collapse of the plate rack (at the moment fully charged); while seeing the new moon through glass caused her to overlook the fact that she had left a can in the middle of the staircase. Afterwards (during the week that I waited on her on account of her sprained ankle) she said she would never go near a window again until the moon was at full and quite safe. Of course, I do my best to parry these mysterious blows of Fate. I remember when she first undertook to clean the drawing-room I took away everything that a mysterious agency might cause to 'come in two' in her hands. I left her alone with the grand piano and scrubbing materials, and went out to spend the afternoon with cheerful countenance. I returned rather late, and directly Elizabeth opened the door to me I saw that something was wrong. 'I've been unlucky,' she began. 'Unlucky!' I faltered. 'But what with? Don't say the piano came in two in your hands?' 'It wasn't my 'ands, it was my feet. The floor gave way an' I went through.' 'You went through the floor!' I marvelled. Then my face cleared. The house was not mine, and, after all, the landlord has no right to escape these unusual machinations of Fate. 'I knew somethink would 'appen when I put the boots on the table by accident this mornin',' she explained, 'It's always a Bad Sign.' You must not think, however, that Elizabeth ever allows her fatalism to interfere with her judgment. I recall the occasion when she came to me looking actually concerned and remarked: 'I'm sorry, 'm, but them two varses that was on the mantelpiece in the pink bedroom----' I started up. 'Don't dare to say you've been unlucky with them!' 'No'm, I wasn't unlucky. I was just careless when I broke those.' A low moan escaped my lips. They were the Sèvres vases that I loved dearest of my possessions, and which, in the words of those who keep shops, 'cannot be repeated.' I regarded Elizabeth angrily, no longer able to control my wrath. I am at times (says Henry) a hasty woman. I ought to have paused and put my love of Sèvres vases in the balance with the diet of scrambled eggs and the prospect of unlimited washing-up, and I know which side would have tipped up at once. However, I did not pause, caring not that the bitter recriminations I intended to hurl at her would bring forth the inevitable month's notice; that, at the first hint of her leaving me, at least a dozen of my neighbours would stretch out eager hands to snatch Elizabeth, a dozen different vacant sinks were ready for her selection. I did not care, I say; I had loved my vases and in that moment I hated Elizabeth. But she began to speak before I did. 'It isn't as if I'd been unlucky--I couldn't ha' 'elped _that_. But I know when I'm in the wrong'--she unfolded a parcel she had in her hand as she spoke--'so I went out larst night and bought these to replace what I broke. Right's right, I always say'; and she laid down before me a pair of vases on which were emblazoned gigantic and strangely-hued flowers that could belong to no earthly flora. 'They're bigger'n the varses I broke,' she murmured, regarding her purchase with satisfaction. Then I noted that she wore an expression of lofty pride, that she glowed with the calm satisfaction of one who has made ample reparation. Looking at Elizabeth just then you might almost have thought that she had a soul. Really, it gave one an odd feeling. I picked up her offering and regarded it a moment in silence, while my aesthetic nature shook to its foundations. Stifling the moan of horror that had risen to my lips, I faced her with a smile. Balaclava heroes could have done no more. 'Thank you, Elizabeth,' I said humbly. CHAPTER IV Marion often says that if Elizabeth hadn't . . . but I believe I haven't told you about Marion yet. I'm afraid I shall never learn construction, in spite of Henry. Well, Marion is Henry's sister. She is what you would call a really nice girl. Everybody likes her and sends for her when in trouble or needing advice. Women adore her and tell her all their secrets, and get her to alter their dresses for them. Men seek her company in order to pour out their worries and anxieties into her sympathetic ear. She is always acting as intermediary in love affairs that are not running smoothly and need the intervention or assistance of a third party. But--and this is where the poignant touch comes in--she never had a love affair of her own. I could not understand why. It isn't that she's unattractive, being quite pretty in that feminine clinging way which we generally connect with the Victorian era. There is a certain type of man who admires this type of woman. He writes to the newspapers, clamouring loudly to be told where the 'nice' girls are (the girls of modest mien who know only the gentle, housewifely arts), and signs himself 'Old-Fashioned' or 'Early Victorian,' or merely gives baffling initials, always being careful not to disclose his identity. If he really wants these sort of girls why doesn't he give a name and address to which they can be forwarded? It is my belief that men like these 'nice' homely women as mothers, but do not seek for them as wives. But, I ask, how are they to be mothers--and still remain 'nice'--if they are not first to be selected as wives? If the position isn't faced they will soon die out altogether and become as rare as the brontosaurus. We shall go to museums and see exhibited, 'Fossilized remains of "Nice Girl": supposed to exist in early part of twentieth century. Rare specimen.' Everybody said Marion ought to be married as she had those fine qualities which belong to the ideal home-maker. Nearly every man who knew her declared that she would make a perfect wife--and then went off and married someone else. They said the chap would be lucky who got her--which was true enough--but the idea of going in to win her didn't seem to occur to any one of them. So here was Marion, sweet and lovable, who would make a delightful mother of children and of a home a haven of refuge, languishing alone for want of a suitable offer of marriage. I will frankly admit that I planned various matrimonial schemes for Marion. Many eligible men did I invite to meet her; some fell on stony ground, and others made excuses and stayed away. I remained undaunted, although I got no assistance from Henry, who strongly disapproved of my manoeuvres. In any case, he would never have been of much help in the matter, being quite unable to distinguish between the Right and the Wrong kind of man. Also, nearly all his friends are either married with grown-up children, or elderly widowers with hearts so firmly embedded in the graves of their former wives that it would be perfectly impossible to try to excavate them again. The annoying thing about Henry, too, is his lack of discernment regarding men. I have known him speak glowingly, and with unabated enthusiasm, of 'a most interesting chap' he has met at his club, referring to him as 'altogether delightful,' 'a charming conversationalist,' and so on, until I have felt impelled to ask Henry to bring this treasure home to dinner. Then, after expending myself in the preparation of such things as _hors d'oeuvres_ and iced cocktails and putting on my most becoming frock Henry has walked in with a veritable monster of a man. You know the kind I mean. Quite good and God-fearing and all that, but with one of those dreadful clematis moustaches which cling half over the face, beginning at the nostrils and curling under the chin, a form which undulates in the region of the waistcoat, and a slow and pompous conversation (mainly devoted to the discussion of politics in the 'fifties). I remember, shortly after one of these visitations, Henry ringing me up on the 'phone and asking if it was convenient to bring a man home to dinner that evening. 'What is he like?' I inquired, still smarting under recent experiences, 'has he much moustache--I mean, is he nice?' Henry paused. 'Oh, all right. I don't know whether you'd care for him. Perhaps I'd better not----' 'Yes, bring him if you want to, dear,' I conceded. I am not one of those fussy wives. I like Henry to feel that he can bring a friend home whenever he likes; but on this occasion I did not make unusual preparations. After bidding Elizabeth turn the cold meat into curry and judiciously water the soup to make it enough for four instead of three, I tidied my hair and descended into the hall to see Henry helping a man off with his overcoat--and such a man! It was the dashing, the handsome, the witty Harvey Trevor (political writer on the _Morning Sun_). It was too late to back upstairs again and improvise upon my toilette, for they both looked up and saw me at that moment. So there I stood, like a stag at bay, with my nose unpowdered (Henry would say that a stag doesn't powder its nose, but you will know what I mean) wearing my dullest and most uninspired house-frock, and hurling silent anathemas at my heartless husband. You will now understand how useless Henry was as an ally in my matrimonial plans for Marion. But I was doggedly determined that she should make some man happy. At last, indeed, it seemed as though my efforts were to be crowned with success when George Harbinger appeared on the scene. He took to her at once and said that she was just the sort of girl his mother would like. He declared that Marion's oyster patties were things of pure delight and ought to be eaten to slow music. (Yes, I always got Marion to make some of her special pastry when the eligibles came to dine.) He openly sought her society. They even played draughts together and he always won. Everything was going splendidly. I was especially satisfied, for George Harbinger was an estimable man. He was an assessor, and entirely reliable. Indeed, I believe it would be difficult to find an assessor who is not. When you read the police court cases you find all sorts of professions and followings represented in the charge sheets, from actors down to editors, but have you ever heard of an assessor who defaulted, who committed bigamy, arson, larceny, murder, or neglected to pay his income tax? No, you have not. Also, you seldom hear of an unmarried assessor. They are known to be such steady, dependable men that they are always snapped up at once. Thus you can understand how pleased I was to get hold of George. One evening it seemed as though things were getting to a climax. George had eaten four of Marion's oyster patties at dinner and, after retaining her hand for an undue length of time at parting, asked if he could see her alone if he called the following evening, as he had something important to say to her. Marion was in a flutter. She admitted that she 'rather liked' George. (Your nice girl never says outright that she's keen on a man.) 'And what do you think,' she confessed, 'he said when we were playing draughts to-night that I was just the sort of girl his mother would like, and--and----' 'Yes, go on,' I said tensely. 'That he never believed in a man marrying a girl of whom his mother did not approve. What do you think he meant by that, dear?' 'Everything,' I said, and took a silent decision to leave no stone unturned to bring the thing off all right. I planned to leave them alone in the rose drawing-room with its pink-shaded lights--Marion looks her best under pink-shaded lights. She was thirty-seven, but only looked thirty when she had her hair waved and wore her grey _charmeuse_. I, myself, prepared her for the interview. I dressed her hair becomingly and clasped my matrix necklace around her throat. Then, soon after George arrived, I excused myself on the plea of having an article to write--which was perfect truth--and left them alone together. Doesn't it give you a feeling of contentment when you have done a good action? You are permeated with a sort of glow which comes from within. After closing the drawing-room door on Marion and George, I sat down to work in an atmosphere of righteousness. I could almost imagine there must be the beginnings of a faint luminous disc around my head. The subject of the article I now began to write was 'Should Women Propose?' Treading carefully on the delicate ground of the Woman's Page, I decided that they must do nothing that is so utterly unfeminine. 'But there are many subtle little ways in which a woman can convey to a man her preference for him,' I penned, 'without for a moment overstepping the bounds of that maidenly reticence which is one of the charms of----' The door opened and Elizabeth entered. Elizabeth has a way of entering when I am most likely to lose the thread of my sentence. 'I'm fair worried about Miss Marryun,' she began. I looked up with a start. 'What on earth do you mean?' 'Well, you see, the Signs are against 'er. They've bin against 'er for days. Yesterday I see 'er sneeze three times to the left, an' that's bad. Then when she put her right shoe on 'er wrong foot by accident, I felt somethin' was comin'. But after I found two triangles an' a mouse in 'er cup to-day I knew----' [Illustration: A Bad Sign.] 'A mouse in her cup!' I marvelled. 'Fortune tellin' by tea-leaves, 'm. Well, a mouse is a Bad Sign. It's my belief that she won't get no propogal this evenin'.' I looked at Elizabeth sternly. I do not wish to insinuate for one moment that she is in the habit of listening at doors, but she certainly gains an insight into our private lives that is nothing short of uncanny. 'I just been lookin' at the cards,' she continued, 'an' they say as plain as can be that Mr. 'Arbinger isn't the one. 'E's the wrong colour.' 'And what colour do you expect him to be?' I demanded. ''Im bein' fair takes King o' Dimonds. Well, Queen o' Clubs--that's Miss Marryun--is seven cards removed from 'im and the three o' spades comin' between spells disappointment. But, as I ses to 'er quite recent, I ses, "If you want to see your true love aright go into the garding by pale moonlight, walk in a circle, and say,-- "If I my true love now would see----"' 'Elizabeth,' I broke in, 'don't forget to grill master's bloaters for breakfast.' In this way do I recall her and remind her of her duty when she ignores the chasms of caste and class distinction which yawn between us. 'Grilled, 'm? Right-o. Well, as I was sayin' about Miss Marryun. She's gotta ring in 'er fortune and she _will_ get married, but it will be to a dark man who'll cross water to meet her. She's like me. She isn't fated to meet the right one yet.' This was a subtle reference to her own chaotic love affairs. Elizabeth never has any lack of young men.' But they are like ships that pass in the night (her night out as a rule), and one by one they drift off, never stopping to cast anchor in her vicinity. You know what I mean. Elizabeth can't keep her young men. They seem attracted to her at first, but, as I say, after a very short time they drift. 'We shall see wot we shall see,' went on Elizabeth, 'there aint no knowin' an' there aint no tellin'. But wot I ses is, if this 'ere propogal don't come orf this evenin', I gotta plan. Of course, one marries accordin' to Fate, but sometimes it doesn't do no 'arm to give Fate an 'elpin' 'and, like.' Nodding darkly, she melted out. I did not at the time attach any significance to her final words. How was I to guess at those schemes which were even then fermenting in her mind and ended by involving not only Marion and Another, but the entire family? CHAPTER V Marion gave me what the newspapers term 'a verbatim report' of the interview which took place between her and George Harbinger. She omitted no detail. As far as I understand, when I left them he was standing with his right foot on the fender and the other on the rug, and his elbow on the mantelpiece. She was sitting in the easy chair to the left of the fireplace, in the full glow of the shaded lamp, knitting a jumper. There was a pause and then he began, 'You never seem idle for a minute. How nimble your fingers are!' Marion knitted a little harder. 'I have always hoped,' he went on, 'that the woman I married would be fond of her needle. There is something so restful in the idea of coming home in the evening to see one's companion sitting at the fireside engaged in such womanly tasks.' Marion said that, no doubt, after a hard day at assessing, such a sight would be soothing to a man. He now came and sat beside her. 'I want to ask you something rather important,' he said, 'but I wonder if I have known you long enough to warrant it.' She paused in her knitting for a moment to remind him--very earnestly--that real friendship and understanding is more a matter of affinity than actual length of acquaintance. 'You're right,' he said, pondering, 'and, of course, you're so . . . so sensible.' Women hate to be told they are sensible by any one but their mothers-in-law. But how could an assessor know that? He continued to regard her earnestly. 'I feel sure, too, that you're so much older than you look.' To this day Marion says she's not sure whether this was intended as a compliment or a deadly insult. 'Do you think,' he went on, 'that a man should ask a woman to marry him only when she has reached maturity?' Marion, moving well into the glow of the pink-shaded lamp, said it depended on the stage of maturity. Nowadays, when women so often look younger than they really are, it is difficult to tell. He seemed relieved. 'That's exactly what I feel about it. But supposing my mother shouldn't approve of my choice? I hate family squabbles above everything. I have always maintained that I would only marry the woman that my mother really liked.' 'Isn't that rather a handicap for your future wife?' asked Marion gently. 'But why not ask your mother's opinion of her?' 'That's just what I want to speak to you about,' he put in eagerly. 'I . . . I want to ask you if I can introduce you to my mother?' The knitting fell from Marion's nerveless fingers. She can show you the uneven row on the jumper where she dropped fifteen stitches at that moment. [Illustration: Marion dropped fifteen stitches.] 'I shall be most happy to meet your mother,' she murmured. 'This is really good of you,' he said eagerly. 'You see, you're the very one she would take to in an instant. I knew it directly I met you. I don't know any one else she would listen to so willingly, if you will consent to intervene.' 'Intervene!' echoed Marion. Somehow she did not like the word. Not at that moment, I mean. 'Yes, intervene,' he repeated. There was no mistaking it--what could be clearer. Latin, _inter_, between; _venio_, I come. Marion may have translated it differently, but she had served in the capacity of buffer too often to misinterpret its meaning. 'I am to understand that you wish for my aid in a love affair?' she said. 'That's just about it. You see, I always hoped I should fall in love with a quiet, homely, staid sort of girl, but dash it all, you can't govern these things, can you?' 'Sometimes one has to,' said Marion, picking up dropped stitches. 'So I've completely lost my heart to a girl who--well, she's an actress. She's second from the left in the front row chorus of "Whizz-Bang" at the Hilarity Theatre; I tell you she's wonderful.' 'No doubt,' said Marion, bending lower over her knitting. 'Lottie's quite a good little girl, you know, but she's so young--barely twenty--and she can't cook or sew or housekeep or do any of those things which my mother approves. But she dances wonderfully and kicks higher than anyone else in the chorus----' 'And you want me to make your mother appreciate the . . . the . . . high kicks?' broke in Marion rather bitterly. 'Well, not exactly, but you know what mothers are--about the stage, I mean. So don't you understand that if some sensible little woman like you were to speak to her about it, she might reconstruct her views----' He paused, staring in a puzzled way at Marion. Beneath her gentle exterior she has a decided temper which she is apt to deplore and, she affirms, must instantly be held in check. This, however, was an occasion when she did not seem to think the check action need be applied. She faced George with flashing eyes. 'If you were anything of a man,' she declared, 'you would manage an affair like that alone without asking help from your woman friends. Good evening.' 'Good evening,' responded George, not, I suppose, at the moment thinking of anything more original to say. He departed in a pensive mood. 'And that,' said Marion, concluding the narrative, 'is all there is to be told.' She sat before me with her eyes downcast, her lips quivering, and a fierce anger rose within me against George Harbinger and mankind in general who could be so blind to Marion's excellent qualities. As I took her in my arms and comforted her, kissing her soft cheeks and fluffy hair, I felt that if I were a man she would be the one woman above all others that I would desire to have and to hold henceforth and for evermore. 'Never mind,' I said tenderly, 'some day you'll meet another who will----' 'No, no, I never shall,' interposed Marion, now openly weeping on my shoulder. 'I shall never interest any one; I know that now. You can't understand, Netta, for men are attracted towards you. If Henry died tomorrow, you'd have half a dozen offers of marriage at once.' I was rather startled at this suggestion, which somehow hinted disregard for the unconscious Henry. 'I think I must lack charm,' went on Marion in a choked voice. 'Who was it described charm as a--a--sort of a bloom on a woman, and said if she had that she didn't need anything else?' 'It was Barrie,' I said, stroking her hair, 'but don't take any notice of him, dear.' 'It's just what a man would say. Oh, Netta, why is life so hard to a woman? Why must she always be the one to stifle her feelings, repress her natural instincts, wait for man to take the lead? Why can't she be the leading spirit if she wishes, without being humiliated? Why shouldn't women propose?' 'That's just what I've been writing about,' I said involuntarily. She raised her head from my shoulder. 'And what did you say about it?' 'I held that a woman can--er--oh, hang it all, never mind what I _wrote_ about it. What I _say_ is that of course they ought to propose if they want to. There should be perfect equality of the sexes.' 'Well, if there was,' put in Marion, her practical common sense coming to her aid, 'it wouldn't after all make a man want to marry me just because it was I who put the question. It's no use, Netta. I'm a born old maid. I've got to go through life heart-hungry, loving other people's babies instead of my own, and stepping aside to let all the fair things go past me.' Poor little Marion! She looked very wistful and pathetic at that moment. A lump rose in my throat as I strove to dry her eyes and find words of comfort. She sobbed on unrestrainedly, however, and nothing I could say would soothe her. 'Marion, darling,' I whispered, my own eyes growing moist, 'don't cry any more. Isn't there anything I can say to cheer you up? Can't I suggest anything----?' The door opened and Elizabeth entered. She carried a tray in her hand on which were a bottle of stout and a glass. 'I thort so,' she said, setting down the tray and looking at Marion's drooping form. 'Ah, these men--'ounds, I call 'em. I came in to 'ave a word with Miss Marryun and cheer 'er up, like. I bin through it myself, so I knows.' She approached Marion and laid a damp red hand on her shoulder. 'I bin lookin' at the cards for you, miss, an' I see a loverly future,' she began in a coaxing voice. 'I see a tall dark man crossin' water for you, with a present in 'is right 'and.' Marion, who was not without a sense of humour, smiled rather wanly. Encouraged, Elizabeth continued: 'Wot's the use o' spoilin' your pretty eyes cryin' for the moon--by which I mean Mr. 'Arbinger--when 'e isn't your Fate? Why, bless you, I was once goin' to marry a plumber's mate, and jest a week afore the weddin 'e went orf with some one else an' owin' me arf-a-crown, too. I was cut up at the time, but I know now 'e wasn't my Fate, 'avin been told since that I'm goin' to marry a man wot'll work with 'is brain. So cheer up, Miss Marryun, and come an' 'ave this nice glarss o' stout I've brought in for you.' She unscrewed the bottle as she spoke. 'I always find that when things are at their worst, an' you're feelin' real pipped like, a glarss o' stout acts like magic. Yes, it's the right stuff, is stout.' The situation was distinctly ludicrous. Yet neither Marion nor I laughed. We watched Elizabeth solemnly pouring out the stout, after which she handed it to Marion, who, though she 'never touches' anything alcoholic as a rule, took it and drank it off 'like a lamb,' as Elizabeth expressed it. There was a pause. Then the corners of Marion's mouth ceased to droop. She smiled. I smiled. Elizabeth smiled. There was another pause. 'I think, Elizabeth,' I remarked, 'I'll have a glass--just a small glass--of stout myself.' 'You do right, 'm. I'll fetch you a glass.' 'And Elizabeth, if you'd care to have some----' 'Thank you very much 'm, I _did_ take the liberty of 'avin' a taste already, but a little drop more wouldn't do me any 'arm, as the sayin' is.' She went out. Marion set down her glass and put away her pocket-handkerchief. 'How silly of me to worry about Mr. Harbinger,' she said. 'After all, I suppose Fate never intended us for each other.' I recognized in a flash that Elizabeth had succeeded where I had failed, and I was conscious of a certain admiration for her methods. Yet at that moment no hint of subsequent events filtered into my mind; I did not suspect--even dimly--the possibilities of Elizabeth. CHAPTER VI Neither Elizabeth or Marion like William. Of the two, Elizabeth is more tolerant towards him, merely commenting that 'she couldn't abide his ways.' Marion, however, views him with an antipathy entirely foreign to one of her gentle nature. I think, in the light of what happened later, if she had only shown a little more forbearance towards him it might have simplified matters. William is our friend. He drops in to see us when he likes, sits with his feet on our mantelpiece, strews tobacco ash on the carpet, and always tells me which of my hats are the most unbecoming, so you can imagine what a close friend he is. Though he does not stick any closer than a brother, he is equally as frank. He likes Henry and tolerates me. For the rest of the women in the world he has a strong objection. Not that he is a misogynist; but he always holds that a woman interferes with a man's life. I often think that William would be all the better for a little judicious feminine interference. He has, however, now got beyond the stage of redemption. [Illustration: Our Friend William.] Home means nothing more to William than a comfortable ledge below the mantelpiece where he can put his feet, a carpet which will not spoil with tobacco ash, and a few tables and chairs scattered about just to hold a good supply of old magazines and newspapers handy for lighting his pipe. He wears those shaggy, unbrushed-looking clothes which all good women abhor. Worst of all, he is constantly getting imbued with new and fantastic ideas which cause him to live in a (quite unnecessary) ferment of enthusiasm. A good wife, now, would nip these ideas in the bud and make existence infinitely more restful to him. Henry and he once got up a notion of inventing a new drink which was to make them both everlastingly famous and superlatively rich. They talked about it for hours and had even got to designing the labels and bottles when I stepped in and told Henry not to be a silly ass, that he was making a fool of himself, and a few other sensible wifely things like that which finally brought him to reason. William, however, having no one to bring him to reason, goes on day by day becoming more of a lunatic. I could never understand why there is such a close bond between him and Henry, unless it is because they enjoy arguing together. Henry, being a Scotsman, likes argument; and William, being an Irishman, likes hearing his own voice. Thus they seldom got bored with each other. The time we did get bored with William was when he turned inventor. It came rather as a surprise to us; and when he began to be abstracted, profoundly meditative, almost sullen, with an apparent desire to be alone, we thought at first that it was the onset of hydrophobia. In fact, we looked it up on the back of the dog-licence to make sure. William's remarks next became irrelevant. For example, after being wrapped in silence for over half an hour, he suddenly flung out the question, 'How many people do you know who possess a trousers-press? Faced with the problem, I confessed I could not connect a single acquaintance with a trousers-press. 'Henry hasn't got one,' I admitted. 'Neither have I,' said William. (I didn't doubt that for an instant.) He went on to remark that he knew many men in many walks of life, and only two of them owned a trousers-press, and they shared it between them. Yet the inventor of this apparently negligible article had made a small fortune out of the idea. 'If,' concluded William, 'you can make a small fortune out of a thing that you can dispense with, how much more can you make out of something that you can't do without?' This sentence I give as William composed it, and from its construction you will understand the state of his mind, for he was as fastidious regarding style as Henry himself. Of course there was some excuse for him. You see, when you're an inventor you can't be anything else. It takes all your time. Judging by William's procedure you must sit up experimenting all night long; you lie down in your clothes and snatch a little sleep at odd moments. When you walk abroad you stride along muttering, waving your arms and bumping into people; you forget to eat; your friends fall away from you. Let me advise parents who are thinking of a career for their sons never to make inventors of them. It's a dog's life. Far better to put them to something with regular hours, say from 10.30 to 4 o'clock, which leaves them with the evenings free. William wouldn't divulge what his invention was, because, he said, he was afraid of the idea getting about before he took out the patent. He merely told us it was a device which no man living could do without. But he went so far as to show us the inner workings of his discovery (hereinafter referred to as It), which, not knowing what they were for, rather mystified us. I know there was a small suction valve which involved the use of water, because William demonstrated to us one Sunday afternoon in the drawing-room. He said afterwards that the unexpected deluge that broke over the politely interested faces gathered round him was merely due to a leakage in the valve, and he set to work to repair it at once. At that time William always carried on his person a strange assortment of screws, metal discs, springs, bits of rubber and the like. He pulled them out in showers when he took out his handkerchief; they dripped from him when he stood up. I think he kept them about him for inspiration. William completed It in a frenzy of enthusiasm. He said that nothing now stood between him and a vast fortune, and in a mood of reckless generosity he promised us all shares, which certainly tended to deepen our interest in the invention. Then he betook himself to the Patent Office. I saw him the following day, and it occurred to me at once that all was not well with William. For one thing he did not burst in unannounced with hair dishevelled, which seems to be the usual way for an inventor to come into a room; he entered slowly and sat down heavily. 'Is anything wrong with the invention?' I asked. He pulled out his handkerchief and mopped his brow. A metal disc fell out and rolled unheeded across the floor. 'Nothing is wrong with it,' he answered dully. 'You don't mean that some one else has thought of It before you?' 'Most people seem to have thought of It.' He paused and absently plucked off a stray piece of rubber from his coat sleeve. 'It seems to have originated in America in 1880. Then a large colony of German inventors applied for the patent; a body of Russians were imbued with the idea; several Scandinavians had variations of it. It even seems to have filtered into the brain of certain West African tribes; and in 1918 a Czecho-Slovak----' He paused, overcome with emotion. 'But if It is a thing man can't do without, why haven't we heard of it?' I demanded. 'Men,' replied William sadly, seem determined to do without It. They don't know what is good for them.' Suddenly he raised his head with the light of enthusiasm in his eyes. 'By the way, I was talking to a chap at the Patent Office who told me that there's an enormous boom in inventing in this country just now. Henry ought to get a good article out of it.' As a matter of fact it was the only thing that ever was got out of the invention. William, being an Irishman, didn't let failure depress him in the least. We were all glad to see him rational again--as rational as could be expected from him, I mean. As Elizabeth was wont to express it, ''E aint screwed up like other folk, so what can you expect.' But as I have said, she did not approve of William. It was not so much that she took exception to the trail of tobacco ash that followed in his wake, or the unusual litter he created during his inventive period. She resented the fact that he was unmarried, having, at all times, a strong objection to celibacy. 'When a man gets to the age o' that there Mr. Roarings' (William's surname is Rawlings, so she didn't get so far out for her)--'an' isn't married 'e's cheatin' some pore girl out of 'er rights, I ses,' she declared. 'Selfishness! Spendin' all 'is money on 'isself. W'y isn't 'e married?' 'I don't know, Elizabeth,' I replied, 'but if you like, I'll ask him.' 'That'll do no good. 'E orter be thrown together with the right kind o' young lady and kept up to the scratch. That's wot orter be done. I'll look up the cards for 'im and see wot 'is Signs is. I'd like to see 'im married and settled down.' 'Perhaps you mean to marry him yourself, Elizabeth?' She gave a snort of indignation. 'Me! 'E's not my style. Give me a young man who can set off a bright necktie an' a white waistcoat with a nice watch an' albert 'ung on to it. But Mr. Roarings' now, 'e'd do well for some one who 'ad settled down, like, with quiet sort o' tastes. I got some one in my mind's eye for 'im already.' From the moment that Elizabeth took his destiny in hand William was no longer safe, I felt sure. The Signs began to get to work upon him. 'William,' I said to him one day, 'Elizabeth means to marry you.' 'Why should I marry Elizabeth?' he asked placidly. 'I don't mean that she herself is to be the blushing bride. She prefers a man with a taste in waistcoats, a flowing auburn moustache, and a tendency to bright neckties, none of which qualities or quantities you possess. She means to get you married to some one else.' William slowly removed his pipe from his mouth and regarded me with intense earnestness. He is not the sort of person who lets his emotions ripple to the surface, so his serious mien surprised me. He raised his hand in a prophetic attitude and began to speak. 'Dr. Johnson has rightly said that the incommodities of a single life are necessary and certain, but those of a conjugal state are avoidable. Excellent philosophy. Sooner than get married, my dear madame, I would walk in the wilderness, conversing with no man; I would fly to the fastnesses of Tibet; I would make of myself a hermit in a cave that was strongly barricaded. I would eschew tobacco. I would pay, to the uttermost farthing, any bachelor tax imposed by the State.' 'Do you so utterly abhor the idea of marriage?' I asked, profoundly astonished. 'I do,' said William. A strange sound broke on our ears. It seemed to come through the keyhole, and resembled the contemptuous sniff with which Elizabeth always expresses incredulity. But, of course, it couldn't have been that. As I have said, Elizabeth never listens at doors. CHAPTER VII (William--although he has a great regard for Pepys--does not himself keep a diary. From time to time, however, he 'chronicles the outstanding events in his career,' as he puts it. The following is one of William's 'chronicles,' which shows more knowledge than I have of the happenings in this chapter.) _William's Story_: The more I think of it the more terrible the thing becomes from every aspect. Who could have thought that I, only a few days ago placidly drifting down the stream of life, should be jerked into such a maelstrom of difficulties? I must, however, try to think calmly. As Dr. Johnson has said, 'One of the principal themes of moral instruction is the art of bearing calamities.' Let me try to narrate the events in their order--to trace, as far as possible, how this particular calamity occurred. It began with Elizabeth. Or, I should say, she was the bearer of those disastrous tidings which have robbed me of my peace of mind and given me nights of sleepless horror. Elizabeth, I ought to explain, is employed at the house of my friends, the Warringtons, as domestic worker. Up to the time of which I write I had barely observed the girl, beyond remarking that she was exceedingly lank as to form, and had a distressing habit of breathing very heavily when serving at table, due, I thought, to asthmatic tendencies. I learned later that it only betokened anxiety lest she should drop the various vessels she was handing round. The circumstances which brought her particularly under my notice were singular. I had called at the Warringtons' one evening to have a smoke and chat with Henry, as is my wont. Elizabeth, after showing me into the study, told me that her master had gone out, but asked me to wait as he was expected to return every minute. I settled myself down, therefore, reached out for the tobacco jar, while my feet sought the familiar ledge below the mantelpiece, when I observed that Elizabeth was hovering in my vicinity. 'Excuse me, sir,' she said, speaking with apparent hesitation, 'but--but--do you mind if I speak to you?' 'Why shouldn't you speak to me if you want to?' I said, surprised and rather puzzled. 'Well, you see, sir, it's a bit 'ard to tell you. I dunno how to begin exactly--makes me feel like a cat treadin' on 'ot plates.' I quote exactly the rough vernacular of the lower classes in which she habitually expresses herself. 'There is no necessity for you to feel like a cat--or any other animal--treading on plates hot or otherwise when unburdening yourself to me,' I said kindly and benevolently, to put her at her ease. As a matter of fact, I half surmised the cause of her embarrassment. No doubt she had broken some object of value and wished me to act as intermediary with her mistress in the matter. I have frequently heard Mrs. Warrington complain of her ever-recurring breakages. 'If I can assist you in any way,' I continued, 'and intervene----' 'Inter-wot?' said Elizabeth. 'Er--perhaps you desire me to put in a good word for you with your mistress----' 'Do I _not_,' she broke in. 'I can put in all the good words _I_ want meself--yes, an' a few more, too.' I was pondering on the remarkable formation of this sentence which lent itself neither to analysis nor parsing, when her next words arrested my instant attention. 'It's about Miss Marryun I wanted to speak to you,' she said. I stared. Why on earth should she speak to me about Miss Warrington, Henry's sister? I have not noticed her closely, but she is a quiet enough female, I believe, though possessed of an irritating habit of constantly pressing quite unnecessary ash-trays on a man. To my surprise Elizabeth closed the door at this point and, coming up to me, whispered in a strange husky voice: 'That's just where all the trouble begins. It's what I overheerd 'er sayin' about you.' I must confess to feeling rather startled. Then I remembered Mrs. Warrington had often commented on Elizabeth's curious proclivities for 'overhearing.' I looked at her coldly. I had not the slightest intention of becoming her confidant. 'Well, well, my good girl,' I retorted briskly, 'listeners never hear any good of themselves--or of other people either, I suppose. So, if you please, we will drop the subject.' I then picked up a book and held it before me to signify that the parley was at an end. Elizabeth snorted. The term is vulgar, I know, but no other expression is adequate. 'Oo was listenin', I'd like to know?' she asked. 'I sed _overheerd_. The door was well on the jar and I was dustin' the 'all when I 'ears Miss Marryun a-moanin' and a-sobbin' like. Missus was talkin' to 'er and soothin' 'er. "Don't carry on so," she ses, "for I tells you, it's no use." '"No use," ses Miss Marryun in a choked sort o' voice, "why is it no use? I love 'im, I adore 'im. Oh, Willyum, Willyum, you'll break my 'art if you go on with this yeer cold indifference----"' 'Stop,' I interposed sternly. At any other time I might have smiled at the girl's quaint phraseology. But I did not smile just then. _Dulce est desipere in loco_. Wild as the story sounded, it was making me feel decidedly uncomfortable. A slight perspiration had broken out on my forehead. But I threw a strong note of assurance into my voice as I went on: 'Girl, this is a monstrous action on your part to listen--er--overhear at doors and repeat conversations of a most delicate nature to a third party.' 'What-ho,' put in Elizabeth. 'Now let me show you the mistake under which you are labouring. It is true my name is William, but William is a common name. I have remarked, indeed, that the world is pretty full of Williams. Miss Warrington was in no way referring to me.' 'I don't think,' commented Elizabeth. 'Evidently you don't,' I said severely, 'or you would not make such absurd statements.' 'I ain't done yet,' went on this diabolical creature. 'You say it wasn't meant fer you? Listen. When Miss Marryun goes on wringin' 'er 'ands an' sobbin', "I love my Willyum," missus ses, "But 'ow can you love such a big ugly brute of a man wot's allus throwin' 'is tobacco ash about the place, and scrapin' the fendy with 'is feet and never wears a fancy westcoat even at evernin' parties. 'Ow can you love him?" she arsks. '"I don't know myself," ses Miss Marryun, "but there it is. I'd rather die than live without my Willyum."' 'Silence,' I burst out fiercely, 'do you think I don't know that all this is pure invention on your part--for what reason I, as yet, cannot tell. How dare you concoct such tales?' 'Wait till I've finished, please, sir. The missus, she ses, "But Marryun, my pore dear, it's no use lovin' 'im. 'E ses to me 'is very self the other day, 'e ses, 'Sooner than get married I'd go and dwell in the wilderness, I'd go to Tibbet, be an 'ermit in a cave, give up baccy, and give away every farthin' I 'ad in the world.'"' A feeling of acute horror swept over me. With a crash my favourite pipe fell from my nerveless fingers and was smashed to atoms on the fender. There was truth in the girl's fantastic story after all. I recalled using such expressions as those when, a little time before, I was discussing conjugal difficulties in a talk with Mrs. Warrington. Obviously the girl could not have made the thing up. I passed my hand wildly across my brow. 'But what have I done that she should fall in love with me? What is there about me to attract any woman?' 'Nothink, as I can see,' she retorted, 'but with a woman's heart there's no knowin' an' there's no tellin'. P'raps you've managed to throw dust in her eyes.' 'I have thrown nothing--I mean, Miss Warrington and I are only slightly acquainted with each other. I have, indeed, barely noticed her. And now you tell me this horrible thing.' She bridled. 'Wot's 'orrible about it? You ought to be glad. Most men would be proud to marry a young lady 'oo's got such a light 'and for pastry, and can mend up an old pair o' pants to make 'em look like new. She's just the sort of wife----' [Illustration: 'Wot's 'orrible about it?'] '"Wife,"' I interrupted, '"marry"? What do you mean by those words, girl? Do you think for one instant if all the females in Christendom were to fall in love with me I would _marry_ any one of them! No, a thousand times, no. I repeat I will never, _never_ marry.' 'I 'eard yer,' said Elizabeth, 'and do you sit there and mean to tell me that you're going to break a gentle woman's 'eart deliberate?' The imputation caused me to shudder from head to foot. 'No, no, Elizabeth. If I have unwittingly caused the lady pain I am deeply remorseful. But she must, as soon as possible, be disillusioned.' 'Dish-who?' said Elizabeth. In this peculiar and baffling way does she express herself. It makes a sustained conversation extremely difficult and, at times, almost impossible. 'She must be brought to dislike me, I mean. In this matter I must ask you to help me.' I took a ten-shilling note from my pocket. 'If, from time to time, you will talk to Miss Warrington of my many faults--you can invent what you like----' 'Shan't need to invent much in the way o' faults,' put in the monstrous girl. 'But it's my belief she likes you for 'em. Some women are made like that. Anyway,' she handed me back the note which I had endeavoured to press into her warm, moist palm. 'I'm not wantin' this. I'm not goin' to take blood money to 'elp to break any woman's 'eart.' It sounded really terrible viewed in that light. 'There is no need for you to put it in that coarse way,' I said, my temper rising. 'I only ask you to help me to regain my peace of mind and secure Miss Warrington's happiness.' 'Well, if you put it like that o' course,' she said, her fingers closing over the note, 'I'm not the one to refuse good money. I'm willin' to do all I can to make you an' Miss Marryun happy.' With a broad grin she sidled out of the room. As for me, I gathered up the fragments of my pipe and departed. I no longer wished to talk to Henry just then. I wanted to be alone to think, to consider my strategic position. I must go away to some remote place, perhaps not Tibet, but at any rate a quiet spot in the country fully twenty miles out of London. Before going, however, I must in some way show Miss Warrington the utter folly of her illusions regarding my unfortunate self. Nothing must be left undone to achieve that object. Alas, what troubles, what unending anxiety a woman can cause a man! After getting over this difficulty, I swear I will not even converse with any one of them again. In the meantime I must invoke the aid of this wretched girl Elizabeth. _Necessitas non habet legem_. Elizabeth is that most irritating necessity. CHAPTER VIII Elizabeth often speaks of the time when she poisoned The Kid. She says she never had such a 'turn' in all her life, and wouldn't go through such an experience again for all the money in the world. Neither, indeed, would I, or Henry, or Marion. Looking back on the matter, I don't think The Kid cared for it either. It was a peaceful summer evening. The Kid had just gone to bed and we--Henry, Marion and I--had foregathered in the study. Marion spends most of her time with us, being one of those delightfully restful persons who doesn't need to be 'entertained,' who doesn't talk to you if you want to do a little writing at meal times, and is altogether a desirable visitor. Thus, at the moment of which I write, we sat in perfect amity and silence, Henry working, I working, while every time I looked up my eyes fell on the gratifying vision of dear Marion making a blouse for me. Suddenly the door opened and Elizabeth entered. 'That there medicine you told me to give Miss Moira,' she said. 'I just been looking at it and I see it's got your name on the bottle.' She held it out to me as she spoke. 'Why is The Kid taking medicine?' inquired Marion. 'It's only a little tonic the doctor prescribed. But,' I stared at the bottle Elizabeth had brought in, 'this is my medicine. The chemist must have mixed up the prescriptions when I took them to him.' Suddenly I sprang to my feet. 'Great Heavens! My tonic contains strychnine!' 'And as you've been taking it for some time, I expect the dose has been increased,' said Marion excitedly. 'How much did you give her, Elizabeth?' 'A teaspoonful, miss, as usual.' I wrung my hands. 'I take only six drops at a time myself! What are we to do?' 'One place I was at,' put in Elizabeth, 'the master was rather fond of a drop too much, an' 'e come 'ome very late one night an' drank spirits o' salt thinkin' it was something else, so we give 'im stuff to bring it up agen.' 'Of course,' said Marion, 'that's the very thing.' Long ago, during the war, she worked in a hospital, so she affects to know something of medicines. 'Give The Kid an emetic at once. Ipecac. Dose 5 minims. Repeat, if necessary. Or salt and water. I'll dash off to the doctor's and ask him what's to be done.' And seizing the bottle she hurried out. The Kid was sitting up in bed eating her supper when Elizabeth, Henry and I burst breathlessly into her room. Her face was shining with quiet contentment. 'Look, Mama, dear,' she said, 'at the beautiful baked custard Elizabeth has made for my supper. Wasn't it kind of her?' I snatched the custard away from her grasp. 'Don't eat another mouthful,' I panted, 'you're going to have an emetic. You must be sick at once.' Mutely questioning inexorable Fate, she raised large, contemplative eyes to mine. '_Must_ I, Mama? Can't I finish my custard first?' There is about The Kid's character a stoic philosophy, blended, since she has known Elizabeth, with a certain fatalism. Her habit of saying '_Must_ I?' when faced with a disagreeable duty, indicates her outlook on life. If those in authority declare she must, then there is no more to be said about it. They represent Fate in action. She now yielded up the custard with a sigh, but obediently drank the mixture I handed her. There was a pause. 'How are you feeling, dear?' I inquired. 'Quite well, thank you, Mama, dear. May I have my custard now?' 'You ought not to be feeling well,' I said, puzzled. 'You'd better have some more drops.' 'Oh, must I, Mama?' 'Yes, dear. Drink this.' I now gave her a slightly larger dose. There was a still longer pause, and Henry, Elizabeth and I waited for her to speak, or express emotion of some sort. At last she opened her lips and said, 'May I have----' 'A basin?' inquired Elizabeth, darting forward. '----my custard, now, if you please, Elizabeth?' 'No,' I said sternly. 'It's very strange that the ipecac, has had no effect.' 'Try salt and water. There's more about it, like,' remarked Elizabeth. 'I'll fetch some.' 'And hurry,' Henry commanded, 'every moment's delay is making the thing more serious.' 'Now drink this salt and water, darling,' I urged The Kid when Elizabeth reappeared. 'Oh, _must_ I, Mama?' [Illustration: 'Oh, _must_ I, Mama?'] 'Yes. Your life depends upon it.' She drank rather hastily at that. There was a long, long pause while Elizabeth, Henry and I gazed into each other's eyes and--waited. 'How do you feel now?' I asked at last with strained anxiety. 'I'm feeling rather sick now, thank you, Mama, dear. But perhaps I could manage a little of my cus----' 'No,' I interrupted. 'Can't you be sick, child?' 'I'm afraid I can't, Mama.' 'Then why can't you?' Henry burst out. 'It's dreadful--most unnatural.' 'She's got a stummick like an 'orse,' commented Elizabeth. 'Prompt action is vital,' put in Henry firmly. 'There are other emetics. Mustard and----' 'I've always 'eard that soap and water's good for turnin' any one over,' began Elizabeth. 'Soap and water!' I echoed, 'yes, that sounds the worst--the best, I mean. Get it at once, Elizabeth.' 'Enough to make a good lather, should you think, 'm?' 'Oh, _must_ I?' wailed the Kid, still questioning inexorable Fate. We all united in preparing the soap and water to avoid delay. Elizabeth boiled the water. Henry cut the soap into small flakes, and I beat it up into a lather. Then, now in a condition of feverish anxiety, I handed The Kid the foaming mixture. 'Drink,' I panted. 'Oh, mus----' she began. 'Don't say that again!' I exclaimed, overwrought by the intensity of my emotions. 'Can't you see how serious it is, child? You might die any minute.' She drank off the contents of the glass without further question. 'Well, that ought to do it,' commented Henry, looking at a few iridescent bubbles at the bottom of the glass. 'I made it strong.' There was a strained silence when I almost seemed to hear my own heart beats. 'How--how--do you feel, now, darling?' I asked at last. 'Dreadful, thank you, Mama, dear.' 'That isn't enough,' I cried in anguish. 'Can't you----?' 'No, I can't, Mama.' 'This is terrible,' I broke out, fast becoming hysterical. 'What is to be done! Can nothing save her?' 'I suppose the doctor will bring along a stomach pump,' said Henry, trying to soothe me. 'Oh, must he?' moaned The Kid (ignored). 'Get 'er to put 'er finger down 'er throat,' suggested Elizabeth brightly; 'that'll work it.' It was the last straw. The Kid, though still dutiful, was utterly outraged. 'No, no, I won't,' she cried in open rebellion. She looked unhappy. The soap and water had evidently met the allied forces of ipecac. and salt, and a fierce battle was, no doubt, in progress in her interior at the moment. 'I won't,' she repeated desperately. 'Do try, darling,' implored Henry, 'and I'll give you a whole shilling.' 'No, no, _no_. I don't want any shillings.' Judging by her expression the soap must have commenced an encircling movement, and the salt and ipecac. were hurrying up reserves. 'I won't put my finger down my throat.' 'What are we to do?' I said, wringing my hands. 'I never knew her to be so obstinate. Why, oh, why doesn't the doctor come? The child is beginning to look so strange already.' 'Well, wot I'd do if I was you,' suggested Elizabeth, 'is to begin the doses all over again----' 'Good,' said Henry. 'Firstly the ipecac.----' 'Oh, must I?' interrupted The Kid. To my intense relief Marion dashed in at that moment. 'Have you given her an emetic?' she demanded breathlessly. Elizabeth, Henry and I gathered round her with the necessary information. 'She has had several. Ipecac.----' 'Twice.' 'Salt and water----' 'A cupful.' 'Warm soap and water----' 'One glass.' 'And,' I concluded, now in tears, 'she won't be sick--simply _won't_!' 'I do want to, _auntie_,' explained The Kid, her child's sense of justice receiving mortal blows, 'but I can't _be_----' Marion stood and gazed at her in awe. 'It's wonderful,' she murmured, 'amazing! I think, perhaps, _The Lancet_ would be interested in a letter on the subject.' 'But what did the doctor say?' broke in Henry. 'Is he coming?' 'No,' said Marion, 'he----' 'Why not?' I asked feverishly. 'Because he said it was all right directly he tasted the contents of the bottle. But to make quite sure he 'phoned to your chemist, who, it appears, put your name on the bottle instead of The Kid's. He was awfully sorry and apologetic.' 'Sorry!' I echoed, 'apologetic! Why, the man's a monster. To think of all I've suffered through his carelessness.' I sank down on a chair. 'I'm quite overwrought.' 'There's no harm done, thank goodness,' said Marion. '"All's well that ends well,"' quoted Henry. 'I'm fair relieved to get that load orf my mind,' supplemented Elizabeth. 'Mama, dear,' put in The Kid, glad, no doubt, that at last she was able to please, 'I think that now I really can _be_----' 'It doesn't matter now, darling,' I explained. 'You'd better lie perfectly still and let it pass off.' 'Must I, Mama?' We all moved towards the door. The relief from the strain was apparent in our joyous faces and lightened mien. We sang out 'Good-night' to The Kid, and went out laughing and chatting. Half-way down the stairs we heard her calling. 'Mama, dear.' 'What is it?' we all asked in chorus. 'Please may I have my custard _now_?' CHAPTER IX _Being an extract from the diary of Miss Marion Warrington: Thursday_. A most remarkable and perplexing thing has happened. Never, for a moment, could I have dreamed of such an improbable and embarrassing occurrence. It was Elizabeth who first brought it to my notice, and I can only wish she had never made that strange discovery which is causing me so much uneasiness. I was spending the day with Netta, and had gone into the kitchen for a moment, when Elizabeth asked if she might speak to me in confidence. This rather surprised me, because she does not, as a rule, show such diffidence about speaking (in confidence or otherwise) to any one. 'Is it anything very important?' I inquired. She seemed to hesitate and then jerked out, 'Well, miss, it's about that there Mr. Roarings.' I at once felt rather troubled on Netta's account. Perhaps Elizabeth was on the verge of giving notice as a protest against the extra work involved by having that monstrously untidy man about the place. Why Netta tolerates him with his slovenly habits is beyond my comprehension. 'What has he been doing now?' I asked. 'Surely he hasn't started another invention?' I never before realized what a thoroughly untidy, disordered business inventing could be until I saw him at it. 'Oh, no, miss, nothin' like that, only--only--well, it was what I see when 'e was standin' in the droring-room the other day, an' I was just at the door----' 'I quite understand, Elizabeth. He has burnt a hole in that beautiful pile carpet.' 'No, miss, he----' 'Then he has scorched the rose silk tapestry on the couch!' It is my opinion that he should not be allowed in the drawing-room at all. He isn't safe with a pipe in his mouth or a box of matches in his pocket. Henry ought to take out a special insurance against Mr. Rawlings. 'No, it's nothin' like that, miss. As I was sayin', 'e was standin' in the droring-room. The door was wide open. I was just goin' in to dust an' then I sees that 'e's 'oldin' your photo in 'is 'ands, that big one in the silver frame. 'E was starin' at it wild-like, and a-mutterin' to 'isself. I 'eard 'im say, quite distinct, "Oh, Marryun, Marryun, my beautiful darlin', 'ow I adore you," ses e. "I'm not 'arf mad about you." An' then 'e starts kissin' the photo until I thinks 'e'll crack the glarss of the frame with 'is passion and 'ot breath.' [Illustration: ''E was starin' at it wild-like.'] I stared at her, scarcely able to believe the evidence of my own ears. Then, remembering that she is a girl greatly given to a maudlin kind of sentiment, I was reassured. 'You have been mistaken,' I said with quiet dignity. 'Mr. Rawlings is incapable of such a display as you have just described. If, as you say, he was holding my photo in his hand, it was, no doubt, for the purpose of using it as an ash-tray.' 'Never seen 'im use an ash-tray,' commented Elizabeth. 'Being in the drawing-room he might, for once, have had some qualms about the carpet,' I explained. Under his rugged exterior he may have a conscience. I rather doubt it myself, but one should never judge too harshly. 'Arter 'earing 'im say that,' went on Elizabeth, 'I didn't like to let 'im see I'd been in the room all the time, an' I was just goin' to creep out quiet when 'e starts talkin' to the photo again. "Marryun," 'e ses, "if I carn't 'ave you I'll go away in the wilderness, or be an 'ermit in a cave, or go an' live in Tibbet, or give away every farthin' I've got in the world." That's wot 'e sed, an' 'e looked so wild I was fair scared, miss.' I stared at Elizabeth, quite unable to speak a word. The whole thing sounded so wildly improbable and yet she was obviously speaking the truth. She is, I should say, a girl of no imagination and, being entirely artless, could not possibly have invented such a thing. At last I found my voice, which sounded rather hollow. 'What a terrible thing,' I said. 'Why terrible?' she inquired. Poor, simple girl, with her primitive views of life, how little she understood the delicate situation that had been created, or the significance of the words she had just repeated to me. 'I detest the idea of inflicting pain even on an animal,' I replied, 'and if, as you say, Mr. Rawlings appeared to be suffering on my account----' ''E was--agonies,' she put in. 'Well, is not the whole position dreadful? Mr. Rawlings is the last, the very last man, Elizabeth, in the whole world that I should think of in the way you mention.' I could not repress a sigh as I spoke. How peculiar is the irony of fate. Why should I deny (particularly in this, my diary, which contains the outpourings of my soul) that I have often wished to win the love of some good strong man who could protect me in the battle of life and be willing, as it were, like the knights of old, to enter the lists for my sake. This I could in no way imagine Mr. Rawlings doing. My conception of the hero of my dreams may have varied from time to time, but never has it included even the smallest of the characteristics of William Rawlings. He reminds me of nothing so much as the very shaggiest bear I have ever seen at the Zoo--not even a nice white Polar bear, but one of those nondescript, snuff-coloured kinds that are all ragged ends from top to toe. That a man with such a rough exterior could be capable of such sickening sentimentality as Elizabeth had just described quite nauseated me. It made me dislike him more, if possible, than I had done before. 'Remember, Elizabeth,' I said, looking at her steadily, 'you must not repeat a word of this to any one. Mr. Rawlings must never know that he has been discovered in this----' 'Well, 'e knows that _I_ know,' she interrupted. I stared. 'What do you mean?' 'You see, me bein' in the room when 'e was a-kissin' of your fotograft, 'e looks up an' sees me afore I could get away, quiet, like. "Good lor', Elizabeth," 'e breaks out, "you don't mean to tell me that you sor everything, that you 'eard my 'eart strings burstin' in a manner of speakin'." '"I'm afraid I did, sir," ses I, "I was just comin' in to dust an' your sighs bein' rather loud, I couldn't 'elp overhearing." '"Listen," 'e ses, goin' ashy pale, "you must never tell 'er. I will win 'er in my own way," 'e ses. "In the meantime, 'ere is ten shillings, my good girl. Will you put in a word for me with Miss Worryington from time to time? She may not like me just yet, but I'll make 'er mine or blow my brains out." '"I shouldn't do that, sir, if I was you," I ses, "leastways not yet until you see 'ow things turns out, like." '"I'm goin' to lead a better life," 'e goes on, "an' stop puttin' baccy ash in my pocket, an' dustin' my boots with my handkercher, an' all those little things that a gentle woman might find careless."' 'Elizabeth,' I put in weakly, 'this is terrible. I do not want Mr. Rawlings to make any sacrifices for me. I do not want Mr. Rawlings. Nothing in the world would make me consider his suit.' ''Is suit's all right if it were well brushed an' pressed,' she said. 'An if 'e isn't quite a fancy style 'isself we can't all pick an' choose in this world. Don't go despisin' of 'im too much, miss. If 'e was properly done up, now, and sort o' dusted an' polished, like, 'e mightn't be so bad.' I turned on her with burning indignation. 'How dare you openly assist his plans after confessing to taking his money as a bribe? Don't mention his name to me again, or I shall refuse to listen to you.' She actually had the impertinence to look indignant. 'It's shame I cry on you, miss, for tryin' to break the pore man's 'eart. Then I s'pose I can't give 'im that there fotograft of you?' 'My photograph! Of all the unspeakable----' 'It was with 'im sayin' that if 'e only 'ad it to look at it might 'elp to parss all the dark 'ours 'e 'as to spend away from you. 'E sed 'e wanted it to look at wen 'e was lyin' awake at night, thinkin' of you.' I strove to be reasonable. 'To let him have my photo, Elizabeth, would only encourage his mad ideas. No, all this must be stopped immediately. I shall take prompt measures. Once more, let me beg of you never to mention this painful occurrence to any one.' I turned to go out of the kitchen, but when I reached the door Elizabeth called to me. 'I wanted to ask you a favour, miss, if it isn't troublin' you too much,' she began. 'What is it?' I inquired rather absently, for my mind was very much disturbed just then. 'You see, miss, it's this way. I gotta young man wot's very poetick, like. 'E's always sendin' me portry copied from mottoes out o' crackers. It's very 'ard to keep up with 'im.' 'Then how do you want me to help you?' I asked, puzzled. 'I wondered if you'd be so kind as to copy me a bit o' portry I sor in one o' master's books. It sounds real pretty, but I can't get it down right. My 'andwritin' is that bad.' She took a leather-bound volume of Byron from the kitchen drawer. 'It's just this yere bit:-- "Yet, oh, yet thyself deceeve not, Luv' may sink by slow decay; But by suddint wrench beleeve not 'Earts can thus be torn away."' 'Have you had a quarrel with your young man?' I asked, perplexed at the strange selection of verse. 'No, miss, but 'e's 'overin' just now--you know what I mean. I want to bring 'im up to the scratch, like.' I could not help thinking what blunt direct methods the lower classes employ in affairs of the heart. In our walk in life the sending of such lines to a gentleman who had not declared himself would be considered almost indelicate. However, I wrote out the absurd lines for the girl without comment, and rescued Henry's volume of Byron, which I felt would not improve in appearance by contact with the meat chopper, knife-board and other miscellaneous objects which she keeps in the kitchen drawer. It is a pity Netta does not exercise stricter supervision over Elizabeth. The girl seems to do what she likes. 'You had better ask permission from Mrs. Warrington before taking books into the kitchen,' I said with gentle reproof. 'They might get lost or soiled.' 'Right-o!' said Elizabeth. 'An' do you reely mean that you're not a-goin' to give your fotograft to Mr. Roarings?' 'Indeed not,' I said vehemently, 'don't dare to suggest the idea to me again. If Mr. Rawlings ever speaks of it to you, you can tell him how amazed and indignant I was.' 'Right-o!' said Elizabeth, as I hurried out of the kitchen. On thinking the whole matter over I must admit I am greatly perturbed. I am not like those women who glory in winning a man's love for the mere gratification of their vanity. I know myself how much one can suffer from unrequited affection, and I am steadily determined to cure Mr. Rawlings of his love-madness by every means in my power. CHAPTER X The study door burst open and one end of Elizabeth--the articulate end--was jerked into view. 'Wot will you 'ave for lunch, 'm?' she demanded breathlessly. 'Lamb or 'am?' Abruptly recalled from the realms of fiction writing I looked up a little dazed. 'Lamb or 'am,' I repeated dully, 'lamorram? Er--ram, I think, please, Elizabeth.' Having thus disposed of my domestic obligations for the day, I returned to my writing. I was annoyed therefore to see the other end of Elizabeth travel round the doorway and sidle into the room. Her pretext for entering--that of dusting the roll-top desk with her apron--was a little thin, for she has not the slightest objection to dust. I rather think it cheers her up to see it about the place. Obviously she had come in to make conversation. I laid down my pen with a sigh. 'I yeerd from my young man this morning,' she began. A chill foreboding swept over me. (I will explain why in a minute.) 'Do you mean the boiler one?' I asked. [Illustration: 'Do you mean the boiler one?' I asked.] ''Im wot belongs to the Amalgamated Serciety of Boilermakers,' she corrected with dignity. 'Well, they've moved 'is 'eadquarters from London to Manchester.' There was a tense silence, broken only by Elizabeth's hard breathing on a brass paper-weight ere she polished it with her sleeve. 'If 'e goes to Manchester, there I goes,' she went on; 'I suppose I'd quite easy get a situation there?' 'Quite easy,' I acquiesced in a hollow voice. She went out leaving me chill and dejected. Not that I thought for a moment that I was in imminent danger of losing her. I knew full well that this was but a ruse on the part of the young man to disembarrass himself of Elizabeth, and, if he had involved the entire Amalgamated Society of Boilermakers in the plot, that only proved how desperate he was. I have very earnest reasons for wishing that Elizabeth could have a 'settled' young man. You see, as I have previously explained, she never retains the same one for many weeks at a time. It isn't her fault, poor girl. She would be as true as steel if she had a chance; she would cling to any one of them through thick and thin, following him to the ends of the earth if necessary. It is they who are fickle, and the excuses they make to break away from her are both varied and ingenious. During the War, of course, they always had the pretext of being ordered to the Front at a moment's notice, and were not, it appears, allowed to write home on account of the Censor. Elizabeth used to blame Lloyd George for these defects of organization. Even to this day she is extremely bitter against the Government. In fact, she is bitter against every one when her love affairs are not running smoothly. The entire household suffers in consequence. She is sullen and obstinate; she is always on the verge of giving notice. And the way she breaks things in her abstraction is awful. Elizabeth's illusions and my crockery always get shattered together. My rose-bowl of Venetian glass got broken when the butcher threw her over for the housemaid next door. Half a dozen tumblers, a basin and several odd plates came in two in her hands after the grocer's assistant went away suddenly to join the silent Navy. And nearly the whole of a dinner service was sacrificed when Lloyd George peremptorily ordered her young man in the New Army to go to Mesopotamia and stay there for at least three years without leave. Those brief periods when Elizabeth's young men are in the incipient stages of paying her marked attention are agreeable to everybody. Elizabeth, feeling no doubt in her rough untutored way that God's in his Heaven and all's right with the world, sings at her work; she shows extraordinary activity when going about her duties. She does unusual things like remembering to polish the brasses every week--indeed, you have only to step in the hall and glance at the stair rods to discover the exact stage of her latest 'affair.' I remember once when one ardent swain (who she declared was 'in the flying corpse') got to the length of offering her marriage before he flew away, she cleaned the entire house down in her enthusiasm--and had actually got to the cellars before he vanished out of her life. You will now understand why I was dejected at the perfidy of the follower belonging to the Boilermakers' Society. I saw a dreary period of discomfort ahead of me. Worst of all I was expecting the Boscombes to dinner that very week. They had not before visited us, and Henry was anxious to impress Mr. Boscombe, he being a publisher. It is surprising, when you come to think of it, how full the world is of writers trying to make a good impression on publishers. Yet no one has met the publisher who ever tries to make a good impression on any one. I will not elaborate the situation as it stood. All I can say is that there is no earthly possibility of making a good impression on any living thing if Elizabeth is in one of her bad moods. And it would be no use explaining the case to Mrs. Boscombe, because she has no sense of humour; or to Mr. Boscombe, because he likes a good dinner. Finally, the Domestic Bureau failed me. Hitherto they had always been able to supply me with a temporary waitress on the occasion of dinner parties. Now it appeared these commodities had become pearls of great price which could no longer be cast before me and mine (at the modest fee of ten shillings a night) without at least fourteen days' notice. The Bureau promised to do its best for me, of course, but reminded me that women were scarce. I asked, with bitterness, what had become of the surplus million we heard so much about. They replied with politeness that, judging from the number of applications received, they must be the million in search of domestics. Returning home from the Bureau, I found Elizabeth studying a time-table. 'I see it's a 'undred and eighty-three miles to Manchester,' she commented, 'an' the fare's 15s. 5 1/2d.' 'That's an old time-table you've got,' I hastened to remark, 'it is now L2 13s. 7 1/2d.--return fare.' 'I shan't want no return ticket,' said Elizabeth grimly. Sickening outlook, wasn't it? * * * * * * The day of my dinner-party dawned fair and bright, but Elizabeth was raging. Things got so bad, in fact, that about mid-day I decided I must telephone to the Boscombes and tell them Henry had suddenly been taken ill; and I was just looking up the doctor's book to find something especially virulent and infectious for Henry, when Elizabeth came in. Amazing to relate, her face was wreathed in smiles. 'They've sent from the Domestic Boorow,' she began. 'What!' I exclaimed, 'did they get me a waitress after all?' She smirked. 'They've sent a man this time. A footman 'e was before the War, but 'e didn't take it up again arter 'e was demobbed. Just now, bein' out of a job 'e's takin' tempory work and-----' 'He seems to have told you quite a lot about himself already,' I interposed. She smirked again. 'I 'adn't been talkin' to 'im ten minutes afore 'e arsked me wot was my night out. 'E isn't arf a one.' 'It seems he isn't,' I agreed. And I sent up a silent prayer of thankfulness to Heaven and the Domestic Bureau. 'But what about the Amalgamated boilermaker?' 'Oh, 'im!' She tossed her head. ''E can go to--Manchester.' CHAPTER XI 'Have you observed William closely, recently, Netta?' Henry asked me. 'Something seems to have happened to him?' 'Why should I observe William?' I demanded, puzzled, 'he is not the sort of man a woman would observe, closely or otherwise.' 'That is exactly one of the reasons why I like him--you leave him alone,' remarked that horrid Henry. 'I can talk to him without your distracting his attention by flirting with him.' I felt wounded. 'Henry, this is monstrous.' 'You cannot deny, my dear, that I have brought men--fluent conversationalists--round here for a pleasant evening's debate only to see them become abstracted and monosyllabic directly you appear.' 'You can't blame me for that, Henry.' 'Yes, I do. You deliberately seek to interest them. I've seen you at it. You spare no pains or powder to gain your object. Don't dare to deny it.' Chastened, I replied meekly: 'Dear Henry, I love my fellow-creatures--if they haven't beards,' I added hastily. 'After all, doesn't the Scripture command it?' 'But you don't love William.' 'The Scripture says nothing at all about William,' I replied decidedly. 'I--er--tolerate him. What is this you tell me about something having happened to him?' 'He's growing peculiar.' '_More_ peculiar, I suppose you mean?' 'His manner is erratic and changed. It isn't another invention, because when he is inventing he is merely monosyllabic, with spasms of muttering and an increased tendency to knock things over. Now he's altogether different. It's the trend of his conversation that puzzles me. He talks of love.' 'Love and William,' I remarked, 'are as incompatible as acids and alkalis. In what way does he touch on the subject? With bitterness or curiosity? 'Both, I should say. For one thing he is most 'anxious to know what are the effects of unrequited affection, and if the results can be serious. Seems strange, doesn't it?' 'It's passing strange, Henry.' 'You don't think he's fallen in love with you, Netta?' 'What makes you suggest he's fallen in love with me?' 'Because he comes in contact with no other woman beyond you and his landlady, who, I understand, is over sixty and weighs fifteen stone--so it must be you if it's anybody.' (This is a Scotsman's way of paying a compliment; if you can follow the workings of his mind up to the source of the idea you will see he means well.) 'That William should fall in love seems incredible--and entirely unnecessary,' I commented. 'There must be some other explanation of his manner. As he's coming to dinner to-night, I'll watch and see if I can find anything unusually strange about him.' When William made his appearance, therefore, I observed him intently. Surely enough I was struck by the fact that he was changed in some subtle way. He looked dejected. Of course it was impossible to see much of his expression, owing to his face being almost entirely obliterated with hair, but what was visible was extremely sad. Then a strange thing happened. As soon as we were alone he began to exhibit signs of acute mental distress, and to my astonishment burst out, 'Mrs. Warrington, there is something I wanted to--er--ask you. You are a woman for whom I have a profound respect; though you are inclined by character to be _un peu moqueuse_, you have, I feel, an exceedingly tender heart.' I felt uneasy. 'Yes, William, it is tender--but not for everybody,' I added warningly. Really, it was going to be very awkward if he, in his elephantine way, had conceived an infatuation for me. My conscience was perfectly clear--I had not encouraged him in any way, but nevertheless I did not wish to see him suffer from unrequited affection. It would be so awkward in many ways. William, even in his sane moods, has a dreadful habit of knocking things over. If the abstraction of the lover descended upon him, it was going to have a dire effect on our household goods. 'Because your heart is tender,' he pursued, 'you will be able to realize the difficulty of my--er--you can better understand the sufferings of others. Do you think an ill-placed affection can be combated--that is, in time, be utterly stamped out?' 'I do, William,' I said firmly, 'but it must be stamped effectively, you understand. No half measures, you know.' 'Yes, yes, I quite see that,' he said eagerly. 'Then do you think in such a case it would help matters if a man--if one of the parties, I mean--went right away. You know the adage, "Out of sight out of mind"?' I pondered. It would, I knew, be a great denial to William if he was debarred from coming about our place--almost the only home he had ever known. Henry, too, would be lost with no one to argue with. If you want to manage a Scotsman properly see that he gets plenty of argument, and he'll rarely develop any other vice. No, the pair must not be separated. 'There is another adage, William, which says, "Absence makes the heart grow fonder,"' I said, 'so I think, after all, you--I mean he, had better stay.' William looked relieved. 'You think that I--er--I mean one--ought to face it?' 'I am sure one should,' I acquiesced. William pressed my hand gratefully, and I sighed as I examined his physiognomy in the hope of finding one attractive feature. I sighed again as I finished my inspection. What a pity, I thought, that he had not just a little dash about him, even the merest _soupçon_ of fascination, in order to make the situation interesting. He was still holding my hand as the door opened and Elizabeth shot into view with the declaration, 'Dinner's in.' We have a massive and imposing looking gong erected in the hall for the sole purpose of announcing when meals are ready, but nothing will induce Elizabeth to make use of it. If we are upstairs she hails us from below with such expressions as 'Come on, now, it's getting cold,' or, 'I won't bring it in till you're all 'ere, so mind you 'urry.' If William had appeared strange, it struck me that Marion--who was also dining with us that evening--was even stranger. For one thing, I regret to say, she was exceedingly rude to William. She does not like him, I know, but he was after all our guest, and she was not justified in remarking, when he upset his wine on the tablecloth, and knocked over an adjacent salt-cellar, 'If there's anything in the world I loathe, it is a clumsy man.' 'I must admit I _am_ extremely clumsy--like an elephant, in fact,' came the soft answer from William. It did not turn away Marion's wrath. 'So I see,' she snapped. I kicked her gently under the table. 'Marion, _dear_,' I remonstrated. 'Nothing in the world will ever improve me,' continued William. 'I'm sure of it,' replied Marion, 'it's in your system.' She seemed in a most contrary mood that evening. For instance, William had remarked quite nicely and affably that he considered smoking pernicious for women. He said his mother had always declared it was, and he thought they were better without it. Whereupon Marion, who dislikes the weed as a general rule, immediately got up, took a cigarette from the box on the table and asked William for a light. 'I suppose I'm shocking you terribly,' she remarked to him. [Illustration: 'I suppose I'm shocking you terribly.'] 'I don't think there's anything you could do that would shock me now,' he replied. It was rather a peculiar retort, especially as he laid a faint accent on the 'you.' Evidently he wished to have his revenge for what she had said to him at dinner. 'I smoke even in bed,' said Marion, regarding him steadily. I was at a loss to understand why she told this deliberate falsehood. 'So do I,' said William calmly. 'I smoke in the bath,' continued Marion. 'By Jove, so do I,' said William, looking at her with a new interest. 'But don't you find it rather awkward when you're washing your back?' Marion looked rather scandalized, as though she considered William's remark in bad taste. But she had only herself to blame after all. She was silent and rather moody after that, until the episode of the photograph occurred. We were assembled in the drawing-room, and I suddenly noticed that a photo of Marion which stands on the mantelpiece had been removed from its frame. 'Why, Marion, what has become of your photo?' I inquired. There was, after all, nothing unusual in its disappearance. It was one that she did not like and she had often threatened to remove it. What was my astonishment now to see her spring to her feet and, going white with suppressed anger, exclaim, 'Who has dared to take it? It is a piece of unwarrantable impertinence. Who has _dared_, I say?' I saw William looking at her in surprise--it was, indeed, something even deeper than that. Fascinated horror seems a more apt expression. 'I insist on its being recovered,' went on Marion. A strange exclamation from William made us all look at him. 'Women,' he said, 'are beyond me--utterly beyond me, I repeat.' 'I'm glad you admit it,' snapped Marion. 'In guile,' he continued coldly. 'I suppose, now, you have never heard of a woman thrusting her photograph where it is not wanted accompanied by verse of an amorous character?' Marion looked contemptuously at him. 'What on earth are you raving about?' she inquired. Henry and I intervened at this moment and changed the subject, feeling that a quarrel between them was imminent. It was all very strange and puzzling. But the strangest thing was yet to come. I had accompanied Marion upstairs to put on her cloak before departure, and when we descended William had vanished. Henry related that he was just answering a call on the 'phone when he saw William dash past him into the small lobby off the hall, possess himself of hat and coat, and, after muttering some words of apology, go forth into the darkness. 'How eccentric--and ill-behaved, too,' I commented. 'It looks almost as if he wished to avoid accompanying Marion home.' We were standing in the drawing-room as I spoke. Suddenly I gave a start as my eye drifted to the mantelpiece. 'What an extraordinary coincidence!' I exclaimed. A strange eerie feeling came over me. Marion's lost photo had been restored to its frame. CHAPTER XII _William resumes his story_: I am now aware that I should not have invoked the aid of Elizabeth. A man should work out his own destiny. Once a woman precipitates herself in an affair, complications are bound to follow. Also Elizabeth is no ordinary woman. There are times when I question whether she is human. Was it not her idea that I should--but I must try to chronicle the events in their correct sequence. The mistake I made primarily, was in not going away directly I first heard from Elizabeth of Miss Warrington's unfortunate and misplaced attachment for me. Things might then have adjusted themselves quite naturally. The idea, however, of a sensitive woman suffering on my account was exceedingly distasteful to me. If, I decided, I could bring about her complete disillusionment my conscience would be at rest. Also there would then be no necessity to cut myself off from the Warringtons, and give up my pleasant discourses with Henry. Thus, I felt, I was taking the most advisable course under the circumstances. As for Miss Warrington herself, her behaviour was so inexplicable I wondered if her mind was not beginning to get unhinged. In the first place it was, I thought, unmaidenly enough that she should, through the medium of Elizabeth, thrust her photo on me; but that the photo should be accompanied by some feeble selection from the ill-balanced outpourings of Byron (who is my pet aversion) was, indeed, almost revolting. Further, her attitude towards me in the presence of others was one of open hostility. So well, indeed, did she act on one occasion when I happened to be dining at her brother's house, that a new hope sprang up within me. I began to think that her strange uncalled-for passion for me had passed--in short, that her love had turned to hate. So impressed was I with this idea that when I next called at the Warringtons' I asked Elizabeth if I could speak to her alone for a few moments. 'About Miss Marryun, I'll bet,' she remarked. Looking at her I thought she accompanied her words with a slight lowering of the left eyelid. I trust I was mistaken. Free as the girl is in her speech I have never given her any encouragement to embellish it by winking. [Illustration: A slight lowering of the left eyelid.] 'Naturally, the subject has been preying on my mind,' I admitted. 'But I am not so tortured with misgivings as before. Miss Warrington has ceased to--er--interest herself in me. In fact she detests me.' 'Oo ses that tom-my-rot?' asked the girl, turning on me almost fiercely. 'Miss Warrington was so excessively rude and abrupt in her manner to me the other evening,' I explained, 'that I am now convinced she has suddenly grown to hate me.' 'If you're not as blind as a bat!' commented Elizabeth. 'Can't you see she's doin' that to 'ide 'er feelings--so that you'll never guess 'ow 'er 'eart is torn an' bleedin' like.' 'Dear me, Elizabeth, do you mean this?' I asked in the utmost concern. 'Sure of it. As a matter o' fact she's more gone on you than ever. She's got to not eatin' now, so you can guess 'ow bad she is.' I wiped the gathering moisture from my brow. 'Elizabeth, this is terrible--it must be stopped. I must discover some way to make Miss Warrington actually dislike me. In this I hope for your assistance. You know Miss Warrington much better than I do. You are, no doubt, acquainted with her likes and prejudices?' 'Not 'arf, I aint,' she said. Taking this as meaning an affirmative, I continued, 'Perhaps you are able to tell me what it is about me that attracts her. I have a plan--I shall do exactly the opposite of what she desires of me.' 'To set her agen you, like,' remarked Elizabeth. 'Exactly.' She stood for a few moments regarding me with her head on one side. Had you known her to be capable of it you might almost have imagined that she was thinking. Certainly she breathed much harder than usual. At last, to my profound astonishment, she suddenly sat down, threw her apron over her face and burst into unrestrained laughter. 'Compose yourself, my good girl,' I said, anxious lest the family should overhear, 'what is the matter?' 'I got an idea,' she said as soon as she had recovered. 'It aint 'arf a bad one. You say you want to know wot it is Miss Marryun likes about you?' 'I do, indeed,' I said eagerly. 'Well, I can tell you that right away. It's your towsled look, so to speak. Only the other day she ses to me, she ses, "Wot I like about Mr. Roarings is the rough kind o' suits 'e wears, them baggy trousis, an' also 'is great clompin' boots. I like the free an' easy way 'e throws 'is feet up to the ledge of the mantelpiece," she ses, "an' the way 'e 'as of wearin' 'is 'air 'anging all about 'is ears, shaggy-like."' 'Incredible!' I exclaimed. 'An' only yesterday she stood on this very spot where you are now and ses to me, thoughtful like: "Don't you love a man with a heavy beard an' moustarch--like Mr. Roarings, f'r instance?" she ses.' '"Well, miss, since you put the question to me," I ses plain out; "I'm not parshul to either, though I've 'ad young men with 'em, singly and both together. I prefers 'em entirely without, but beggars can't be choosers, can they?" 'Then Miss Marryun said thoughtful like: "I think I'm rather different from other wimmin, Elizabeth. Very few would admire a man like Mr. Roarings. But 'e's my style, so to speak, if I was pickin' an' choosin'. But to show you 'ow strange I am," she goes on, "if 'e made 'isself spruce I should get to dislike 'im all at once."' I raised my head sharply, suffused by a glow of hope. 'Elizabeth, my good girl,' I exclaimed, 'is it so easy to accomplish as all that?' 'I'm not so sure about easy,' she commented, looking me over as if I'd been an unlabelled exhibit in a Zoo. '"Rome wasn't built in a day," as the sayin' is, but it's a long lane that 'as no turnin'. "If 'e," ses Miss Marryun, meanin' you, "was got up real smart with a fancy westcoat, a crease down the front of 'is trousis, shinin' button boots, and wos to shave orf 'is beard and moustarch--" she said that bit very earnest, too--"well, I should fair detest the sight of 'im."' I sank down in a seat with a groan of despair. Elizabeth was right. Such a metamorphosis would not be easy. It would mean the overturning of my most cherished convictions, an upheaval of the very routine of my existence. Would life be worth living if one awoke in a morning to the knowledge of the rites that every day would bring forth? A matutinal shave, trousers to be taken from the press, collars and cuffs to be changed, hair and nails to be trimmed, the two latter, if not every day, at all events occurring with enough frequency to keep a simple man in a constant state of unrest. 'Elizabeth,' I said, shuddering, 'I cannot do all this.' 'Oo's arskin' you to?' demanded the girl. 'I was only repeating wot Miss Marryun ses to me with 'er own lips. "Yes, I should fair get to detest 'im if 'e was spruce," was 'er very words.' I pondered. 'Are you quite sure she stipulated about the beard?' 'She did that. She mentioned it pertickler three times.' I shook my head firmly. Whatever happened I did not mean to concede that point. My beard is one of my best friends. By allowing it to grow to a suitable length it conceals the fact when my ties have grown shabby, and saves me any unnecessary changing of collars. No, I would never be clean-shaven. I could not face the world stripped of my natural facial coverings. 'There may be something in what you say, and I will consider your suggestion regarding the trousers, Elizabeth,' I conceded, 'but the suggestion that I should shave is perfectly monstrous and I won't think of it for a moment.' 'Well, to my mind it's one of the first things wot ought to be done with you,' she said in what seemed to me a disparaging sort of voice, 'wots the good o' puttin' a fancy westcoat an' a watch an' albert on a chap when 'e's got an 'ead like a wild man o' the woods. There ort to be no 'arf an' 'arf about it, I ses.' I looked at the girl sternly, feeling that her speech was becoming unduly familiar. Nevertheless, I was conscious of a certain gratitude for her suggestion, and after she had gone out, I began to consider it from all points. There could be no harm in gradually making those changes in my habits and apparel which would bring about Miss Warrington's disillusionment, but it must be fairly gradual. Otherwise it might attract undue attention, for there are times when I think I am just a trifle careless about my appearance. I decided I had better begin operations with a new suit. This would involve changing my regular tailor. The one who has had my custom for the last quarter of a century is used to my way of putting my head round his door once in three years and commanding, 'A tweed lounge suit, the same as the last.' 'Yes, sir,' he invariably concurs, 'any difference in measurements, sir?' 'I think not,' I reply, 'but make it quite loose and comfortable in case I've added a few inches to the waist.' That is all. Occasionally, of course, I vary the order by making it an overcoat, or an extra pair of slacks (when I burn holes in my usual ones, which frequently happens), but the procedure is always the same. It can easily be understood that I had not the courage to confront him after all these years with a demand for the latest thing in the season's suitings, and especial injunctions regarding style and cut. As I was dwelling on the annoyances and difficulties that were already presenting themselves, Miss Warrington came in. I must confess that, as I looked at the irritating female whose misplaced affections were already harassing me, I felt slightly confused. Since I had first learned of her insane infatuation I had studiously avoided being left alone with her for one instant. At the moment, however, there was no possibility of escape, as she stood between me and the door, thus effectively barring my exit. I could only confront her uneasily, trying to avoid her direct gaze and, as I did so, I could not help remarking that she, too, was obviously embarrassed. Then, as if taking a resolution, she came up to me and looked me squarely in the face. I moved away, a faint shiver of apprehension going down my spine. 'Mr. Rawlings,' she said slowly and impressively, 'there is one thing I want to say regarding your conduct. When you are addressing photographs, may I ask you to do it with lowered voice, or at all events in a purely conversational tone?' Then she swept out of the room, banging the door behind her. As for me, I was left dazed and struggling to grasp the strange import of her mystic words. Why this constant reference to the photograph she had so shamelessly thrust upon me, and which, as a direct hint to her that I did not desire it, I had replaced in its frame at the first opportunity? What had come over the woman? I began to be more than ever convinced of my former suspicion that her fatal and erratic passion for myself was beginning to unhinge her mind. I saw that I must lose no time in bringing about her disillusionment. CHAPTER XIII 'Henry, do you think William has been looking particularly unhappy lately?' I inquired. Henry grunted. Converted for the moment into 'A Well-known Actor,' he was digging amongst his theatrical cuttings for reminiscent purposes, and was, therefore, somewhat abstracted. I, too, was supposed to be working, but try as I would I could not help thinking of William. I felt sorry for him--he looked so distrait. When, as he vaguely hinted, he had conceived an attachment for me I did not think it was likely to cause him any unhappiness. Indeed, I never imagined him capable of feeling any emotions but those of a purely physical character--such as the effects of cold, heat, hunger or bodily pain. And here he was, sighing and looking so dejected it was depressing even to see him about the place. I had just been re-reading _Cyrano de Bergerac_, whose case seemed rather applicable to William. Could it be possible that under his rough exterior the poor fellow had all the sentiment and fiery imagination of Cyrano, and suffered the same sensitive torment about his appearance. Did William, like Cyrano, shudder when his eye rested even on his own shadow? Did he feel that because of his physical failings the love of woman must be for ever denied him? I must admit that William was a trifle more interesting to me now than he had previously been. Every woman finds something rather gratifying in being worshipped from afar, even if it is by an 'impossible.' Yet the idea of making him unhappy was distasteful to me. I repeated my question to Henry. 'Never seen William unhappy yet,' replied Henry, looking up, 'he's one of those few chaps who seem contented with life--only wish I was the same.' Something in his tone made me promptly forget William and concentrate on Henry. 'Aren't you contented?' I asked. He paused a moment before replying, and then rather wearily indicated the article he was writing. 'It's this kind of thing, you know--where does it all lead to? At times I think journalism is the most exacting profession in the world.' 'What do you mean?' I asked, puzzled at his tone. 'It is exacting because it seems to lead to nothing,' he continued. 'For instance, just think of all the energy, brains and effort involved in the bringing out of a newspaper. Yet it is only read casually, skimmed over by most people, then tossed on one side and instantly forgotten. It is conceived, born, and it dies all in one day. Do you ever see any one reading a morning paper at, say, four o'clock in the afternoon? It is hopelessly out of date by that time.' 'I hadn't thought of it like that,' I pondered. 'Of course, journalism isn't like a business that you can build up and constantly improve; but you can at least establish a reputation amongst newspaper readers.' 'You can't do that so well nowadays,' returned Henry, who seemed in pessimistic vein, 'owing to the present demand for getting well-known names attached to articles. We write them all the same, of course, but it's the people with the well-known names that get the credit for having a good literary style. Well, I always put the best of myself into my work--I can't write anything in a hasty, slovenly manner--but where does it lead to? Some day, perhaps, my ideas will give out and then----' he made a little hopeless gesture. He was silent a moment, staring out of the window. 'Then there's another thing,' he went on, 'this constant grind leaves me no time to get on with my play. If I could only get it finished it might bring me success--even fame. But how shall I ever get the leisure to complete it?' A feeling of compunction swept over me. I went up to him and put my hand on his shoulder. 'Henry, dear old chap, I never thought you felt like this about things.' Certainly he was writing a play, but as he had been engaged on it now for over ten years (Henry is a conscientious writer), my interest in it was not so keen as it had been when he first told me of the idea a decade previously. 'Couldn't you do a little of your play every evening after dinner?' I suggested. 'I'm too brain weary by that time--my ideas seem to have given out. Sometimes I think I must renounce the notion of going on with it--and it's been one of my greatest ambitions.' I smoothed his hair tenderly, noticing how heavily flecked it was with grey and how it silvered at the temples. Poor Henry, he reminded me just then of _L'homme à la cervelle d'or_, a fantastic story of Daudet's, where he tells of a man possessed of a brain of gold which he tore out, atom by atom, to buy gifts for the woman he loved until, in the end (she being an extravagant type), he was left without a scrap of brain to call his own and so expired. The man was, of course, supposed to be a writer, and the brain of gold his ideas. It made me feel quite uneasy to think that Henry, too, might be, metaphorically speaking, steadily divesting himself of brain day by day in order to support The Kid and me in comfort. 'I ought not to grumble,' he said at last. 'Very few people can do what they want to in this world. Take you, my dear, for instance. You are not following your natural bent when you write those articles for the Woman's Page.' 'I should hope not--I loathe 'em,' I said viciously. 'There's one thing about it,' he went on musingly, 'we'll see that The Kid has every chance when she grows up.' We are looking forward very much to the time when The Kid will be grown up. Henry says he pictures her moving silently about the house, tall, graceful, helpful, smoothing his brow when he is wearied, keeping his papers in order, correcting his proofs and doing all his typing for him. I, too, for my part, have visions of her taking all household cares off my shoulders, mending, cooking, making my blouses and her own clothes, and playing Beethoven to us in the evenings when our work is done. In her spare time we anticipate that she will write books and plays that will make her famous. We have visions of these things, I repeat--generally when The Kid is in bed asleep with her hands folded on her breast in a devotional attitude, a cherubic smile on her lips. There are, however, other times when I hope for nothing more exacting than the day to come when she will keep herself clean. I often wonder where all the stickiness comes from that she manages to communicate from her person to the handles of doors, backs of chairs and other such places where you are most likely to set your hand unconsciously. Henry has a theory about it oozing from the pores of her skin, and says she conceals some inexhaustible sources of grime which is constantly rising to the surface. In which case you can't entirely blame The Kid. Under the circumstances, however, we feel that she ought to practise more restraint. Always when she is most thickly coated in dirt and varnished with the glutinous substance already referred to, does she most strongly feel the calls of affection. Then is the moment when she flings her arms about Henry and presses long kisses on his clean collar, or gently caresses the entire surface of my new blouse. Nothing, I have remarked, can stir her demonstrative nature so much as the sight of Henry and me arrayed in all the glory of evening attire. The merest glimpse of my georgette theatre gown, or the chaste folds of Henry's tie, scintillating collar and shirt front send her flying to us with hands that fondle and lips that cling. If we repel her and compromise by kissing the middle of her head, she has a way of giving us haunting looks that, after we have sallied forth to the halls of pleasure, can make us feel uncomfortable for the entire evening. 'Yes, when The Kid is grown up,' Henry went on, 'perhaps she'll have the success that has been denied to us, old girl.' I was about to reply when my attention was arrested by a confused murmur of voices in the hall. I distinguished Elizabeth's, and as the other was a man's tones, I supposed she was having a little badinage at the side door with one of the tradesmen, as is her wont. As in time it did not die away, but began to get a little more heated (one voice appearing to be raised in entreaty and the other, Elizabeth's, in protest), I thought I had better saunter out and interrupt the causerie. Elizabeth has occasionally to be reminded of her work in this manner. She is too fond of gossiping. I opened the door ostentatiously and sallied out--just in time to see Elizabeth playfully pulling William by the beard. 'You get them whiskers orf--narsty, rarspin' things,' she was saying. It was an awful moment. Elizabeth had the grace to look ashamed of herself for once, and drifted back to her sink without a word. As for William, he appeared thoroughly unnerved. He tottered towards me. 'Let me explain,' he began. 'William!' I said in stern tones. Then again, '_William!_' He wilted under my gaze. 'I should never have thought such a thing of you,' I continued. He pointed with a finger that trembled in the direction of the kitchen. 'That girl has no respect for any one or anything in the world. Traditions, class distinctions are as nothing to her. She would put out her tongue at Homer.' 'Or pull the beard of William,' I added sarcastically. 'Until I met her,' he went on fiercely, 'I was entirely a democrat. But now I see that once power gets into the hands of the common people we are damned!' 'But what has all this to do with your flirting with Elizabeth?' I demanded. He seemed so overcome at this very natural comment on my part that for a moment I thought he was going to have a seizure of some sort. 'I--I--_flirt_, and with Elizabeth?' he repeated when he had slightly recovered himself. 'Madame, what do you mean to insinuate?' He drew himself up to his full height of six feet three, and, looking at him as he towered above me with his mane of disordered hair and flowing beard, I could not help thinking he rather resembled Samson in one of his peevish moods. The indignation that possessed him seemed sincere enough, but the circumstances of the case utterly bewildered me. I was gazing at him in perplexity when Henry came out of the study. 'What's all this parleying in the hall, noise without, voices heard "off," and so forth?' he demanded. William gave me such an agonized look of entreaty I decided I would say nothing about what had just occurred. 'It is only I endeavouring to get our friend William to rub his feet on the mat,' I retorted cheerfully. 'But let us go into the consulting chamber.' [Illustration: Henry, being a Scotsman, likes argument.] William followed me into the study and took his usual seat at the fireside in a dejected manner. Then went through a strange gymnastic. He had just started to swing his feet up to the mantelpiece when he paused with them in mid-air and brought them down again. The arrested action had a droll effect. 'Have a smoke,' said Henry, pretending not to notice this peculiar conduct and pushing the tobacco jar towards him. 'No thanks, old man,' he replied. 'I'm giving up smoking--for a time.' It was now Henry's turn to look surprised. 'Giving up smoking,' he ejaculated. 'What's wrong--is it your liver?' 'No, no, my liver's all right.' 'Your lungs, then?' 'Of course, not.' 'It surely can't be your heart?' William began to look annoyed. 'Look here, can't I go without a smoke for once without my entire anatomy being held up for discussion?' He then produced a cigarette and proceeded to light it. 'I thought you'd given up smoking,' commented the puzzled Henry. 'Do you call this smoking?' he replied in disgust. 'You might as well give lemonade to a man who asks for a brandy and soda and tell him it's just as good.' 'Then why renounce your pipe at all?' asked Henry, still mystified. 'I've decided to go through a sort of mental training,' replied William, speaking rather quickly and avoiding my eye. 'I think a man has no right to become the slave of habit. Directly he feels he is dropping into a groove he ought to face about and go in exactly the opposite direction.' 'Is that what you're doing just now?' I asked, wondering if this was an explanation of the Elizabeth episode. 'Exactly. It is the only way to build up one's character. Now, some people might think me a little careless regarding dress.' 'The ultra-fastidious might consider you a trifle insouciant, William.' 'That is one of the points in my character I intend to correct.' He dived into his pocket as he spoke and produced a brown paper parcel. William can carry any number of things in his pockets without making his figure look any bulgier or more unsymmetrical than usual. He boasts that he has at times gone on a three weeks' walking tour with all the luggage he required for that period disposed about his person, his damp sponge (concealed in the crown of his hat) keeping his head delightfully cool in the heat of the day. 'What have you got there, William?' I inquired as he unfolded the parcel. 'My first step in the evolution of character,' he replied solemnly, and took out a pair of white spats, and some fawn-coloured gloves. 'You don't mean you're going to wear those?' gasped Henry. 'I am--abhorrent as they are to me,' rejoined William mournfully. 'You may call it building up character if you like,' said Henry shortly, 'but I call it a lot of damned rot.' He pulled hard at his cigar, and then added, 'You're suffering from softening of the brain, my boy, or something of the sort.' William looked at me in questioning despair, and in that moment my heart softened towards him. In a flash I understood. He had so often heard me urge Henry to wear white spats and light-coloured gloves, though all my coercion and entreaty had been in vain. William had thought by donning these things--which on him would have a grotesque effect--he would win my favour. Poor fellow! I was quite touched by his devotion, his absolutely hopeless passion. 'These things wouldn't be in keeping with the rest of you,' I said gently; 'they require to be accompanied by all the--er--appurtenances of the smart man.' 'Is--is--a beard an appurtenance?' he asked in a hollow voice. 'Not an appurtenance, William--perhaps a detriment would be the better word.' He emitted a sound that was half a groan. 'I knew it,' he said. 'Well, what must be, must be, I suppose.' 'You're getting profound,' snorted Henry, who apparently objected to William in his present mood; and he proceeded to distract his attention by touching on a recent stirring debate in the House. William allowed Henry to talk on unchecked--your man who indulges in argument abhors that--and left unusually early for him. 'That fellow is undoubtedly going off his head,' commented Henry after his departure. 'I wonder what's wrong with him.' I smiled rather sadly, and mentally decided that I must cure William of his infatuation for me without delay. CHAPTER XIV It is not easy to write--even on such a simple topic as 'How to Retain a Husband's Love'--if your attention is being distracted by a conscientious rendering of Czerny's 101 Exercises in an adjoining room. I could get no further with my article than the opening lines (they like an introductory couplet on the Woman's Page):-- It is the little rift within the lute That by and by will make the music mute! whereas The Kid, having disposed of all the major and minor scales and a goodly slice of Czerny, had now started her 'piece,' 'The Blue Bells of Scotland.' It was too much. I flung down my pencil and strode to the door. 'Moira,' I shrieked, 'stop that practising instantly.' 'Yes, Mama, dear.' 'Don't you understand I'm writing and want to be quiet?' 'Yes, Mama, dear. May I go on when you've finished writing?' 'I suppose so; but when I've quite finished it will be about your bedtime,' I said, trying not to feel exasperated. 'Then, may I get up an hour earlier in the morning to practise, Mama, dear?' There is something almost unnatural in the way that child fights her way through all obstacles to the piano and the monotony of Czerny. All the other parents in the world seem to be bewailing the fact that they can't get their children to practise. I know I ought to be proud and glad that The Kid is so bent upon a musical career, but even as the lion and the lamb cannot lie down together, neither can a writer and an incipient musician dwell in the same house in amity. Through almost illimitable difficulties (for when at work Henry can no more stand piano practice than I can) The Kid has got to the Variations of 'The Blue Bells of Scotland.' Nevertheless she is yearning for the day when she will arrive at the part where she crosses hands (Var. 8)--a tremendous achievement in her eyes, but viewed with cold aloofness by Henry and me. As I returned to my writing Henry entered the room. 'Will you as a Scotsman tell me,' I inquired before he could speak, 'what English people have done that they should be so unduly annoyed by the bells of Scotland, why those bells should be blue, and who was responsible for bringing the said blue bells (with variations) across the Border?' 'I see The Kid's been annoying you again,' he commented. 'It's a pity she gets no chance of practising.' I looked at him sternly. 'No chance! On the contrary, she never lets a chance escape her. I think it's the fierce Northern strain she inherits from you, Henry, that makes her so persistent. She reminds me of Bannockburn----' 'Bannockburn!' ejaculated Henry. 'King Bruce and the Spider and all that, you know. Didn't he go on trying and trying until he succeeded? That's what The Kid does with her scales. I think I understand why in 1603 we put a Scotch King on the English throne--you wouldn't have given us any peace if we hadn't.' 'Well, don't blame me for it, my dear,' replied Henry. 'I dropped in to tell you that William has just 'phoned up to say he accepts our invitation to dinner this evening, but he is most anxious to know who else is coming.' I stared. 'This is most unusual. What should it matter to him who is coming?' 'I told him, of course, that there was only Marion and ourselves, and then he asked if he should get into evening dress. What do you think of that?' We looked at each other in silent amazement. 'William--in--evening--dress,' I echoed blankly. 'What can it mean?' 'Frankly, I think the poor old chap's brain is getting a little unhinged,' hazarded Henry. 'Do you remember the episode with the white spats and gloves the other day? I think you ought to persuade him to see a specialist, my dear.' Suddenly I remembered the apparent reason for poor William's altered manner and smiled. 'I don't think we need call in medical aid just yet,' I replied. Nevertheless, I felt that he must be cured of this foolishness as soon as possible, for, as I had already hinted to him, any attempt at embellishing his person would only make him appear more grotesque. How little did I then dream of the amazing surprise that was in store for me! I was sitting alone in the drawing-room that same evening awaiting my two guests, Marion and William (Henry was upstairs dressing), when Elizabeth burst into the room. 'Oh, 'm, 'e's come!' she exclaimed, 'an' you never did see anything in your life 'arf so funny. I've been larfin' fit to split my sides.' 'Elizabeth,' I said coldly, 'what is wrong? Of whom are you speaking?' For answer she threw her apron over her head and went off into an almost hysterical fit of laughing. ''Oo'd have thort it,' she said when she had slightly recovered. 'That there grizzly bear of a Mr. Roarings, too!' 'So you are referring to one of my guests,' I interrupted sternly. 'I'm ashamed of you, Elizabeth.' 'Well, you only ort ter see 'im now! Talk about grubs turnin' into butterflies----' 'I'm not talking about anything of the sort,' I interposed with extreme asperity of manner. 'Am I to understand that Mr. Rawlings has arrived?' 'Not 'arf, 'e 'asn't. Wait till you see Mamma's boy. 'E's a fair razzle-dazzle from top to toe. Oh, my godmother!' And being seized with another burst of hysterical laughter she dashed from the room. [Illustration: 'A fair razzle-dazzle.'] I sighed as I put aside the French novel I had been reading when I was so rudely disturbed. I could not help wishing just then that Elizabeth had a little less character and a little more deference, and I decided that I must rebuke her for her familiarity. Then, remembering her supreme art in grilling a steak, I decided that rebukes--practised on domestics--are rather risky things in these days. 'Good evening,' said the deep voice of William behind me. 'Good evening,' I said casually, turning round and holding out my hand. Then I started back, my hand falling limply to my side. It was William who stood before me, because I recognized his voice--but that was all I recognized at the moment. Not a shred of his former self seemed to have remained. I think I have, from time to time, represented William as shabby, bulky, shapeless, hairy, and altogether impossible as far as appearance goes. Can any words depict my astonishment at seeing him so suddenly transformed, glorified, redeemed and clean-shaven? His figure, which once appeared so stodgy, now looked merely strong and athletic encased in a well-fitting morning coat, a waistcoat of a discreet shade of smoke grey, with a hint of starched piqué slip at the opening. His irreproachable trousers were correctly creased--not too marked to be ostentatious, but just a graceful fold emerging, as it were, out of the texture, even as the faint line of dawn strikes across the darkened sky. But it was his head that attracted me most. There was no denying it--shorn of his overgrowth of whiskers and put into a correct setting, William was handsome; even more than that, he was interesting. He had that firm, chiselled kind of mouth which women and artists find so attractive, and a delightful cleft in his chin; his hair, which had hitherto always struck me as being so unkempt and disordered, now that it was brushed smoothly back from his brow and curled into the nape of his neck gave him a distinguished appearance. I directed one long look at him and then instinctively dived to the mirror. 'Oh, William,' I gasped, 'is it possible?' 'Is what possible?' he inquired. 'Why just think of it,' I replied, groping in my pocket for my powder puff. '_You're a man!_' 'What else should I be?' he asked, apparently mystified. 'You used to be--just William. But now,' I sidled up to him, 'you've changed amazingly.' 'Yes, I know that,' he growled with some of his former gruffness of manner. 'Can you imagine what a tremendous amount of determination and will power I required to get myself up like this?' 'And a good tailor as well--don't forget that,' I added, running an appraising eye over his form. 'I must get his address for Henry. Yes, it was brave of you. What made you do it, William?' He avoided my eye and looked embarrassed. 'I had an object, of course. Didn't I explain the other evening----' 'I remember. You did say something about a man not getting into a groove.' I smiled, feeling slightly self-conscious for a moment. 'And how do you feel now you're entirely metamorphosed?' 'Entirely metamorphosed, am I?' he said rather bitterly, 'Just on account of a change of raiment. Yet Dr. Johnson said, "Fine clothes are good only as they supply the want of other means of procuring respect."' 'Oh, I always respected you, William,' I put in hastily, 'And don't quote Dr. Johnson now. It doesn't go with your tie.' He groaned. 'Must I change my expressions, my thoughts, my very mode of living to match the garments I wear?' 'I'm afraid you must. But tell me,' I added, looking earnestly into his face, 'doesn't this outward change affect you inwardly as well--just a little? You _must_ be feeling more--what shall I say--sprightly than before?' He looked down at me as if puzzled, and then said in a half shame-faced way, 'Mrs. Warrington, there is some truth in that remark of yours. Some subtle, inexplicable change that I cannot account for has come over me. Even as Samson's strength lay in his hair, do you think my reason lay in my beard?' 'It depends on the quality of the reason. Describe your present symptoms to me, William.' He avoided my gaze. 'It is quite impossible to analyse them, I assure you.' 'Let me help. Look at me steadily,' I said impressively. 'Now try, as far as possible, to describe me.' There was a pause. 'I'm afraid you'll be offended, Madame,' he began. 'No, I won't. Go on,' I commanded. 'Well, as a matter of fact, although I have known you for over nine years, it has never before occurred to me to notice that you are an--an--exceedingly pretty woman--but I am offending you?' 'Not in the least, William. Go on.' 'Before, I merely remarked you as Henry's wife--that was all. Why should I so suddenly observe your facial aspect? As Dr. Johnson once said----' 'Cut out Dr. Johnson, and go on with that bit about the facial aspect,' I put in gently. 'It must, of course, be self-consciousness arising out of my unusual adornment,' he went on, 'but despite myself I am compelled to notice your attractive qualities. I must, however, overcome this deplorable tendency--combat it----' 'I shouldn't combat it too strongly at first,' I suggested. 'It's always better to do things by degrees. What a nice mouth you have, William.' 'So have you,' he said, pondering on the discovery. I blushed. William suddenly started back and smote his brow with his hand. 'Isn't Henry coming in? Where is he?' he demanded wildly. 'Are you so anxious to see Henry at the moment?' 'I am. Mrs. Warrington, I am ashamed to admit the preposterous idea that came into my mind just now. You and Henry would never forgive me--never countenance me again--it was intolerable, incredible----' He paused and wiped his brow. 'Why doesn't Henry come in?' 'What was the preposterous idea?' I asked, wondering. 'Well, you'll hardly believe it--scarcely realize what you've escaped . . . just now, had you been a foot closer to me I believe--I believe, Mrs. Warrington, I should have kissed you!' I moved a step nearer to him. 'William, I should never have forgiven you if you had,' I said, raising my face to his so that he could see how intensely earnest I was. The door opened, and Henry and Marion came in together. 'Netta!' exclaimed Marion, 'how could you!' 'My dear,' remarked Henry, 'I am surprised. How is it I come in and find a man kissing you?' 'I don't know, Henry,' I replied meekly, 'unless it's because that door opens so quietly!' CHAPTER XV An exclamation from William made us all turn and look at him. 'I must have been mad,' he groaned, sinking into a chair and covering his face with his hands. 'That's what I thought myself just now when I caught sight of your waistcoat,' said Henry, staring at him. 'What is the meaning of all this--why the flawless trousers, the immaculate morning coat?' 'I--I--put on a morning coat because you said I wasn't to get into evening dress,' he replied. 'I know it isn't the correct thing for dinner, but you've only yourself to blame.' Henry continued to stare at him. 'I was quite right. Your brain is unhinged, William. When I last saw you, you appeared fairly normal--and now I come in and discover you arrayed like the lilies of the field and kissing my wife.' William gave a cry like a wounded animal. 'Your indictment is only too true. Henry, it is terrible. I can never even hope for your forgiveness for such a heinous offence. The only reparation I can make is to go forth from your house, shake from my feet the dust of your hospitable roof----' 'That metaphor's wrong, William,' I interposed. '--and pass out of your lives for ever.' 'What on earth are you talking about, old chap?' inquired Henry. 'Have I not betrayed the trust you always reposed in me?' 'I wouldn't put it as strong as that,' replied Henry, eyeing him up and down, 'though you certainly have made a bit of a guy of yourself. Who created those trousers?' 'I--I--was not referring to my change of apparel, Henry, but to that most unfortunate aberration on my part, when I was impelled by some strange uncontrollable impulse to bestow a labial salute on your wife. Heaven only knows that I----' 'As for that, I expect she egged you on,' calmly rejoined that horrid Henry. 'I know her. You did flirt with him, didn't you, Netta?' Before I could reply William sprang to his feet and placed himself before me. 'Stop, Henry!' he exclaimed, 'You have no right to suggest such a thing. If I took a gentle unsuspecting woman unawares, then I am willing to stand by the consequences of my rash act. Never for one moment, I can assure you, did such a thought enter Mrs. Warrington's head. She was wholly unprepared----' 'I'm not so sure of that,' put in Marion, with a sniff. I began to feel somewhat of a martyr. 'Yes, it _was_ rather a surprise,' I remarked. 'Only a moment before,' continued William, 'Mrs. Warrington had said to me, "If you do kiss me, I shall never forgive you!"' Oh, clumsy, clumsy William! 'Then you had been discussing it,' commented Marion, who seemed unusually chilly about the innocent affair. 'Well, I'm hungry, so let's have dinner now,' suggested Henry, 'and we can settle the discussion afterwards.' But William strode to the door. 'No, no, Henry, I cannot break bread in your house again after this distressing incident. I have imposed on your kindness and good faith, disturbed your trust in me----' 'Well, I forgive you this time if you promise never to bestow any of those, what d'ye call 'em--labial salutes on Netta again. Now let's have dinner.' 'No, no, old man, you may forgive me, but I shall never forgive myself.' Henry began to look irritated. 'For Heaven's sake, Netta, tell him the truth and admit it was your fault, or we shall never get anything to eat to-night.' I sighed, and going up to William gently pulled back his retreating form by the coat tails. 'You are young, Father William,' I said, 'and innocent in the wiles of women. You've only been born a few hours as far as they are concerned--I don't think it's quite safe for you to go about without your beard just yet. I will tell you nothing but the truth. I incited you to kiss me.' 'I knew it!' snapped Marion. 'Henry, as you see, has treated me under the First Offenders Act and forgiven me. And now, William, I will kiss you once again (with Henry's full consent) for your youth and innocence.' And I suited the action to the word. 'So will Marion, won't you, dear?' At this William started as if shot. 'Never, never!' he exclaimed, staring at Marion with a hunted look, 'it would be preposterous--infamous.' The situation was decidedly awkward, especially as Marion, going suddenly pale, gave a little hysterical sort of cry and ran out of the room. The meal that followed was a silent one. Marion did not speak at all, and when she was not casting furtive glances in William's direction, kept her gaze fixed on her plate. William was monosyllabic, partly, I gathered, on account of recent events, and partly because one of his patent leather boots was obviously causing him anguish. I noticed that he occasionally lifted his foot (as an animal raises a wounded paw) and then set it down again with a sort of half moan. For one reason I was rather grateful that my guests were so abstracted. That reason was Elizabeth. Her behaviour during dinner, to put it mildly, was disturbing and abnormal. Every time she entered the room to change the plates or hand round the dishes she went through remarkable pantomimic gestures behind the unconscious William's back. She drew my attention to him by nods, winks, and significant gestures. Once or twice she was impelled to clap her hand over her mouth and dash from the room in a spasm of uncontrollable mirth. It was most unnerving; and what with William's gloomy looks, Marion's abstraction, and my constant fear that Elizabeth would spill gravy, custard or something of an equally clinging character, over William during her contortions behind him, I was relieved when the meal was ended. [Illustration: She dashed from the room in a spasm of mirth.] William at once retired to the study with Henry, presumably for a chat, but chiefly, as I afterwards discovered, to remove his right boot for an hour's respite. He left early, limping heavily. 'It is really most curious about William,' I said to Marion as we sat alone in the drawing-room--Henry having remained in the study to finish some work. 'One can hardly conceive a reason strong enough to induce him to renounce his aboriginal mode of living and become so highly civilized almost in a day.' Marion lowered her head, and I thought she looked self-conscious. 'A man might do a thing like that for--for love,' she murmured. I blushed slightly. 'I scarcely think it's more than a passing infatuation.' 'I feel convinced it's stronger than that,' she replied tensely. 'I hope not,' I said in an alarmed tone. 'It would be horrid to see the poor fellow in the throes of a hopeless passion.' 'Perhaps after all it might not be quite hopeless,' rejoined Marion softly. I raised my head sharply. 'I don't think you are justified in that remark,' I said stiffly, 'what you saw between him and me was only a little harmless fun. As if, indeed, there is any man living who could make me forget dear old Henry for a minute----' 'You!' exclaimed Marion with a start. 'I wasn't thinking of you, Netta.' 'Then who----?' 'I--I--was referring to--myself.' She put down her knitting on her knee and looked at me half defiantly, her cheeks flushed. 'But, my dear Marion, when has he shown you the slightest attention?' I was impelled to remark. 'You have always professed the profoundest contempt for him.' 'Not contempt, Netta. I have remarked that he was untidy.' 'You said the other evening that you considered him to be the last man on earth a woman could like.' 'No doubt, dearest, but that was before I had discovered a woman kissing him.' 'Perhaps you regret it was not yourself in that enviable position, darling?' 'No, my love. I don't think the position of a married woman discovered kissing a man other than her husband _is_ enviable; do you?' Marion's obtuse and unreasonable attitude puzzled me. I am quick tempered, and was about to reply hotly, when the door opened and Elizabeth entered. 'Miss Marryun,' she said, nodding mysteriously in the direction of my sister-in-law, 'I bin lookin' at the cards for you an' I see a warnin' in 'em. You'll 'ave to keep an eye on 'im if you want to keep 'im.' Marion did not look so mystified as I expected at this unusual outburst. 'Thank you for the warning, Elizabeth,' she said in an affable tone. 'You gotta rival for 'is affeckshuns,' continued Elizabeth. Marion raised an eyebrow in my direction. 'No doubt,' she commented. 'What is all this nonsense?' I asked, a little testily. 'Elizabeth is, as you know, a fatalist,' explained Marion. 'She places her faith in cards, which, I am repeatedly telling her, is utter nonsense.' 'It aint nonsense,' expostulated Elizabeth in an injured tone. 'You gotta fair rival acrost your parth----' 'I'm glad I'm dark,' I murmured. 'Fair an' false she is,' continued the soothsayer, 'the words of 'er mouth are like 'oney an'----' 'I tell you I consider all this rubbish,' interrupted Marion briskly. 'You would be far better not to believe in such foolish things, Elizabeth. They do you no good.' Elizabeth retired in some indignation, muttering, 'Well, don't say you wasn't told.' We sat in strained silence--for it was the first occasion there had been any hint of a tiff between us--and after a time Marion rose to go. When Henry had put on his overcoat to accompany her home she was nowhere to be found. Hearing voices proceeding from the kitchen, I went in that direction. It was then I heard Marion remark in a casual tone--the casualness a little overdone: 'You might let me hear if he says any more about it.' 'Right-o, Miss.' 'And, oh, by the way, Elizabeth, what was that you said about a rival--are you quite sure that she is fair?' CHAPTER XVI I should like to begin this chapter by saying it's the unexpected that always happens. As that, however, would be too trite a remark, I will only say that William was the last person on earth I should have suspected of falling in love with Gladys Harringay. She is, indeed, exceedingly pretty in a fluffy kind of way and most men like to flirt with her, but they do not let their attentions develop into anything serious. Perhaps you know the sort of girl she is. She makes a dead set at every eligible man she meets and concentrates on him to such an extent that he ends by losing interest in her altogether--actually avoiding her, in fact. Man is like that, I've observed. I suppose it's the primitive instinct of the hunter which still lurks in him and makes him desire to stalk down his quarry instead of its stalking him. Gladys didn't seem aware of this supreme fact, and (though she affected the giddy airs of eighteen) she was getting perilously near the age when the country considers a woman is wise and staid enough to vote, yet she still remained unwed. Never for a moment did it occur to me, when I asked her to dine with us one evening, that she would go for William. Still less did I think that he would take even the faintest interest in such a vapid creature. But, as I wanted to say before, it's the unexpected that always happens. William was looking unusually nice that evening. His eyes had a far-away, rather haunted expression, due to his wearing sock-suspenders for the first time, but, of course, Gladys didn't know that. He seemed like one of the strong, silent heroes of fiction. I can testify that he was silent--perhaps because Gladys did all the talking--and he looked unusually strong. They sat together most of the evening, and she only left his side to go to the piano to sing one of her 'stock' French chansons. Even then she directed it entirely at William. '_Mamman, dîtes-moi, ce qu'on sent quand on aime Est-ce plaisir, est-ce tourment?_' she warbled, rolling her r's and looking so fixedly at William that he seemed quite uneasy--he might, indeed, have been more uneasy had his French been equal to following the words of the song. Modern languages, however, like modern writers, do not appeal to him. They must be as dead as mutton before they can awaken his interest. If you want to see him roused to a perfect frenzy of enthusiasm you should see him arguing with Henry as to the comparative dramatic values of Homeric hexameters and Ionian iambics. But to return to Gladys--or rather Gladys and William, for they remained inseparable for the remainder of the evening. He even accompanied her home, for I saw him dart forward (in his patent leather boots, too, which demanded slow movement on his part), when she rose to go, and hurry out to act as her escort. A few days later he called in to see us for the sole purpose of inquiring about her. He pretended he wanted to borrow Ruskin's _Munera Pulveris_, but as he went away without the volume we saw how feeble was that pretext. 'With regard to--er--Miss Harringay,' he began, almost as soon as he arrived, 'I must say I consider her a remarkable young lady.' 'She _is_,' I said grimly. 'Would you believe it,' he went on, addressing himself to Henry, 'she is actually a Dr. Johnson enthusiast.' 'Nonsense!' ejaculated Henry. 'It's a fact. Isn't it unusual in one so young and--er--tender and timid that she recalls Keats' dissertation on woman, "she is like a milk-white lamb that bleats for man's protection."' 'Oh, so she's been bleating, has she?' I said cruelly. 'It makes it all the more astonishing that she should have leanings toward the study of serious literature.' 'Who told you she had?' 'She told me so herself.' 'Do you mean to tell me you believe it?' He looked puzzled. 'Why should she say that if it isn't true? She could have no object in making such a statement. As a matter of fact, I found out quite by accident, when she unconsciously quoted a passage from the great master.' I began to see light. So that was why Gladys had come up in such haste the day following her introduction to William to borrow _Johnson's Aphorisms_. Oh, hapless, artless William! 'I see now that you were quite right when you once remarked that you feared you had lost your reason with your beard,' I remarked severely. 'Do let things grow again before it is too late.' 'Let what grow?' he asked. 'Everything. Moustache, beard and general air of fuzziness. It's the best protection you can have, my poor fellow.' He departed rather abruptly after that, seeming somewhat annoyed. I could not understand what was making him so unusually touchy. 'Surely,' I said to Henry, 'even William isn't so blind as to let himself be taken in by that little noodle of a Gladys.' 'Of course he isn't,' replied Henry vehemently, 'do you think a chap is ever deceived by anything like that? He hates to be pounced on, so to speak. Do you know, my dear, that one of the things that first attracted you to me was your complete indifference to myself.' 'Indeed, Henry?' I said, with lowered eyes and modest mien. 'Yes. If you remember I was editing the _Gazette_ at the time I first met you, and although you, as one of my contributors, often came up to the office to see me, we remained for a long time on a purely business footing.' It is true Henry was an unconscionable time in coming to the point. 'Entirely business-like,' I acquiesced. 'When you called to see me to discuss a gross misstatement in one of your articles (which you refused to acknowledge until I had sent for you to put the matter clearly before you), you did not conduct yourself like so many other girls who came to discuss their work with me. You did not attempt to engage in a mild flirtation, make eyes, bend over me as I glanced through the manuscript----' 'Oh, bad, bad girls,' I murmured. 'Do women behave like that with you, Henry?' 'They _did_, my dear. I am speaking of the time before I was married.' I smiled. What a comfort it is to have a Scotsman for a husband! He is so solid and reliable regarding the opposite sex. 'You, however, employed none of these wiles,' he continued, 'and were almost studiously cold and business-like. For a long time I thought I should never interest you in myself--in fact, I know I took you very much by surprise when I made you an offer, didn't I?' 'I was rather surprised, Henry,' I said, smiling at his retreating form as he went out of the room. Then I turned to Marion, who happened to be present. 'Why, of course,' I commented, 'that makes it all the more serious about William.' 'What are you talking about?' she asked in a puzzled tone. 'If Henry was deceived so easily----' 'Deceived! Oh, Netta!' 'Well, I mean, dear, I'd decided to marry Henry before the episode of the misstatement in my article he just mentioned. I--I--put the misstatement in on purpose to arouse a controversy between us.' 'Netta, how terrible!' 'Why terrible, Marion? I knew Henry would make an excellent husband. Am I not a suitable wife for him?' [Illustration: 'Am I not a suitable wife for Henry?'] 'You are just perfect, dear--but you might have been otherwise.' 'That's exactly what I'm driving at, Marion. Gladys is an "otherwise." If I deceived Henry, how much easier is it for her to deceive William? No, she shan't marry him. He'd be wretched.' Marion smiled. 'You surely don't think there's anything like that between them?' 'He's drifting that way if some one doesn't stop him.' Again Marion smiled. 'I tell you it's impossible. He couldn't have got over his passion for me so quickly.' 'His passion for you,' I echoed. 'My dear, what do you mean?' Marion then laid down her sewing and began to speak. I listened amazed, unable at first to credit what she was saying, though gradually I began to understand many things which had hitherto been obscure. 'It's wonderful to think of his having loved you secretly all this time,' I marvelled; 'yet why should he take Elizabeth into his confidence rather than myself? And why didn't you tell me all this before--it would have made things so much simpler.' 'At first, not being aware how handsome he could be made, I did not care for him and----' 'Do you mean, then, that you no longer dislike him, Marion?' 'On the contrary, dear, I have begun to regard him with--with feelings of warmth.' 'Then all goes well, it seems. Now I shall go and speak to Elizabeth about the affair.' I thought Elizabeth seemed a little uneasy under my questioning, but she reiterated many times: 'I tell you 'e isn't 'arf gone on Miss Marryun--fair mad about 'er 'e is, but 'e told me not to breathe a word about it to a soul.' 'Well, he's mad about some one else now,' I interposed. Elizabeth looked unduly startled. 'Oo with? Don't say it's that there Miss 'Arringay 'oo wos a-settin' 'er cap so 'ard at 'im the other night?' I was a little taken aback. 'Yes, that's about it,' I confessed. 'Well, upon my soul, the sorcy baggage,' burst out Elizabeth with unexpected wrath, 'such imperence after me workin' an' plannin' the way I 'ave. But she shan't 'ave 'im. Look 'ere, 'm, Miss Marryun is just the one fer 'im. Can't it be brought off like?' I pondered. 'I'll do my best, Elizabeth. If, as you say, he has formed such a strong attachment to Miss Marion, I should like to see them both happy. You say he was particularly anxious to have her photograph?' I almost imagined at that moment Elizabeth avoided my eye. 'Very pertickler,' she retorted in a muffled voice. 'Very well, then. I, myself, will restore the photo he replaced. It will be the first step to an understanding between them.' I left the kitchen smiling complacently, feeling that my latest matrimonial scheme for Marion was going to be the easiest I had ever attempted. Alas! I was reckoning, as the saying is, without my host. The host in this case was Gladys. CHAPTER XVII Everything went wrong with my plans from the first. For instance, Marion, the central figure in the plot, went away suddenly to nurse a sick great-aunt. William now became so engrossed with Gladys that he talked of very little else. Thus Henry and I would have avoided him at this stage, if possible; it was not possible, however, to avoid him. We saw more of him than ever. I will explain why. William was one of those lovers who are terrified of being over-bold or too confident, lest by their presumption they might alarm the timid object of their affections. He needn't have been afraid of wooing Gladys. She flung herself at his head rather obviously, but he seemed so obtuse she must have found him irritating at times. Thus, instead of calling upon her or asking her to meet him by appointment, or arranging an evening at the theatre and otherwise behaving in a sensible manner, he hung about her house, endeavouring to come upon her 'by chance.' Further, having met her at our place he seemed to be under the impression that she was one of my closest friends, and came to see me every day, judging by the times he 'dropped in' in the obvious anticipation of meeting her. Not finding his quarry, he talked about her to Henry, though I must admit his audience was not always sympathetic. 'I don't believe in interfering in these things,' remarked Henry, one evening, when we were alone, 'but, frankly, I should be really sorry to see good old William throw himself away on that frivolous, stupid little Gladys. They'd be desperately unhappy after being married a week. Couldn't something be said to them, do you think--a hint thrown out from time to time?' 'Throwing hints--or anything else--wouldn't be of the slightest use, Henry. Have you ever met a person in love who would listen to sound advice of the sort? If you want to know how to get yourself intensely unpopular--with two people at least--try intervening in what you consider an unsuitable love match.' I spoke with feeling, for I had once been implored to use my influence to part a couple who were, to all appearances, acutely incompatible. The job was distasteful to me, and I only undertook it because there is a strain of philanthropy in my nature (though that isn't what the incompatibles called it). My intervention had no effect, of course. They are now married--and quite happy--and neither of them will speak to me any more. Henry continued to look disturbed. 'If he only knew Gladys,' he said, 'but as things are going at present I'm afraid he'll propose before his eyes are opened.' I felt troubled. For a day or two I pondered on the distressing affair, but I was resolutely determined not to intervene. Then it was the idea occurred to me. To be frank, it was Elizabeth who actually inspired it. I was giving orders for dinner and was suggesting apple turnovers for a sweet, when she blandly remarked, 'Talkin' o' turnovers, Mr. Roarings is dead gone on that there Miss 'Arringay now, I 'ear.' 'Your hearing does seem unusually good,' I said coldly. Certainly, I had never mentioned the subject to any one but Henry. It was a surprise to discover that I had, at the same time, been mentioning it to Elizabeth as well. 'Nice wife she'd make him,' continued the irrepressible Elizabeth, 'a flipperty-flapperty piece o' goods like 'er.' 'We will have cheese straws after the sweet, Elizabeth,' I said in tones of chill rebuke. 'Right-o, 'm. Well, wot are you goin' to _do_ about it?' 'Do about what?' 'Mr. Roarings an' Miss 'Arringay. 'E isn't 'er style as any one could see with 'arf an eye, but 'e's fair blinded just now. Wot an eye-opener it'd be if 'e got to know 'er proper--met 'er frequent, so to speak.' 'I'm afraid I don't quite understand.' 'Well, 'ere's a case in point. My sister-in-law's brother--nice young chap 'e was too--fell in with a girl that wasn't the right one fer 'im--no clarss like,--but 'e wouldn't 'ear a word agen 'er. So my sister-in-law thinks of a plan. She arsks both 'er brother an' the young woman 'e was courtin' to go and spend their 'olidays with 'er at the seaside. Which they did an'--bless yer--wot with seein' 'er every day an' gettin' to know 'er too well 'e soon got sick o' 'er. Why, 'e'd given 'er a black eye afore the week was out. Now if Mr. Roarings and Miss 'Arringay met frequent like that----' 'Elizabeth,' I interposed, 'mind your own business'; and I went out of the kitchen with dignity. Nevertheless, I was compelled to admit that she had given me an inspiration. That girl, under a rough and unpromising exterior, has fecundity of ideas which astonishes me. Had she been in a higher class in life--or even able to spell--she might have been a regular contributor to the Sunday papers. 'Henry,' I said, hurrying into the study. 'I have got a solution regarding William's entanglement. I am going to invite Gladys to spend a week here with us.' 'How can that help? I don't quite see----' 'My dear ass, the idea isn't a novel one, but in this case it's excellent. I'll write her a note on the instant and ask her if she'll come, giving as a pretext that I'm feeling lonely in Marion's absence.' 'But why this hurry? Hadn't you better think it over first?' 'If I pause to think it over, Henry, I know I shall decide that I can't tolerate Gladys for an entire week. As it is, I expect she'll drive me stark mad. No, no, let me write while I am in my present frenzy of philanthropy?' 'I suppose,' he reflected, 'William will practically spend the week here, too, when he knows Gladys is coming.' 'Exactly. What about it?' 'I'm thinking of my work,' he grumbled. 'Two people being disillusioned under one roof are sure to create interruptions.' 'They shan't interrupt you. I intend to leave them together as much as possible. How glad I am that Gladys isn't the least bit clever--a week might not be long enough if she were.' 'I'm not sanguine about the idea,' was Henry's comment. 'It might work out all right in books and plays; but in real life its effect is extremely doubtful.' 'Not at all. Elizabeth knew a young man who was devoted to a girl until they spent a holiday together. At the end of the first week he gave her a black eye. What more do you want than that?' 'Nothing,' replied Henry, 'if she was quite satisfied. Do you think William's disillusionment will be as abrupt as all that?' 'I'm hopeful. Now don't talk to me until I've finished my letter to Gladys, which demands effort on my part. It must read as if I really wanted her to come.' Evidently the letter was effective, for Gladys rang up directly she received it and told me she'd be simply charmed to come and that it was perfectly sweet of me to have her. (I rather thought it was myself.) She came the next day with an abnormal amount of luggage for such a brief visit. But as I told Henry (who said it looked as though she intended wintering in our abode), I had distinctly stipulated that the invitation was for a week only. I was not at that time aware of the barnacle-like qualities of Gladys. As I anticipated, William also descended on us when he knew we had Gladys for a visitor. I left them alone together at every opportunity, and for a day or two all went well. Things might have gone better (for Gladys) if she hadn't attempted to be clever. As a matter of fact she over-reached herself. To this day I believe she ascribes her failure to Dr. Johnson, though she was far more to blame than that good old man. She talks very bitterly against him even now. You see, knowing William's weakness, she played up to it, but not being clever she hadn't got her subject properly in hand. I know the poor girl worked hard at the _Aphorisms_, but she had exhausted what she knew of those by the end of the first day. She did her best, I will admit, and even took the _Lives of the English Poets_ to bed with her and concentrated on them until midnight, while she dipped into _The Vanity of Human Wishes_ before breakfast. But it was no use. William discovered her deception rapidly, and it seemed to annoy him unduly. His visits began to fall off, and after Gladys had artlessly remarked to him one day, 'Who is that Mr. Boswell you're always talking about--he must be a great friend of yours. I hope you'll introduce me,' he ceased to come altogether. He had, in fact, arrived at the stage where Gladys irritated him. So had we. But unlike William we could not get away from her. Her visit had already extended two weeks and was melting into a third, and she gave no hint of returning home. It wouldn't have been so bad if only she had been quiet, but she is the most restless person I have ever known. She was always running up and down stairs, banging doors, playing fragments on the piano, and dashing into the study to talk to Henry when he was writing. He is, on the whole, an equable man, but more than once I trembled for the consequences when I saw her go up to him, lean over his shoulder and, snatching at some loose pages of his MS., playfully remark, 'What funny crabbed letters! And what is it all about--something you're inventing to deceive us poor public, I'll be bound. I don't believe a word of what you're writing, so there!' Henry used to say scorching things about Gladys when we retired at night (the only chance we seemed to have now of being alone was in our bedroom), and would ask me when I meant to tell her to go. I suggested he should tell her himself, and he declared it was not the duty of the host. I replied that it was the first time I'd ever heard it was the duty of the hostess either. We planned to make little speeches in her presence based on the subject of her departure, and fraught with deep and subtle allusion, but she ignored them. We inquired if her mother did not miss her after such a prolonged absence, and she said they rather liked her to be away from home for a few months in the year, as a change was always good. No doubt it was good for her people, but it was bad for Henry and me. Then one night Henry revolted. 'If she hasn't gone in another two days,' he informed me, 'I'm going to get rooms at an hotel.' He spoke as if he meant it, and I was mournfully wondering what I ought to do to get Gladys to go, short of being downright rude, when Elizabeth drifted into the problem. 'If Miss 'Arringay's goin' to stop much longer, I ain't,' she announced. 'She makes too much extry work, an' the sight o' 'er about the place fair riles me.' I looked wearily at Elizabeth. 'No doubt Miss Harringay will be going soon,' I said with an utter lack of conviction. Elizabeth approached me, and bending down, said in a hoarse whisper, 'Wot is it--carn't you get rid of 'er?' [Illustration: 'Carn't you get rid of 'er?'] I did not reply, feeling it distasteful to discuss my guest with a domestic, though I could not refrain from discussing her with Henry. 'Tell you wot you orter do,' said the fertile Elizabeth, 'send for Miss Marryun to come 'ere unexpected, an' then tell Miss 'Arringay you'll want 'er room.' 'But--but I've got another spare room. Miss Harringay knows that.' Elizabeth winked: I pretended not to see it, but there was no mistaking the distinct muscular movement of her left eyelid. 'No you '_aven't_,' she said stoutly. 'You 'avent got any proper bedding in the spare room now, 'ave you?' 'That's too thin,' I said decidedly. Yet even as I spoke I clutched at the straw and, holding on to it, went at once and wrote to Marion. 'You must come home at once,' I commanded, 'in spite of great-aunt Jane's rheumatism. Is it not written that it is better to have one rheumatic great-aunt than a brother, sister-in-law, and a niece in an asylum!' For answer Marion wired the time of her return train, and I began to grow hopeful. 'An' when Miss Marryun comes,' remarked Elizabeth, 'if I wos you I wouldn't say nothin' to 'er about the way Mr. Roarings went after Miss 'Arringay.' 'Why not?' I asked involuntarily. 'She mightn't trust 'im arter that. I never thort myself 'e'd turn as quick as 'e did. But men is queer, as my pore mother often said when father give 'er a black eye just to show 'ow fond 'e was of her like. No, the best thing to do is to let Miss Marryun think that Mr. Roarings is still taken up with 'er and only went after the other young lady to make 'er jealous.' There was much wisdom in Elizabeth's words. Nevertheless, I did not intend to mix myself up in any more matrimonial schemes. Much as I desired to see Marion happy, I felt that arranging the destiny of others did not leave me enough leisure to arrange my own, besides interfering with my literary work. At the moment, too, the thought uppermost in my mind was how to dispose of Gladys. I went to her with Marion's telegram in my hand and a falsely contrite expression on my face. 'I'm so awfully sorry, Gladys, but a most unforeseen thing has happened,' I said. 'Marion is coming to-day, and she'll have to take your room. Isn't it an idiotic situation?' Gladys pondered. 'But you have another spare room, haven't you?' she demanded brightly. 'Yes, Gladys, we have. But we haven't got the bedding for that just now. The mattress is being cleaned, and I suppose it won't be sent back for another fortnight at least.' Undaunted, Gladys had another idea. 'Then do you think Marion would mind sharing my room?' 'She would indeed--you see she walks in her sleep,' I said glibly, wondering how it was George Washington had found any difficulty in dissembling, 'and she's very sensitive about any one getting to know about it.' Gladys went after that. Henry and I have both decided that we're not going to interfere with incompatibles in future. It's too much of a strain on the nervous system. CHAPTER XVIII _Being a further extract from the diary of Miss Marion Warrington_. It seemed particularly unfortunate that I should be called away so hurriedly to the bedside of dear Aunt Jane at the very moment of the blossoming of my first real love episode. Yes, I must admit my feelings have undergone a change regarding Mr. Rawlings, whom I call my silent lover. Evidently he has, all the time, been fated for me. Truly, as the poet says, there's a Divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will. Divinity, so to speak, has shaped Mr. Rawlings' rough ends and completely transformed him. After seeing him without his beard and, above all, realizing what sacrifices he has made for my sake, I cannot but be touched by such overwhelming devotion. There is something almost sublime in the way that man has thrown off the habits of a lifetime for my sake! To think he has even donned white spats to please me! Netta has been trying for ten years to get Henry to wear them, but he remains as obdurate about it as ever. I was relieved when (the malady of Aunt Jane having somewhat abated) I was able to go back to town after an urgent message from Netta asking me to return at once. No doubt Mr. Rawlings inspired that message. He is a timid lover, but unusually full of resource. Though, for example, he seems afraid to approach me, he actually engaged in a mild flirtation with Gladys Harringay to awaken my interest in him. His intention was so obvious that I found it actually amusing. Any one could see through it. Poor fellow, perhaps he thinks the idea of evoking love by first arousing jealousy is a new one. He is an infant in such matters. I intend him to remain so. _Thursday_: I have neglected my diary for nearly a fortnight, for I have been too troubled about Mr. Rawlings to concentrate on anything else. He is certainly a most remarkable man. Though obviously suffering he shrinks from any declaration. Often we are alone for hours (I have asked dear Netta to give him the necessary opportunity to unburden himself) and he does nothing but stare at me in a fixed and dreadful way, and remains mute. Of course I know that I am to blame on account of my former indifference--even antagonism--to him. He is afraid of rebuff. I have extended encouragement to him by all the slight means in my power, and Netta has openly handed him my photo, observing that she knew he would like to have it. I have even gone to the length of asking Henry to convey to him that he has nothing to fear; but Henry resolutely refuses to touch on the subject with him. I cannot understand why, when the happiness of two people is at stake. _Sunday_: I don't know what impelled me to do it. Perhaps it was the remembrance of an article of Netta's I once read entitled, 'Should Women Propose?' where she cited the historic instance of Queen Victoria, in whose case, on account of her rank, it was a necessity. I had begun to realize that William was not likely to bring his courage to the sticking point without a great deal of encouragement. Distasteful as the idea was to me, I did not intend to shrink from what I felt was to be my duty. If he, though languishing for love, was too faint-hearted to propose, I saw that it would be necessary for me to undertake that task. Last evening, therefore, when he called I received him in the drawing-room and explained that Netta and Henry had gone out to the theatre. He at once made for the door, saying in that case he would not stop, but I intercepted him. Closing the door, I said gently, 'I am going to ask you to keep me company for an hour--if,' I added archly, 'it won't bore you.' In a confused sort of way he assured me it would not, and he sat down and dropped into the silence that is becoming habitual when we are left alone together. I knitted and he pulled hard at his cigarette. At last I said: 'Why don't you smoke a pipe, Mr. Rawlings? I know you prefer it.' 'No, no,' he said vehemently, 'I would much rather have a cigarette. It's a cleaner habit than pipe-smoking, isn't it?' I smiled faintly and mentally decided that when we were married I would not allow him to deprive himself of one of his greatest joys for my sake. There was another long silence and then, feeling extremely nervous, I murmured haltingly, 'I--I--wonder if you missed me when I was away nursing my great sick aunt--I--I--mean my sick great-aunt. Did--did--the time seem long?' 'I--I'm not quite sure,' he stammered, obviously as ill at ease as myself. 'You see, to be perfectly frank, Miss Warrington, I was at the time in love as far as I believe, and it seems a confused period.' I waited for him to continue, my eyes discreetly lowered. As, however, he did not go on, I raised them again. 'Yes?' I said encouragingly. 'That's all,' he replied. He looked so embarrassed and unhappy, and wore such an imploring expression I realized that now or never I must come to his relief. I laid down my knitting and leaned forward. 'Mr. Rawlings,' I said impressively--'or, shall I say William--I have known of the state of your feelings towards me for some time now.' He raised his head, and there was no disguising the look of hope in his eye. 'Do you really mean that?' he asked eagerly. I nodded. 'I want to tell you not to be afraid. However harsh I once seemed to you, the sight of your devotion and self-sacrifice has touched me.' 'Devotion--self-sacrifice,' he murmured in a wondering tone. 'As such do I regard them, William. But they have reaped their reward. I . . . how shall I tell you . . . it is so difficult . . .' I paused in some distress, wondering if Queen Victoria had felt as uncomfortable about it as I did. 'I want to tell you that . . . I love you, William,' I said at last, very softly. There was an intense silence, broken only by his laboured breathing. The intensity of his emotions was evidently too much for him. 'And so,' I concluded, raising my eyes to his for a moment, 'I am going to be your wife.' There! It was out at last. Having spoken I lowered my eyes again and did not look at him until I heard him say in a strained kind of voice, 'But--but--this is too much honour. Believe me, Miss Warrington, I am not worthy----' 'I think you are,' I replied softly, 'and isn't that enough?' 'It isn't enough--I assure you it isn't,' he replied. I noted that his eyes had a rather staring look and slight beads of perspiration had broken out on his forehead--he must be a man of strong emotions. 'It would be a most unfair thing for a man like me, with all my shortcomings, to inflict myself on any woman.' 'Don't be too modest about yourself,' I put in encouragingly, and somewhat timidly laying my hand on his, I added, 'I like you as you are.' 'Nothing would induce me to let you sacrifice yourself,' he exclaimed hotly, 'it would be monstrous, intolerable!' He sprang to his feet as he spoke. 'I must go at once,' he went on, 'we can never meet again, never, never!' I rose also, going rather pale. In that moment a dreadful thought came to me that perhaps I had made a mistake. Yet there could have been no misconstruing what he had said to Elizabeth regarding his passion for me. 'Stop, William!' I cried as he retreated to the door, 'why are you so obtuse? Don't you understand how difficult you are making everything for me--as well as for yourself! What is all this talk of sacrifice and your unworthiness. I don't think you are unworthy. I--I--love you--isn't it enough when I say that?' [Illustration: 'Stop, William!' Marion cried.] Involuntarily I stretched out my hands to him as I spoke. He has told me since that the sight of me standing there bathed in the light of the rose-shaded lamp, my eyes and lips unusually soft and tender (so he says), with my arms held out to him, forms a picture that he will never forget. He looked at me for a moment in absolute silence, and appeared to be thinking deeply. When at last he spoke he made an astonishing remark. 'What does it matter about me, after all?' he murmured slowly, as if speaking to himself. 'Good God, little woman, I was just about to act the part of a consummate cad and coward!' He then strode up to me and continued in a serious tone: 'If you care enough for me to take me with all my faults, I shall be proud to be your husband.' After which he bent and kissed me very gravely on the forehead, and surprised me by walking out of the room. It was the most remarkable proposal. But then, in every way, my dear William is a most remarkable man. CHAPTER XIX There was something distinctly puzzling about Marion's engagement to William. It was William who puzzled me. Instinctively I knew he was not happy. Had I been instrumental in bringing about the match, I should have felt disturbed, but as it happened, they pulled it off without the slightest assistance from me. It is the best way. I am steadily determined never to involve myself in matrimonial schemes for any one in future. Even when The Kid gets old enough to have love affairs, she will get my advice and sympathy, but no active co-operation on my part. But to return to William. Though he seemed plunged in gloom, Marion was radiant. She gaily prepared her trousseau, and took William on long shopping expeditions from which he returned more overcast than ever. Sometimes I wondered if he had really got over his infatuation for Gladys, and if he had merely proposed to Marion out of pique. A strange foreboding came over me that all was not going well. This was deepened when Marion came to me one day with her eyes red as though she had been weeping. 'Is anything wrong?' I inquired, an instinctive fear gripping at my heart. 'You surely haven't quarrelled with William?' She shook her head. 'Can you imagine William quarrelling with any one?' I could not. He is one of those comfortable people with whom you can be perfectly frank and outspoken without fear of giving the slightest offence. If I say to him when he is deep in a learned discussion with Henry, 'Do shut up, William, I can't think when you're talking,' he does not snort, glare at me, breathe hard or show any other signs of inward resentment. He at once relapses into silence--an affable silence, not the strained kind when the offended party takes deep respirations through the nose--and I am allowed to think without interruption. It is one of the reasons why I have never minded Henry having him about the place at any time. 'Then if you and William haven't quarrelled, what is wrong?' I asked of the drooping Marion. 'It's--it's about our wedding, Netta. He wants to know if I'll put it off for another six months.' I started. 'Why should he wish to do that now, with all arrangements made?' 'I don't know. There isn't the slightest reason for delay. It isn't a case of money, for you know he has a good private income, and I have my own little income as well. Then, we are both old enough to know our own minds--yet he says he thinks we ought to have more time for reflection. What can it mean, Netta?' I was silent for a moment, not liking to voice my uneasy thoughts. 'It isn't that I mind the extra six months' delay,' she went on, 'but I don't like the idea of postponing the wedding. There is something unlucky about it.' 'You're right--it is unlucky,' said the voice of Elizabeth, coming unexpectedly into the discussion. 'Elizabeth,' I said sternly, 'do you mean to tell me you were listening?' She drew herself up with dignity. 'Me listenin'! I've too much to do to go poking myself into other people's bizness. But I wos just comin' in to ask wot you wanted for dinner----' 'I have already given orders for dinner, Elizabeth.' 'Well, I musta forgotten 'em. An' just as I was comin' in I 'eard Miss Marryun talkin' about Mr. Roarings wantin' to put the weddin' orf. Don't you let 'im do it, miss. I've 'eard o' young women puttin' off their weddin's so long that in the end they've never took place at all. I've 'ad it 'appen to myself, so I _know_.' 'Elizabeth,' I interposed, 'we don't want your advice. Go away at once.' 'I ain't done yet. You'll be glad o' my advice in the end. Experience 'elps a lot. Some men wot's goin' to be married gets a sort o' funk at the last minnit and, bless you, they'd wriggle out o' it, yes, even if they was goin' to marry an angel out o' 'eaven. My friend's 'usband was one o' them sort--wanted to stop the 'ole thing with the weddin' cake ordered, an' lodgings taken at Margate for the 'oneymoon. But she 'eld 'im to it--stuck to 'im like grim death until' e'd gone through with it. An' now 'e often ses 'e never regrets it for a minnit.' Marion looked up hopefully. 'Perhaps you're right, Elizabeth.' 'O' course I'm right,' she asserted, throwing a triumphant glance at me as she retired. 'These tactics may be all very well for the lower classes,' I said to Marion when we were alone, 'but I'm not quite sure whether they'd answer in every case. No, Marion dear, if William wants to postpone the wedding, it must be done.' Her face fell at once, and she looked so dejected I felt troubled. 'If you like I will talk to William and try to discover the reason for his change of plan,' I conceded reluctantly, 'but you must understand, dear, that nothing will make me interfere with the natural course of events.' Rather to my surprise, William touched on the subject the next time he came to see me. We were sitting alone and I was mentally noting his air of depression, when he suddenly burst out: 'Tell me, frankly, do you think a man is justified in--er--postponing a great event in his life--such as, say, his wedding, if he feels uncertain?' 'Uncertain about what?' I asked gently. 'About himself--and everything, you know. True, Johnson has said that marriage is one of the means of happiness--a sentiment delivered, no doubt, by the great master when he was in a light vein--but supposing a man is not sure that he can make a woman happy----' 'And supposing instead of the hypothetical man and woman you are speaking of, we simply quote the case of you and Marion,' I interposed. 'Am I to understand that you do not wish to marry her?' He started. 'It isn't exactly that. But at the--er--time I--er--offered myself to Marion I had not weighed all the possibilities. To be perfectly frank with you, I am not quite certain of my own affections. I decided that, with companionship, these might develop after marriage. But supposing they do not, then I shall have rendered her unhappy. Is not the risk too great?' He leaned forward and laid his hand on mine with an expression of great earnestness. 'In this matter,' he said slowly, 'I intend to abide by your decision. I have supreme faith in your judgment, and I do not believe you would advise me wrongly. Tell me what I ought to do. Do you think it is making for the happiness of two people if they are united under these peculiar circumstances?' 'I said I would never interfere,' I began weakly. 'It isn't a question of interfering,' he broke in, 'but only a matter of advising what you think is right or wrong.' I hesitated, feeling the responsibility keenly. It is true that I am accustomed to giving advice on these delicate matters. In my capacity of writer on the Woman's Page I often discuss affairs of the heart, getting much correspondence on the subject and (if a stamped addressed envelope is enclosed) giving unsparing help and assistance to perplexed lovers. But this case seemed entirely different. It lacked any element of the frivolous. I knew that Manor's whole happiness depended on my answer. Supposing I suggested that the marriage should go on and afterwards the couple turned out to be totally unsuited, what a serious situation I should have created. As a matter of fact, I more than once suspected that they were incompatibles, but hoped that they would ultimately accommodate themselves to each other. If, however, they did not, I should be confronted with the spectacle of two most excellent people (apart) being thoroughly unhappy (together) for the remainder of their lives. I shivered before the prospect, and was on the point of telling William that I would never advise a union to take place unless there was perfect understanding and sympathy between a couple, when he spoke again. 'It's just at the last minute all these doubts have assailed me,' he explained. 'I didn't realize before how serious a thing marriage is--how irrevocable.' In a flash Elizabeth's words came into my mind. I recalled her references to men who get in a 'funk' and want to stop proceedings on the eve of the wedding, and then I saw the whole thing. William was that sort of man. I had an instinctive idea just then that no matter who he was going to marry he would have come to me at the eleventh hour with the same bewildered demand for advice. In that moment I decided to trust to Elizabeth. She seems to have a rude knowledge of life which is almost uncanny at times, but entirely convincing. She has, as it were, a way of going to the heart of things and straightway extracting truth. I felt just then that I could depend on her judgment. 'William,' I said, looking at him steadily in the eye, 'you want my candid opinion?' 'I do,' he replied fervently. 'Then I advise you to go on with the marriage. I have weighed it all up, and I feel it is for the best.' He wrung my hand silently, and then he rose. 'Thank you,' he said, 'I am sure you are always right.' I thought I detected a note of relief in his voice. Man is a perplexing creature. The next day Marion came to me overjoyed. 'It's all right, dear,' she announced. 'William wants to get married at once. Netta, you are wonderful--how did you do it? What did you say to him?' 'Never mind,' I said, trying to look enigmatical and rather enjoying Marion's respectful admiration of my wondrous powers, 'all's well that ends well . . . ask Elizabeth if it isn't,' I added as that worthy lurched in with the tea-tray. 'The wedding isn't going to be postponed after all, Elizabeth,' announced Marion gleefully. 'I knowed it wouldn't be, Miss Marryun, when I see a weddin' wreath in your cup. I tell you the Signs is always right.' Marion shook her head. 'Not always. Didn't you once tell me that my future husband would cross water to meet me? Mr. Rawlings, now, has been here all the time.' Elizabeth paused in the act of arranging the tea-table, and stood in a prophetic attitude with the teapot held aloft. 'Oo ses the Signs is wrong?' she demanded. 'Isn't Mr. Roarings an Irishman, an' was born in Dubling? Now I'd like to know 'ow any one can get from Ireland to London without crossin' water, anyway!' [Illustration: 'Oo ses the Signs is wrong?'] Marion bowed her head, meekly acquiescent. 'I never thought of that, Elizabeth. You always seem to be right.' CHAPTER XX I had not seen Marion and William since their marriage as they had gone on a six-months' tour of the Italian lakes, but I was haunted with the foreboding that the match was not, after all, turning out a success. For one thing, Marion's silence regarding her marriage was unusual. She wrote only brief notes that made no reference to William. As for William, he did not write at all. Now Marion is what you would call an ardent correspondent, as well as being a communicative person. If she were happy she would be likely to write no less than eight pages three times a week breathing praise of William--I mean that would be the general tone of her letters. But now she devoted herself exclusively to descriptions of scenery and relating episodes regarding the constant losing and regaining of their baggage on their journeys, which though in its way instructive, struck me as lacking vital interest. The affair troubled me, because I knew that I was, in a measure, responsible for the match. William had left the decision in my hands, and, on thinking it over, it struck me as a rather cowardly thing to do. What right had he to put it on to me? I knew that if they were not happy I should be haunted by remorse to the end of my days. It was an annoying situation. When they arrived home and wired from an hotel in London that they were coming up to see me the next day my trepidation increased. Supposing they came to me with reproaches, even recriminations? I awaited their visit in a subdued frame of mind. Not so Elizabeth. Her jubilant air, her triumphant expression when she spoke of the newly wedded pair, ended by irritating me. 'Getting married isn't the only thing in life; as you seem to think,' I said rather severely, after a remark of hers that she was glad to think Marion was so happily settled. 'Maybe not, but it's the best,' she commented, 'an' as I always sed about Miss Marryun----' 'Mrs. Rawlings,' I corrected. 'Lor', I'll never get used to the name. Mrs. Roarings, then, 'as only got me to thank for the present 'appy state o' things.' 'What do you mean?' I asked, only half interested. 'Well, it's like this yeer,' answered Elizabeth, 'I see from the very first that Mr. Roarings an' Miss Marryun were just suited to each other. The trouble was they didn't see it theirselves, an' so I 'elped to open their eyes like.' 'Explain,' I commanded. Elizabeth did so. She unfolded a tale that, as she proceeded step by step, left me speechless with horror. That she should have so basely conspired to throw William and Marion at each other and, by misrepresentations, lies and every kind of deception, brought about the match, utterly appalled me. Everything suddenly became clear. William had married through a misplaced sense of chivalry--offered himself up as a sacrifice as it were. I understood then why Marion had written so much about luggage and nothing about connubial bliss--the union was bound to turn out a ghastly failure under such circumstances. Worst of all, I, quite unconsciously, had aided and abetted the whole disgraceful scheme. 'Elizabeth!' I exclaimed at last in dismay, 'you shameless, intriguing creature, I will never forgive you for this. You have ruined two lives, and I am involved in it as well. The only thing to do is to explain the whole situation to Mr. and Mrs. Rawlings when they come to-day.' She changed colour. 'You'd never do that, 'm.' 'I shall tell them everything. It will, at any rate, help them to begin life on a different understanding.' 'But what good will that do, 'm? It'll upset everything an' lead to goodness knows wot.' 'It may lead to a judicial separation, of course,' I replied, 'but my duty in this case is perfectly clear. There is only one thing to be done.' I have never seen the girl so genuinely distressed. 'I wouldn't do it, if I wos you, I wouldn't indeed. If you must tell 'em, wait a year or two, till they've settled down----' A loud knock on the door interrupted her. 'There they are now,' I remarked. 'And no matter what you say I shall explain everything before they leave to-day. They shall know how they've been hoodwinked.' 'Orl right, then,' said Elizabeth, 'an' let the consingquences be on your own head. You'll see 'ow they'll take it.' And darting defiant looks, she went to open the door. The next moment Marion was enfolded in my arms. Then I turned to greet William. As I did so the words of welcome died on my lips and I stood staring at him in puzzled wonder. 'Why, what has happened to you?' I asked. He grinned. 'Don't you like me as I am at present?' I did not, but thought it polite to refrain from saying so. He had gone back to his former state of fuzziness, and looked more like Rip van Winkle than ever. Indeed, his beard seemed even more fierce and bristly than in the old days--probably shaving had tended to strengthen the roots. 'How do you do, William?' I said, extending my hand, deciding as I did so that I would not give him any other kind of salute after all. Yet it was with a tinge of regret I thought of that nice mouth of his hidden under such a rank undergrowth of whisker. Marion looked on complacently as I greeted him. I remembered then that she had rather seemed to resent the sisterly salute I thought necessary to bestow on him after the wedding, and the brotherly salutes (repeated four times in succession) he had given me in return. I decided at that moment I would respect her objections and only shake hands with William in future. I am sure she preferred it, and I should hate to displease her. Besides, beards do rasp one so. Henry now emerged from the study full of hearty greeting and _bonhomie_. He seemed less surprised at William's altered appearance than I did, and was certainly more pleased about it. 'What made you let him do it?' I said reproachfully to Marion when we were alone, 'he was a really handsome man before, and now----' 'That's just it,' she interrupted, 'he was too handsome, and it wasn't safe for him.' 'Not safe, Marion?' 'Women wouldn't leave him alone--they all flirted with him. It would have been all right if he'd been used to it before, but getting good-looking so suddenly unbalanced him. From a kind of puzzled wonder that he should thus attract the opposite sex, he began to develop an interest in what he termed "their bewildering number of types." He said he used to think they were all exactly alike. It was when he declared his intention of writing a eulogy on woman that I stepped in and insisted on his letting his beard grow again. Don't you think I acted for the best?' 'No doubt you did,' I said pensively, 'but he had such an attractive mouth.' Marion regarded me severely. 'That's what all the other women seemed to think. I feel I was justified in protecting him.' 'No doubt you were, dear,' I murmured, with meekly lowered eyes. 'Don't you ever regret him as he was before?' She sighed a little. 'Sometimes--particularly when dear William was just beginning to grow again--did I have my qualms of discouragement. A beard in its incipient stages is an unbecoming, almost startling affair, Netta. Then of course, I find solace by looking at this,' and she held out a small locket containing a portrait of William in his glorified state. 'Also I always keep his white spats and lavender gloves as a remembrance.' There was a hint of sadness in the idea. It seemed almost as if William was dead--one phase of him was, at all events. 'Then you _do_ regret----' I began. 'I regret nothing, Netta,' she broke in very decidedly. 'I am now getting quite reconciled to dear William's present appearance, and I know he's happier in his natural state.' This was obviously true. William, his feet once more installed on the mantelpiece, pulling hard at his pipe (filled for him by Marion's loving hands) was a picture of perfect contentment. But it was some time before I ventured to put the question to him that was uppermost in my thoughts. 'Are you happy, William?' I asked tensely when, for a moment, we were alone. 'Was my advice for better or for worse?' He took my hand and wrung it warmly. 'My dear Netta!' he exclaimed, 'what a fool I was to hesitate even for a moment. Had it not been for you--and, I think I ought to add, Elizabeth--I might never have won such a treasure as my dear Marion. "Marriage," as Dr. Johnson has said, "is the best state for man in general," and although he added that it is more necessary to a man than a woman as he is less able to supply himself with domestic comforts, I think in that case it is put too crudely. I look upon it as something higher and nobler.' 'That's all right, then,' I said, relieved. 'Dr. Johnson seems to have as sound a philosophy as Elizabeth.' As I sat meditating before the fire that evening, after the departure of the happy couple, Elizabeth entered. Her face betokened anxiety. 'You--you--didn't tell 'em anything, I 'ope?' she demanded. 'Under the circumstances I did not, Elizabeth. They seemed quite happy and so----' '"Let sleepin' dogs lie,"' she supplemented. 'You seem able to lie a great deal more than sleeping dogs,' I said severely. 'In future, remember to stick to the truth or you may get yourself--and other people--into serious trouble.' 'Right-o, 'm. But Mr. Roarings seemed satisfied enough. Look wot 'e gave me to-day?'--she held out two crisp banknotes. ''E sed they were for my own troosoo,' she added gleefully. 'What, Elizabeth, are you going to be married next?' asked Henry, as he strolled into the room at that moment. 'Well, I ain't got a party in view as yet, sir. But as I always ses, you never know wot a day may bring forth. The Signs 'ave been good for me lately. Isn't there a sayin' somewhere about not knowing the day nor the 'our when the young man may come along? Well, I always think it's best to be prepared, like.' She went out, but returned a moment later bearing a tray in her hand. 'What is this?' I inquired. 'I thort p'raps you'd like to drink to the occashun of the 'appy 'ome-coming in a nice glarss o' stout,' she explained. I noted that there were three glasses. 'Elizabeth,' I said coldly, 'you are unduly familiar. I protest----' 'Oh, hang it all, let's be democratic,' put in Henry, grinning. 'It's only your _joie de vivre_ and natural _bonhomie_, isn't it, Elizabeth?' 'Not 'arf,' replied Elizabeth. 'Well,' she added a moment later as she raised her glass, ''ere's to us, all of us, an' may we never want nothin', none of us--nor me neither.' [Illustration: 'Ere's to us, all of us!'] I saw that Henry was grappling with the construction of the sentence, and it was a full minute and a half before he gave it up. Then he lifted his glass. 'Thank you, Elizabeth,' he said, 'and the same to you.' 
18770	----	file was produced from images produced by the Wright American Fiction Project.) [Transcriber's note: Irregularities in punctuation which were present in the original have been corrected. Variants such as would'nt/wouldn't, could'nt/couldn't, was'nt/wasn't, have been retained.] A CHRISTMAS STORY, BY DR. SAMUEL W. FRANCIS. PUBLISHED BY GEORGE H. MATHEWS, 929 BROADWAY, NEW YORK. 1867. A CHRISTMAS STORY. MAN IN HIS ELEMENT: OR, A NEW WAY TO KEEP HOUSE. BY DR. SAMUEL W. FRANCIS. PART I. _A WOMAN'S PLAN._ 'My dear Mary,' said I, one morning, to my widowed sister, as she sank into an arm chair in front of my library fire, and heaved a sigh replete with exhaustion and sadness: 'What is the matter?' 'Enough for a woman, William, but of course, nothing for an old bachelor like you, who have only to pay your own bills, eat your meals without the trouble of ordering them; lounge through a clean house with no chasing after servants to sweep and wash and dust; sit in your study, heaping log after log on your devoted andirons, and always meeting me with such a provoking cheerfulness, while I have not a moment to myself; am all the time running to give out stores to one girl; soap and starch to another; candles and linen to the chambermaid, and orders to the coachman; and, even then, I have no peace; for, no sooner do I sit in the nursery, hoping to derive a few minutes comfort from a quiet sew, than my ears are filled with the dissatisfaction of one girl; the complaints of another; the threatenings to leave of another, and the quarrels of all. I declare, William, I think it was too bad in you to insist on our leaving that comfortable boarding house, where we lived so much cheaper, and had no trouble. It was there, with my small family, that I appreciated the freedom from care that you old selfish, unsympathizing bachelors enjoy; and no wonder you laugh at us. The fact is, you don't know anything about it; you ----' 'My dear Mary,' I repeated, 'you have said enough--I only ask for a few minutes to put this matter in a new light, and, in time, you yourself will be convinced.' 'That's all very well, William, but what's the use of talking to you men. I never convinced one in my life. No sir! man is an animal that never acknowledges either that he is wrong, or that a woman is right. I tell you, servants are the bane of my existence. You cannot make them happy, do what you may. Why, only the other day I gave Jane a nice pair of gaiters that I had but partially worn out. She thanked me, and I felt pleased that I had done one kind action, though it was a self-denial. The very next morning, in coming out of the kitchen, I passed the ash barrel, and looked in it to see if the cinders would ever be sifted. What do you suppose I saw there, mixed up with lemon peel, tea leaves and ashes? My boots, William--the very pair I had given Jane the day before.' 'Well what did you do?' 'Do? Why as soon as I could recover I called her to me, and asked why she had thrown them there.' She said without any excitement, that was the worst of it, 'I couldn't wear them Madam.' 'Why not?' I said. 'They were too large for me.' 'Too large for her, the jade--think of that'-- 'Don't say any more, Mary, I understand the case perfectly--and since we cannot argue upon the matter just listen to my views (without any interruption), in the form of a philosophical lecture. It will be very brief but to the point. 'Though I have never kept house, as I am an old man I must have lived somewhere all my life. Being possessed of a healthy and observing intellect--I have seen and digested much; and it is all easy to my mind. I have heard you through as I have heard others through; I have seen your sufferings and your trials, as I have seen many, very many suffer and endure trials, and I have solved the problem and told it all to my segar!' 'Well now that is selfish, William!' 'Not at all my dear sister, what lady would tolerate the slightest interference with her housekeeping? How long would you permit me to stay here, in financial partnership, if I even offered one word of advice.' 'Oh, how unjust, speak out now and let me hear what you have confided to your segar.' 'Well, in the first place, there are two kinds of ways to keep house. No. one is to keep your servants; No. two is to be kept by them. Herein is the key note of much trouble. Another difficulty is fear. I have been perfectly amazed to listen to ladies when asking a waiter to do something for them. Just think of it. I heard Mrs. ----, at table the other day, turn round and look towards a red headed, uplifted girl, with a conciliatory smile and say, 'Betty, would you mind giving me a glass of water?' 'Zounds madam, I wanted to scream!--and only last night, while paying a visit I heard a lady who rules her elegant husband to within an inch of his life, say to the waiter, 'John, please put on your things and muffle up well, for it is very cold and do take this note to Mrs. Henry's' and, almost with the same breath, she turned on her husband and said, 'Albert, go down and get that medicine _at once_ for you know I cannot retire till I take it--you can see _your_ friend any time,' looking at me in a hard manner and then at the clock. 'Now what do you call that? That woman has courage to meet her equals and put all things straight; but a menial crushes her.' 'Well, of course you don't understand those things, William, but I do.' 'I suppose so, but I don't want to. It is all wrong--all _humbug_, all TRASH!' I exclaimed as my excitement knocked the ashes of my segar over my clean shirt. 'What would you have us do?' exclaimed Mary, a little nettled at my last remark. 'Do?' I replied, with emphasis; 'let the men keep house. Watch them, and learn the true method, which has for its motto, "Maximum of work, Minimum of trouble."' By this time I began to feel anxious.--My sister had gone off into a fit of laughter that at first greatly roused my ire, but ultimately awakened anxiety, for she could not gain her breath. I rang for a servant; of course none came, for she always had to call them. 'They were having such a good time down stairs, they could not hear the bell,' so I poured out a glass of water, and, while she drank, seized the poker; stirred up the dying embers; put on a good back log; lit a large and strong Cabana to lend zest to my courage, and prepared to make one more effort for victory. Gradually subsiding into a few occasional chromatic giggles, Mary looked through her beautiful eyes, glistening with tears of fun, and said, in a smothered whisper, 'Well, and what would you do?' 'Do?' I repeated. 'Let me have the reins for one month, and I will show you.' There! it was out, and I felt relieved. 'But, William,' she whispered, pointing with anxiety to the door which stood ajar, 'how long do you suppose they would stay with you?' 'Until they got married or died!' I answered with confidence, and, sitting bolt upright, I ran both thumbs under my waistcoat arm-holes and played on my chest with my fingers, while I puffed tremendously to envelope my countenance with smoke, the better to hide my ill-concealed smile. 'You single men are too amusing, my dear brother,' said she, looking earnestly into my face and patting my shoulder with an expression of pity. 'To convince you that woman's mission is the care of domestic matters; and, as I would like a little rest combined with fun, I will turn over everything to you, and----' 'Done!' I yelled with delight, and jumping up, I paced up and down the library like a prisoner freed from chains.--'Done! Oh! I thank you, Mary.' 'Stop, young man,' she said, with assumed severity, 'hear the conditions of the bond.' 'Write it down,' I said, in haste, 'and so long as I am to have the reins I will sign.' 'Well, sir,' said she, entering with her old accustomed gaiety into the subject matter. 'I agree to let you keep house on the following conditions:' naming a good many, which I listened to with marked interest, and finally condensed into the form of a written contract, though no lawyer; for fear, as I told her, she would violate the premises. As well as I can remember, for it was many years ago--it ran as follows: 'This agreement made this 24th November, 1853, between Mary Walters of the city, county and state of New York, being party of the first part, and William d'Aubrey of the said city, county and state of New York, party of the second part, witnesseth as follows: Said party of the first part agrees, covenants and binds herself, heirs and assinines--I mean assigns--to surrender, demise and make over all claim, right and title to housekeeping, and all matters pertaining to the welfare of household economy, whether trivial or special, to the party of the second part; moreover delivering up all accounts, keys and inventory of stores now on hand, and all claim, right or title to the management of each and every person living, or about to live in premises known as 'Villa Felice,' situated at the outskirts of the city of ---- in the State of ----, for the period of three months. Now, in consideration of this obligation on the party of the first part, the party of the second part covenants, agrees and binds himself, his heirs and assinines--I mean assigns--to act conscientiously for the benefit of all the inhabitants of said 'Villa Felice,' whether male or female;--and moreover pledges himself never by word or deed to consult, ask questions of, molest by interrogated words, or lead on by indirect remarks, the party of the first part; to impart, give over or yield up, any information on or concerning the subject or principle of housekeeping--(this last clause my sister insisted on in a most impressive manner--so I added the following,) and it is distinctly understood, comprehended by, and agreed to between both parties, that the party of the first part interferes with, molests, makes the subject of remark, indirectly or directly, impugns or maligns, the party of the second party in the pursuit of lawful proceedings neither by appeal, nor by entreaty, nor by satire, irony, libel, gossip, hinted evidence or such other expressions of mental feeling which are unseemly and tend to weaken man's power or involve in confusion a settled purpose. Said agreement to take effect at once on the signing of this contract,' made in duplicate. Signed, sealed and delivered the afore-written day, month and year, in the presence of Witness, MARY WALTERS, [seal.] WILLIAM D'AUBREY, [seal.] We both signed, and then remembered a witness was necessary. 'I will call Thomas,' said Mary. 'He won't know what we have written.' I bowed with a legal stiffness, and waited. She rang--no response. She rang again. A loud laughter in the kitchen caused her to say, as usual, 'Oh! they cannot hear the bell,' and she tripped off lightly and called 'Susan! Susan! _Susan!_' 'and but the booming roars replied and fast the talk rolled on.' 'Susan,' said she, gently, over the bannisters. 'Susan is out, marm,' said a granite voice from the second story. 'Don't speak so loud, marm. Johnny has just gone to sleep, and I've had such trouble with him all the evening; he must have caught cold going to dancing school. You know, marm I begged you not to send him. 'Mrs. Phillips,' whispered Mary, in a crushed voice, 'where has Susan gone?' 'She went to her sister's, marm. Her child is very ill with the small pox, and she said she knew, if you knew he might die, that you would let her go and sit up with him this last night, poor, dear soul, bless his heart!' Oh, how I chuckled! 'Why, Mrs. Phillips, just come down stairs, please; I want to speak to you.--Come into the library, only Mr. D'Aubrey is here.' (Humph! ONLY Mr. D'Aubrey!--'Oh, for to-morrow!') Enter Mrs. Phillips, one of those fat, pylygastric nurses, who divide the twenty-four hours into four days, so as to have three meals to each of their diurnal revolutions; whose digestive organs, if they could speak, would strike for wages; whose eyes move but never look; their atmosphere--what Germans might call expression--being that of massive rest. She slides into the room and immediately sits down, moving her eyes up to her mistress with a patient and slightly suffering expression, while the process of deglutition is slowly going on. I seize a book, pamphlet, anything, hold it in front of my face, and bite my segar in two. 'Did I understand you to say, Mrs. Phillips, that Susan had gone to sit up with a _small pox_ patient?' 'Her nephew, yes marm.' 'Oh, how very wrong in her--how--' 'I don't think so, marm.' I ground my teeth. 'Why Mrs. Phillips?' 'The boy marm, may not be yours, but it is her _kin_ and she ought to know her duty to a sister's child.' 'Yes, but she might bring the disease to my little children! she'--'That's in the hands of Providence, marm.' I ram a handkerchief down my mouth and choke-- 'Well, as it is not your fault I need not speak to you--but please be so kind as to call Thomas, I only want him for a moment.' The celebrated Mrs. Phillips heaved a sigh, pregnant with bread, butter, cold meat and ale; and slid out of the room, crunching her way down stairs. I peeped at my sister--she looked pale and very anxiously perplexed, I pinched myself and kept silent. In a few minutes a voice was heard singing up the back stairs and--enter Sabina spread out with starch and heavily pomaded hair. 'Mrs. Phillips sent me to tell you marm that she had to make her gruel and the fire was low--and that Thomas had gone home.' 'Why, what time is it, Sabina?' '_Eight_ o'clock,' I enunciate distinctly. For one moment Mary's eyes lit up with something like heroism, but before she could frame a sentence, the playful want of interest exhibited by Sabina, who leaned against the mantel-piece, straightening her cuffs, did the business, and she collapsed. 'Please tell Thomas, when he comes to-morrow, Sabina, I would rather not have him go home quite as early, because you see,' (oh how I mentally groaned at this humiliating nonsense,) 'I might want him. You won't forget, will you, Sabina?' 'No, marm. Is there anything else?' Having now made herself prim, and taken a quiet survey of the library and viewed me carefully, she was now desirous of retiring. 'One moment, Sabina,' said Mary, beginning to realize her false position before me, 'Who is down stairs?' 'Well, I couldn't tell you, marm.' 'Why not?' 'There are so many.' 'How, do you mean so many?' 'Why, marm, it's the cook's birthday; and she thought you would'nt mind her having a few friends, so she invited her _cousins_,' (looking at me as though she would ask, 'what have you got to say to that, Mr. Man?') 'Well, Sabina,' said Mary, coloring up in confusion, 'just sign your name to this--it is only as a witness.' 'I cannot write, marm,' answered dandy Amazon, very short at being exposed. 'Then send Elizabeth here.' 'She is out too, marm.' 'What? Elizabeth has gone out?' 'Yes marm, you see,' (becoming confidential,) 'the cook and her has quarrelled like--she neglected to ask her to her little party till late this evening, and so she got huffy and put on her things and dashed out of the house,' (at this time I had either an attack of the ague or was laughing so hard internally that it leaked through.) 'Is Dinah in?' 'Yes marm.' 'Ask her, please, to come here.' Sabina tripped off with a satisfied air, and five--ten--fifteen minutes elapsed and no Ellen. I took out my memorandum and quickly wrote down a few valuable plans on the coming campaign. The clock struck half past eight, and my sister opened the entry door and listened--the kitchen door soon shut and somebody came up stairs slowly, with a waiter full of something. 'Is that you, Dinah?' 'Yes marm.' 'Why didn't you come before?' 'I don't know, mum.' 'Didn't Sabina tell you I wanted you?' 'No, mum. She told me you wanted to know how many were down stairs, and I counted seventeen.' 'Take care Dinah, you're spilling that milk!' 'I can't help it, this pitcher leaks.' 'Where's the children's bowl?' 'I don't know, mum--I think it's broke.' 'Broken! Why, I bought a new one yesterday.' ''Tain't my fault.' Hopelessly resigned, my sister Mary politely requested her to put down the waiter, and explained the nature of a witness's duty. We acknowledged our signatures and Dinah wrote out her name in a neat hand, then picked up the waiter and walked out of the room with the air of an injured innocent. I jumped up, kissed my sister, informed her that for the next three months she was to be a _passive_ observer, asked her to retire, locked up the contract, and gave the bell one pull that brought half the household to the door. PART II. _A MAN'S PLAN._ As the servants rushed into the library they found me quietly reading a book and puffing at the pages. I slightly raised my eyes to this back ground of faces on which might be seen, surprise, anger, impertinence, curiosity and excitement. I slowly placed my book half open across my knee, with my hand resting on the cover, and with the other taking my segar out of my mouth, knocked the ashes off into a little glass tub; elevated my eyebrows and asked in perfect astonishment, yet measured tones: 'What-is-the-matter?' 'That's what we want to know sir;' exclaimed the cook, a little let down by my coolness. 'Nothing that I know of,' I replied, except that I took the liberty of ringing my bell,' increasing in volume as I spoke. 'We thought some one was sick, sir,' said Sabina. 'I don't want to know what _you_ thought,' I rolled out in emphatic base, 'I want the WAITER! which is _it_?'--That neuter cut them to the heart. But they rallied--a revolt was imminent. I had lived in the family one year, with my sister as housekeeper, and had never made a remark to the servants, it being my habit in life to submit to what was not my business, or clear out. But now--_now_, with Imprimatur on my forehead, a clutch in my mental fingers, and a hungry longing to rule free: ha! ha!--Let us see. This was a trying moment--The vessel had been signalled, and my colors were to be shown--so here they go--the flag of the little brig 'one-man-power,' with the motto 'Anvil or hammar answer hammar,' is unfurled. Hemmed in by swelling indignation, whisperings and sullen looks, I jumped up and yelled in stentorian voice: 'Leave my room! How dare you answer the waiter's bell? Send me the waiter and clear out, every one of you!' and, with a sweeping wave of my hand, I stalked towards the door. Reader, did you ever see the sun chase a big cloud right off a green field, and, with no respite, drive it headlong away over beyond the horizon? Such was the rapid departure of my stupefied retainers. On reaching the door, I slammed it to with a violence that echoed through the hushed and palsied house. Oh the benefit of a good slam--not a push--nor a quick shut--nor even a bump, all of which show still a want of firmness and decision--but a good old-fashioned 'bang' as though it had got into your throat and you could'nt breathe--that life depended on shutting out a flash of lightning and you hadn't time to wait--that the harder you impelled it against the doorway the sooner would end fast fleeting agony--that the nearer you got to what might be called an _explosive shut_: the more complete would be your safety, that if all your concentrated passion could be, not flung, (that is too weak) but hurled at that one partition a vacuum might be made in your room towards which good impulses might be drawn inversely. Many a good natured man who has been cornered by injustice has slammed off his anger, and is ready to forgive, but not give up. There is a dignity in this rapid developement of muscular power which admits of no surrender--the gauntlet has been thrown down, the chip has been knocked off the shoulder, the black flag is hoisted and skull and bones stand out in bold relief. There may be a calm, the wind may die out, but the monster waves once lashed up to a Titanic power move on of their own accord, and wash away the very vestige of resistance. Asking to _be_ forgiven after slamming a door is like touching off a Rodman gun, and then calling out to the fort in front to 'look out' 'take care!' 'do get out of the way.' A first class slam is cumulative long after the noise has ceased--the nerves go on slamming--the valves of the heart flap to and from--the tympanum roils a revelrie to all the shattered senses, the offender slammed at, at once subsides from rage to fear; the mental barometer falls--and apprehension--the requiescat--is a don't know what is coming next. A bona fide, abandoned slam is a Domestic Earthquake. I next sat down on my Mexican chair, and waited for the rapid hatching of the egg. A register led up from the kitchen into my room, and though never used, formed one of those abominable listening tubes that might be truthfully called family tale-bearers. This time, however, I had the pleasure of overhearing the following fragmentary evidence of a reaction: 'He must be crazy.' 'Did he drink much after dinner?' 'I say, you have been here longer than I have, have you ever seen him so before?' Then a giggle, and some one saying: 'Is he married?' 'Sabina, ain't you ashamed to laugh?'--'poor thing--won't stay--gallows'--then silence, and in a few minutes one after another of the visitors passed by under the window on tip-toe, and almost immediately a soft knock and a pause. I thought * * * and acted. 'Come in,' said I, in one of those gentle and subdued voices that no one but a passionate man can possess. The door gradually opened, and there stood Susan, the devoted aunt. I had placed a volume of engravings before my eyes, and was busily engaged in drawing some plan, on paper, as she entered. I went on for a little while in silence, when she said: 'I understood, sir----' I said 'wait a minute,' and went on ruling one entire side, with double lines, in perfect forgetfulness of her presence. When she spoke again, 'Did you send for me, sir?' I would have answered at once, for I felt awfully at appearing such a tyro; but the case was a desperate one of long standing, and required heroic treatment. I kept her waiting, at first as a lesson, that her imagination might take wings and fly to the uttermost realms of unhappiness. The second time, I thought I detected a little impatience in her voice, so I said, taking a pen and dipping it in red ink, 'wait one moment, Susan,' and went on lining and interlining. This was not reading, studying, nor writing; it was what she very well knew I could do any time. So it told on her. Each moment her valor oozed out, and as soon as I felt that the cup of bitterness was pretty well drained, I proceeded to offer up this victim as a sacrifice to peace. 'Susan, how is your sister's child?' I looked straight into her. There was no sternness or smartness in my expression, but the gaze was mathematical. I was measuring her candor, and analyzing her mind. She colored up and said, 'he's no better, sir; and they've given him up: but the doctor says good nursing will do wonders.' 'I think so, too. Go back to your sister and stay till he is better; I will supply your place.' This puzzled her, but she could say nothing. I meant 'go' and she went.--There was no delay--I saw her walk by the window almost at once, and overheard the whisper, 'who next?' I now rang the bell, and Dinah came to the door, saying, before she knocked, the waiter is out, sir, so I answered your ring. 'Do you know where Thomas lives?' 'Yes sir.' 'Then tell him I want him now--' 'Yes sir,' she disappeared. Oh the benefit of that _slam_. In half an hour in walked Thomas. 'Never do you enter my room without knocking. It is a piece of impertinence I will not put up with.' 'I did not mean anything by it, sir.' 'Well, don't do it again, and always take your hat off when you come before a gentleman or lady. Such ignorance might lose you a good place.' His wages were high I knew. It was also winter, and he gave in. He stood still with his hat in hand and waited. 'Thomas I want you to bring the close carriage to the door with the two bays.' 'Yes sir; but the off horse cast his hind shoe yesterday and I am afraid.' 'You need not be, the ground is covered with snow. I shall want the carriage in fifteen minutes.' 'Yes sir, but--' 'But what?' 'I left the carriage this morning at the blacksmiths to have a new tire put on it, sir.' 'Who told you to?' 'Nobody, sir.' 'Then never do anything of that kind again without first reporting it to me.' 'Yes sir,' moving slightly towards the door as though it was all settled now. 'What other vehicle have you got in the stable?' 'The Phæton, sir; the open box wagon and the carryall.' 'Very well then, bring the nigh horse round in the carryall.' 'He never went in single harness since I drove Mrs. ----' 'Well, then, put the other one in.' 'Nor him neither, sir.' 'Humph!' it looked a little black. 'Well, where is the other horse, the gray, that your mistress always drives when alone?' 'He is at the veterinary surgeons, sir.--I took him there last Monday and he is to be blistered for two weeks off and on, sir.' 'Well, Thomas, as the coachman of the family, I ask you what can be done. 'I _must_ go out to-night. Can you suggest anything?' 'Nothing but to hire a hack, sir.' 'That's a very good idea, how far is the livery stable from here?' 'Just next to where I live, sir. I can get one in a minute, sir.' Oh! so cheerfully. 'Very well, Thomas, just harness the two bays and ride down there and put them to one. Tell the livery stable keeper that I wish it, and will pay for the use of it.' 'But, sir, it is----' 'Thomas, I would advise you not to be long. You ought to be ashamed to call yourself a coachman, and have what is under your charge in such a condition. The idea of a horse two days without a shoe.' 'It isn't my----' 'Not a word--go and do your duty in future. I shall expect you here in half an hour.' He backed out of the room, longing to say something (what it was I don't care) but completely at sea. As he passed under my window, (though I have not sworn for many years,) I am pretty sure I heard several full sized oaths. At the appointed time the bell rang and I went out and got into the carriage. The horses looked very warm, and, though the night was cold, one was covered with foam. I said nothing, but told him to drive to Susan's sister's. On arriving at the door, I heard sounds of very lively music for a dying child, and saw the house all lighted up. 'Oh, I understand, it is one of those Hibernian wakes. Poor thing!' and I began to pardon Susan, feel sorry for the coachman, and made up my mind to give $10 towards the sepulchral expenses. As I entered the house, surcharged with benevolence and overcome by a repentant feeling, I caught sight of Susan and a strapping man whirling round the floor to the tune of the Irish Washwoman. I approached her and said, 'I hope he is better.' She uttered a scream and ran out of the room. The next morning after having gone over everything in the house, I sent for each servant and told them quietly but firmly that my sister's health was not very good, and that I was housekeeper--that as they had engaged to fill certain positions, I should take it for granted they understood their business; that I had neither the time nor would I take the trouble to overlook their work, but that as soon as I saw anything wrong they would hear from me. If they wanted anything I was the person. My housekeeping hours were from 9 till 10 a. m., no more. If they could not take the trouble to ask for what they wanted at that time, they could go without till the next day. I should not tell them what to do or when to do it, but if it wasn't done, they would certainly leave. That I allowed no company and gave them certain nights to go out, but if anything special and _true_ was the matter I was ready to assist, 'and now,' said I, 'no quarreling down stairs; each one to their work and no complaining.--The moment you are discontented come to me and you can go at once if you choose. I do not want any notice ever, except where a baby is concerned.' This done I then advertised for a cook. The next day my cook, down stair, came up to me quite flushed, and wanted to know if I intended to turn her away. I said no, I had no idea of it, but thought it was a very good plan to have two in the house; that I intended making the new one a waiter, and then if anything happened, such as the sudden departure, 'of my cook,' I said, looking right at her, 'for you know they are quick tempered, why then I have one on hand.' She colored up and retired. After going through a great deal of nonsense about the words 'help' and 'servants,' I at length got what I wanted and all went on smoothly for a time. My plan for detecting neglect in the cleaning of a room, was to stick half a dozen pins in different places about it--some on the walls, in the window and other places that ought to be wiped. If I found them there after the cleaning, I became suddenly very disagreeable. During my sister's administration, I had been obliged to wait sometimes three weeks before she could find time, for her servants, to put a button on my waistcoat. Now, when I wanted anything done, the first person that passed my library door was stopped, no matter what her work might be at the time, sent for a clothes brush, needle or hammar, and the thing was done at once. It acted like a charm, and all went on well. At first they objected, (only silently), but I told them plainly that I hired them for my benefit, not theirs, which generally followed; and that though their work was specified to a certain degree, they must on all occasions answer any calls and pay always for breakage. This last saved twenty dollars a month, for hardly anything under those expensive circumstances, fell of their hands; and I noticed the plea of 'sudden change of weather,' or 'some one must have disturbed it,' or 'that horrid cat has been among those dishes and upset them,' or 'twas cracked before,' became as worn out as aphorisms of the past. I was always very attentive to them when sick. This tells, in the long run, on servants, for they are very susceptible to a kind act out of place--indulgence, however, is soon forgotten. I always made it a habit, too, to pay each servant something more a month than any one else. That, also, acted wonderfully like a retainer. But I distinctly told them I wanted my work done, because it was paid for. I asked no favors. Two other rules saved me much trouble. When a girl said she couldn't do any set job, on account of no time, no matter what it was, I always said, 'why, that's all nonsense; it only takes five minutes;' and not infrequently have I irritated them into doing almost impossibilities. I never valued any cheap article under five dollars. Another great mistake, is to find fault with a servant before any one. Have they done wrong, go to your library and ring loudly--that is half the battle; then tell the waiter to call the chambermaid, and then speak. You will find everything easy. They have had time to reflect; to weigh the pros and cons, and have half thought themselves into submission. Never argue. If you have the right exert it, but never be unjust; and, above all, believe me when I tell you that their feelings are exquisite on the subject of neglect. Let them once feel a _respect_ for you, yet know you are determined to have anything done, and a simple remark will lie like lead on their stomach, and you will hear them talking of it down stairs and using the bow anchor of firmness, 'he said so,' until it is done. Never change your mind. I remember once, during that memorable interregnum of three months, and, in fact, the only time in my life did it happen.--I had invited some very pleasant, agreeable and talented friends to spend the evening. I ordered my supper in the morning, and it commenced to snow. I continued giving orders, and it continued snowing, and we kept at it very close on to each other; if anything, the snow was a little ahead, but I went on in the same way. At the proposed time the gas was lit, a lantern was placed on the piazza; snow swept off; the side gate unhung by the waiter man, and a path made. The snow piled high, and the domestics began to give in, or out, I don't know which. They doubted the probability of any one venturing out that 'dreadful night.' A little later, they began to talk among themselves of the improbability of any one coming. I immediately ordered the gas turned up in full; the candles lit, and the supper table laid--every dish put in its place empty, to be filled at the proper time--all for discipline. (I had said it was to be done in the morning.) I then went up stairs and dressed. My sister, who had gained five pounds every week since her abdication, met me in the drawing room, dressed elegantly, and with an encouraging air pressed my hand. She did not dare to make a remark, or the contract would have been violated; but I thought I could detect in her eye an acknowledgment of my success. As I sauntered through the brilliantly lighted rooms, rather depressed at the non-arrival of my guests, the waiter said Thomas would like to speak to me. I immediately went to the star chamber and took an easy position. A knock this time. 'Come in.' In walked Thomas with his hat in his hand and bowing respectively, he said--'I have just come from the stable Mr. D'Aubrey, and thought you would like to know about the storm, sir.' 'What storm?' I exclaimed, 'oh, you mean the snow storm, yes--is it still snowing?' At that moment the window was crackling with the hail. 'Yes sir, and I thought I'd tell you that no one could come out to-night, for a horse without a wagon could not walk one hundred yards.' 'Thank you, Thomas, give the bay mare more corn to-morrow and call Henry.'--Henry, the waiter, came in expecting orders to put away the _clean_ things and lock up for it was ten, and not a soul had arrived. 'Order supper Henry at eleven.' 'For whom, sir?' 'For me--what are you waiting for?' 'How much, sir,' said he, in a bewildered air. 'All of it.' He looked anxious. He could not classify me, but discipline must be carried out, so Mary and I sat down to enough for twenty-five persons, who had never known the pangs of dyspepsia. As soon as we had finished I ordered a large portion of it down stairs, for the benefit of the servants and retired. They all looked pleased and I was satisfied. Mrs. Phillips had the nightmare at about two o'clock. Before I took charge, the allies of my household were accustomed to come in at all hours and sit up till they were too sleepy to go to bed, looking the next morning like wet blotting paper. But that was soon stopped. For the morning of my address to them I stated that the house was shut up at ten p. m., and now and then it was amusing to hear the door open as the clock struck. One night at about twelve as I was sitting at my desk in the library, I heard someone trying to get in. I knew it was the waiter who had slipped out without leave, so I turned out the gas, put my head out of the window and said 'I know it must be a robber, for they are all in,' and seeing his form I fired off my revolver overhead.--No servant ever tried again to enter by stealing in after hours. When my sister kept house I suffered much for want of dishes during many days in the week.--There was very little variety. Sundays we had only potatoes and cold meat. 'Why,' I asked. 'They must go to church, my dear brother.' Mondays, one fry, not even a roast, it was washing day, all the heat must be turned off from the oven for the boiler.--The cook wouldn't have it roasted in front, the only true way. So no dessert could be baked. Tuesdays I could have no company for it was ironing day, and the irons filled up the range and nothing extra could be made. I submitted to my sister. But now I had soup every day, and whenever I saw anything very good in market I ordered it home and had it cooked. Strange isn't it, with the same range and the same cook? Before my reign we could not breakfast till nine, the cook said that the milkman came so late. During my reign we breakfasted at eight punctually, for I suggested to her the propriety of rising at six instead of seven and letting him in on his first trip instead of taking the milk from him on his return. My sister was obliged to tell her two or three days before hand that she was going to have company, that she might have time to get everything ready for dinner. I frequently brought home two or three guests with fish and game in the same carriage and ordered it as the fourth course while partaking of soup. On one occasion I brought in partridges twenty minutes before dinner. I went down stairs knowing she would be roused this time, and flanked her by saying, 'Hannah, you won't have time to pick those birds, so just draw them and _skin_ them. I want them roasted.' Before she recovered from her astonishment I had departed. Whenever a quarrel down stairs took place I never interfered as long as they did not talk loud, but the next day if I noticed any one in the sulks or a tendency to let things go by, I had the furniture of one room changed to another. This required 'all hands' to work together, and I made them fly round so, that when it was done they were only too happy to go to lunch and rest, and I could hear many a joke and pleasant laugh rise from the kitchen table. One rainy evening, as my sister and myself were sitting in front of the wood fire, exactly two months since the famous contract, and very much in the same position, and talking over everything but it, a timid knock was heard. I said 'come in,' and Sabina entered, looking very healthy and neat--I cannot say pretty, though she had a good figure. I never asked questions on these occasions. I always made it difficult for them to talk in this, to them, gloomy room.--They had to stumble through themselves. 'Can I speak to you, sir.' 'Certainly, Sabina--go on.' 'I have come to say, sir, that--that--I have came to say, sir, that'--a pause; she looked very guilty. 'That's right, Sabina; you have come to say that--I understand--but what have you come to say?' 'I have come to say, sir, that--I have come to go, sir!' I controlled myself. She was an excellent chambermaid; understood my ways thoroughly; and did her work well; had always been respectful to _me_, and was very steady. It would be a great loss, but DISCIPLINE must be preserved, and my mind was at once made up. My sister looked surprised and sorry right out. 'Well, Sabina, when do you wish to go.' 'On Saturday, sir.' Oh how my sister wanted to speak, but I looked at the tin box that held the contract and she bit her lip. 'Very well, Sabina, you have a perfect right to go when and where you please, and I will take great pleasure in writing out an excellent character for you. Let me see, (looking at my account book) that is two weeks wages making $8. I never make presents, but as you are going here is a ten dollar bill. Where would you like your trunk carried, tell me and I will send it by Thomas Saturday morning?' 'Oh! it isn't that, sir,' said she, 'but--but, sir,' with the tears flowing rapidly. 'Why, what is the matter, Sabina?' (the first question apart from business I had ever asked.) 'I don't want to leave you, sir.' 'Well, that is strange, then why do you?' (business question.) 'I'm going, sir--I'm going, sir, to--be--married!' and she burst into tears. (I congratulated myself on being a bachelor, if conjugal affection produced such an effect.) 'Oh! that's it,' said I, dryly. 'Well I hope you will be happy.' 'But you've been so kind, sir, you--' 'There now stop, I have only tried to be just,' said I, looking exultingly at my smiling sister, who took off a little gold stud and gave it to her with many wishes of a happy life. Everything went on regularly as clock-work. There was a place for everything, and everything in its place. When the bell rang during dear Mary's sway, it continued to ring, and on one occasion, a friend met me in the street and said: 'Why William, have you moved?' I replied no, that we were very comfortable where we were, 'why do you ask?' 'That's very strange,' said he, 'we called yesterday at one o'clock and rang for twenty minutes. No one coming we concluded you had left for Europe.' 'No,' I said, feeling rather confused, 'the waiter I believe is subject to sciatica. At times he is taken suddenly and cannot move, and the reason we did not hear the bell, (I looked away as I said so,) his cries of pain are such that you cannot hear yourself speak.' Now the door is answered before the first ring stops sounding. For I arranged it so as to vibrate long enough to give a person time to go from any part of the house in exactly two minutes; and no man of the world rings oftener than once every three minutes. I would not have written all this but my blessed sister soon entirely followed out my reformation and is fairly convinced, as she says, that when a man sets about any matter, he is very thorough: clear headed; and, above all, not easily put down. Oh! if all women thought so! eh, Mr. Caudle? I knew one learned gentleman who only desired peace and good food. His wife never allowed him to offer a suggestion. She called him a genius, and made him mind. Formerly Mary rose thoughtful, with the pressure of business on her brain. At meals she was abstracted, often worried, and at all times the repository of domestic troubles. Her healthy organization was altogether too mesmerized by the petty warfare below stairs. She was never idle, and yet rarely accomplished anything for _herself_. Her position in the household might have been called that of GRAND FINISHER. She planned work and waited for its completion in vain. Finally she would bring it into the library and stitch--stitch--all through the pleasant evenings. I knew this, for I laid a plan. One April I asked her to work me a pair of slippers on cloth. I presume a clever woman, undisturbed, could have delivered them over to me at the end of the week. Now, no one is more clever than my sister; yet I did not get those slippers till December; and then she handed them to me in sadness, and said, with an attempt at cheerfulness, 'dear William, I worked one myself, but my duties are such that I gave out the other to that poor woman whose husband is at sea. Has'nt she done it well?' Now, I find her reading, paying visits, and often of an evening she comes to me and says, 'William, would'nt you like some new handkerchiefs embroidered?' or 'can't I mend anything for you? I have just finished my music and have nothing to do.' On another occasion, while she was mending--not making reader--but _mending_, her children's clothes, I offered to read one of Ik Marvel's reveries of a bachelor, a special favorite of mine. She thanked me, and I proceeded. On finishing one of his admirable paragraphs, I put the book down and exclaimed, 'isn't that capital?' She said at once, 'no, I think it is very discouraging.' 'Discouraging! Why, what in the world do you mean, Mary?' 'Excuse me, William, but I was'nt listening. The fact of it is, there has been another row down stairs, and I do think that girl ought to be ashamed of herself to treat Susan so;' and then for _one_ hour a topographical and analytical history of the entire household was gone into, with a _con amore_ spirit, which lasted through two segars and a glass of water. I never spoke. On these occasions they don't want you to talk; only to listen. They say in a sweet and confiding manner, 'you know I have no one to sympathize with me;' and off they go, like the recitation of Pope's Homer, made by some school girl who has been sentenced to run through so many lines. I slipped the reveries into their place, so that she would not be hurt, and I do assure you that when she had got through I believe if you had asked her suddenly 'who discovered America?' she would have replied 'An Irishman--I forget his name.' Formerly there was ever a business gravity about her: now she always appeared with a sweet smile that lit up her countenance, as though it had been sprinkled all over with sun-powder. Difficult indeed was it for Mary to order anything without an advance notice, for otherwise she was forced to start her little bark through the Scylla and Charybdis of 'fire island,' namely, 'The fire's too low, marm;' or 'I've just put on coal, marm.' Now she reads to me herself, and marks the prettiest passages in Tennyson, which no woman could find out if her understanding had been mortgaged by servants. Before, no matter what dish of meat was set before me, it was always _dry_, or the gravy made of butter and _water_. I have often seen mutton chops come on table looking like little islands of meat surrounded by water, on which might be detected a tickley benders of grease. Five minutes conversation on my part supplied the deficiency, and caused one can of lard to outlast six of those in olden times. When I first took charge of the kitchen, the cook made one struggle--but only one. The reply to her question indicated such ignorance or indifference on my part, that everything suggested in future was served as directed, and well done. Having ordered many dishes one day--I don't know whether it was washing or ironing day, I never used to ask: I also gave the ingredients of a very nice pudding, and said 'can you make that?' 'I know how, sir, but can't to-day.' 'Why not?' 'There is no room in the oven, you have filled it with your orders, and it is impossible to bake it this afternoon.' 'You cannot bake it, then?' 'No, sir.' 'Then _broil_ it!' 
20984	----	Proofreaders Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 20984-h.htm or 20984-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/2/0/9/8/20984/20984-h/20984-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/2/0/9/8/20984/20984-h.zip) Little Prudy's Flyaway Series. PRUDY KEEPING HOUSE. by SOPHIE MAY. Author of "Little Prudy Stories," "Dotty Dimple Stories," Etc. Illustrated. [Illustration: "O, WHAT A FASCINATING CREATURE!"] [Illustration: LITTLE PRUDY'S FLYAWAY SERIES "What is home without a mother?" Boston 1891 Lee and Shepard Publishers 10 Milk Street next "The Old South Meeting House" New York Chas. T. Dillingham 718 and 720 Broadway Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by Lee And Shepard, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. TO MY YOUNG FRIEND, _BESSIE BAKER._ CONTENTS. I. A QUEER IDEA II. PRIDE AND ORANGES III. BORROWED JEWELS IV. GOING TO HOUSEKEEPING V. MOTHER HUBBARD'S DINNER VI. PRUDY IN A NEW LIGHT VII. A FLY IN TRINITY CHURCH VIII. DOTTY'S WINDPIPE IX. TWO LIVE CHILDREN X. "RIDING ON JACK FROST" XI. THE JEWEL CABINET XII. "FOLDED EYES" PRUDY KEEPING HOUSE. CHAPTER I. A QUEER IDEA. One of Mrs. Allen's bay windows stood open. Between the ivies, tuberoses, and lilies, you caught a glimpse of gilded walls and rare paintings. Better than all, you saw four young faces looking out at a snow-storm; Dotty with eyes like living diamonds, Prudy fair and sweet, Horace lordly and wise; and the little one "with dove's eyes" following every motion of his head, as if she were a sunflower, and he the sun. "Please shut the window, quick, Horace; the plants will freeze," said Prudy, drawing in her powdered head. "Things don't freeze in cloudy weather, Prue; but you children will catch cold; so here goes." "O, Hollis, don't those snow-specks look like little bits o' birdies, athout any wings or any feathers, too?" "Droll birds they would be," said Aunt Madge. "That reminds me of an old riddle, children,-- "'White bird featherless Flew out of Paradise, Lit on the castle wall; Came a knight breathless, Ate it up toothless, Rode away horseless.'" "Why, auntie, the 'bird featherless' must have been the snow; but who was the knight!" "Who rides over the sky without any horse, Dotty, and melts snow by shining on it?" "O, the sun--the sun!" "Hollis, I want to ask you sumpin. Does those snow-specks fly down out o' heaven? Does the little angels see 'em?" "No, Topknot; they only come from the clouds; they are nowhere near up to the little angels." "Not half so near as you are, Goldilocks," said Aunt Madge, brushing back the child's soft hair. "I hope you don't mean Fly's going to die," cried Dotty, in sudden alarm, remembering how crossly she had spoken to the child two or three times since they had been in New York. "No, Dotty; I only mean that we are told, in the Bible, there are 'ministering spirits,' and we believe they watch over good little children." "O, my shole!" said Fly, folding her tiny hands, and raising her eyes to the top of the window. "Nice, pretty little spirricks out there, only but I can't see 'em." "No, Miss Eyebright; not even you. Wait till you go where they live." "Wisht I could go up there now, a-visiting; stay all night, and three weeks and then--" "Hush, Fly Clifford; you're the wickedest girl to talk," said Dotty. "I shouldn't ever expect to go to heaven at all, if I said such things as you do.--O, auntie, I am so sorry it storms! Maria and her mother won't come--will they?" Maria Brooks was a little blind girl with whom the family were just making acquaintance. A few days before, when she was walking Broadway, led by her "freckled doggie," Fly, lost on the street, had spied her, and been attracted by the dog, and Maria had persuaded the child to go home with her. Afterwards Mrs. Brooks had taken Fly back to Colonel Allen's; and in this way Aunt Madge had learned about Maria's blindness, and had offered to take her to a physician who could help her, if any one could. "Yes, Dotty; I presume they will come to-day, for Maria can hardly wait to have the doctor look at her eyes." "Of course they'll come," said Horace; "who ever heard of _brooks_ minding the weather? Rain water agrees with 'em." "If you please, Mrs. Allen," said Nathaniel, appearing at the door, "I--" "O, they've come--have they, Nat?" asked Horace. Horace was already well acquainted with the waiting man, and called him Nat, though he was a very sober youth, with velvety hair, and a green neck-tie, as stiff as a cactus. Nat only replied by handing Mrs. Allen a letter, with a hesitating air, as if he would much rather not do it. "A despatch!" cried Mrs. Allen, turning rather pale. Dotty Dimple and Flyaway crowded close to her, and overwhelmed her with questions. "O, what is it?" said one. "Who wroted it? And why didn't Hollis bring the camphor bottle athout my asking?" said the other. But the older children knew better than to speak just then. As soon as Mrs. Allen could get her breath, she said,-- "Don't be frightened, dears. It is only a message from your Uncle Augustus. He can't come home to-night, as we expected. He says, 'One of my old attacks. Nothing serious. Can you come?'" "O, is that all?" said Dotty, and ceased fanning her auntie with a book-cover. "O, is that all?" echoed Fly, and left off patting her cheek with a pencil. "But, children," said Horace, "don't you understand Uncle Augustus is sick--wants auntie to go and take care of him?" "Why, he can't have her." "Indeed, Miss Dot, and why not?" "She's got company, you know." "There, little sister! I wouldn't think that of you? Poor Uncle Augustus!" "But he says he isn't serious," said Dotty, looking ashamed. "Auntie, you don't think he's serious--do you?" "No, dear; he's suffering very much, but I am not in the least alarmed. He has had just such attacks as this ever since he came out of the army. He is at a hotel in Trenton, New Jersey, and needs some one to wait upon him, who knows just what to do. I am very sorry to go and leave my company, Dotty, but--" "O, auntie, you ought to go," cried Dotty. "I dislike particularly not to be polite." "O, auntie, you will be _'tic'ly_ polite," cried little Echo. "Please let me go, too; I won't make no noise." "How long do you think you'll have to stay, auntie?" said Prudy. "I cannot tell, dear. These attacks are usually short, and I think quite likely your uncle can come home to-morrow night; but he may not be able till next day." "How he'll feel if he can't be here to Christmas!" said Dotty; "and so much greens and things in the windows!" "Yes; and how we shall both feel to know our little friends are keeping house by themselves!" "Keeping house? O, may we keep house!" exclaimed Prudy, her eyes suddenly brightening. "Why, yes, my child; you may be the lady of the mansion, if that is what you mean, and Horace the lord." "But may I cook the dinners, and not ask Mrs. Fixfax? Because I really do know a great deal, Aunt Madge. You'd be surprised! I can cook cake, and pie, and biscuit, and three kinds of pudding. Please, this once, let me manage things just as I want to." "Just as _we_ want, you mean," said Dotty. "I can make gingerbread as well as you can." "And I shaked a table-cloth once," put in the youngest. "Only I shan't be here if my auntie tookens me off." "Yes, auntie," said Horace; "let the girls manage. They'll get up queer messes, but 'twill be good fun." "Do you believe it?" said auntie, thoughtfully. And there entered her brain, at that moment, a singular scheme, which, to almost any other woman, would have seemed absurd. "Poor little souls? Their visit has been a failure. I've a great mind to make an arrangement with Mrs. Fixfax to have them keep house in her room." (Mrs. Fixfax was Mrs. Allen's housekeeper.) "The novelty will amuse them. Of course they will waste flour and sugar, but not very much, probably, and Mrs. Fixfax will be on the watch to see that they don't get too hungry. It will tax her severely, but I can pay her for her trouble. Really, the more I think of it, the more I'm inclined to try it. They say I'm foolishly indulgent to children. Perhaps so; but I do want them happy when they come to my house visiting." "Have you thinked it all up?" asked Fly, peeping into her auntie's face; "I won't 'sturb Uncle 'Gustus." "Yes, chickie; I've thinked of talking to Mrs. Fixfax about letting you all keep house; that is, if she won't consider it too much trouble." "Trouble?" said Prudy; "why, I should think it would be a real help, auntie. She has so much care, you know. And if I got the meals for us four, the cook could rest, too." Aunt Madge only smiled at this. There were five servants in all: John, the coachman; Nat, the waiting-man; Mrs. Fixfax, the housekeeper; Rachel Fixfax, the chambermaid; and Patty Diggles, the cook. They were all remarkably faithful, except pretty Rachel, the housekeeper's daughter, who was rather gay and flighty, and had been something of a trial to her mistress. Aunt Maude went into the kitchen dressed for her journey. Mrs. Fixfax had just returned from market, and was talking with the cook about the dinner. "That is a fine plump turkey," said Mrs. Allen; "I wish I were to help eat it; but I came to tell you, Mrs. Fixfax, that Colonel Allen is sick, and I must go to him at once, and leave you with the care of these children." The housekeeper, who was a fat, comfortable-looking woman, twice as large as her mistress, said, "Indeed, mum!" hoped Colonel Allen "wasn't sick to speak of," and shook her broad sides with laughter at the idea of taking care of Fly. "I'll give up going to church to-morrow, mum; for, light as the child is, I can but feel as if you was sitting a ton's weight on my shoulders. And I promise to keep her alive if the Lord's willing." "You will hardly be obliged to give up your whole time Mrs. Fixfax. I shall absolutely forbid her going out of the house, unless you, or some other grown-up person, has charge of her. And really, with John, Nathaniel, and Patty to keep guard, I don't see what mischief can befall the little creature." "We'll all do our best, mum," replied Mrs. Fixfax, heroically. "I have perfect faith that you will. There is one more favor to ask. These children have had a strange visit thus far, and if I go away and leave them, I fear they will feel rather forlorn. Can you consent to let the little girls 'keep house,' as they call it? That is, cook their own meals, and set their own table?" The cook, who was stuffing the turkey was so surprised that she spilled a handful of sage over her apron. She would not have dared say the words, but her thoughts ran like this: "Pretty doings, indeed! What does Mrs. Allen mean by letting children come into the kitchen to bother _me_?" But Aunt Madge had not finished speaking. "Mrs. Fixfax, there is a little old cooking-stove in the attic. Don't you remember you had it in your room when you were nursing Rachel through that fever?" "O, yes'm, so I had; and it shall be set right up there again, mum, if you say so," said the obliging housekeeper; "and I'll carry up flour and sugar, and what not, and move out my own things, so the children can have the room pretty much to themselves." "No need of that, Mrs. Fixfax," spoke up the cook, very pleasantly. "Let 'em come right into the kitchen. I should admire to see 'em enjoy themselves." Patty Diggles was a singular woman. She was always full of polite speeches, just a minute too late. "Thank you, Patty; but I think the children may feel more at home in Mrs. Fixfax's room, with no one to watch them. And now, good bye. I hope to come back to-morrow." Mrs. Fixfax left the kitchen to find Nathaniel, and get him to help her move the stove. As soon as the business was over, Nathaniel came into the kitchen, and held up his sooty hands for Patty to see. She was stabbing the turkey with a darning-needle. "Some folks know how to feather their own nests," said she. "Why, what have I done now, Patty?" "Not you, but Mrs. Fixfax; she's going to wait and tend on those children, and of course she'll get a splendid present for it. I should admire to have the little dears round me in the kitchen; but she spoke up, and took the words right out of my mouth." The young man laughed in his sleeves, as he turned them back to wash his hands. He took care not to express his mind, however. He had a few fixed ideas. One was, that Mrs. Allen could do no wrong; and another was, that he must never bandy words with Patty Diggles, because Mrs. Allen had strictly forbidden it. CHAPTER II. PRIDE AND ORANGES. While Mrs. Fixfax was making her room ready for the little housekeepers, Aunt Madge went to her own chamber, and locked up her best dresses, and most valuable possessions. The children watched her with some curiosity. "Are you afraid of _burgalers_, auntie?" asked Dotty. "Because, if you are, we shan't dare stay here." "No, Dotty. I only thought, if you should play keep house, it might be rather amusing to come in here, and dress up in some of my old finery. You are welcome to whatever you can find, for I have locked up all that is worth much." "O, you darling auntie, won't that be splendid? Now we shan't feel half so sorry about your going away." "Sorry!" said Mrs. Allen, with a mischievous smile. "You are so delighted you don't know what to do." "There, auntie, that isn't fair," laughed Prudy, "when we've been trying our best to cry. But somehow, how can we, when Uncle Augustus isn't very sick, and you're coming right back? But what made me laugh just now, was looking at that ruffled pillow-case, and thinking what a splendid cap it would make for an old lady, tied down with black ribbon!" "A pretty uproar we shall find when we get back, Miss Prudy; but I am prepared for that. Only promise one thing--keep that baby in the house. Flyaway, darling, will you remember not to go out of doors?" "Yes, um, I'll 'member," replied Fly, winking her eyes solemnly. She had expected, till the last minute, to go with her auntie. "There is one thing I regret. If Mrs. Brooks and Maria come, they will be very much disappointed. Tell them I'll try to attend to them the day but one after Christmas. And now, good by, children. You know you're as dear to me as the apple of my eye. Do take good care of yourselves, and be good." "The apple of your eye appears to be split in four quarters, auntie," remarked Horace; and on the strength of that joke, Mrs. Allen started on her journey to Trenton. "Now I suppose I'm to be the head of the family," said Prudy, with a majestic air. "We are the two heads, if you please, _mum_," said Horace, striking an attitude. "What am I, then?" asked Dotty. "You? The foot. You must run and tend." "H'm!" "What am I?" asked Fly. "Why, the little finger, pet. All you have to do is to curl up in one corner." "H'm!" responded Fly, looking at Dotty's solemn face, and trying to draw her own down to exactly the same length. "Pretty well, I should think," said Dotty, as soon as her injured feelings would allow her to speak. "What have I done to be put down to the bottom of the foot?" "But you know, little sister, one woman has to manage a house; and I am older than you." "But you can't make a bit better gingerbread, Prudy Parlin! If I've got to be _your_ hired girl, I won't play." "So I wouldn't," said Horace. "I'd show 'em what I thought of such actions." Upon this there was a little whirlwind, which spun Dotty out of the room before you could count two. "They stand very high in their own self-esteem. He's a hero, she a _hero-ess_! They think I like to be laughed at. She said it only took one woman to manage a house; but she never made any fuss when _Horace_ spoke up, and wanted to help. It's _me_ that can't manage--just because it's me. Who wants Horace for the head of the family? He don't know more'n the head of a pin! When'd ever _he_ make ginger-bread?" By this time Dotty had reached her own room in a tumult of rage. "Prudy wouldn't 'low three heads to it, I s'pose? O, no; for then I could be one! If I was a great boy, with a silver watch, that wasn't her own sister, she'd let me! Yes, if I had five heads, she wouldn't have said a word." Dotty paced the floor restlessly, with her hands behind her. "I shan't go back. Let 'em keep their old house. I can keep house my own self up in this room--wish I'd brought Fly--she's too good for 'em. Wish I hadn't come to New York to be imposed upon." As Dotty was crossing and recrossing the room, her eye fell on one of the illuminated cards on the wall, printed in red and gold, and wreathed with delicate lilies of the valley--"God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble." The angry child stopped short. "Who put that there? What did auntie mean? She meant _me_. Everybody means me. I wouldn't have thought that of auntie." Dotty turned away; but the words followed her across the room like the eyes of a portrait. "'God resisteth the proud.' Well, who said I was proud? People are so queer! Always think it's me wants the best things. 'Giveth grace to the humble.' There, I s'pose that means Prudy. She's just as humble! Never wants to take the best parts when we play. O, no; Prudy's humble? Prudy's a _hero-ess_!'" But scold as she might, those burning red words were looking right down into Dotty's soul. Though she shut her eyes, there they were still. "'God resisteth the proud.' Am I proud?--Yes. Does God _resisteth_ me?--Yes, for the Bible can't lie. What _is_ resisteth? Something that makes you feel bad, prob'ly. That's why I can't be happy. I won't be proud another minute." Dotty winked fast, set her teeth together, pinched her neck, and swallowed. "There, it's going down my throat like a pill,--its gone! Am I proud any more? No--_for_ I really don't s'pose I can make gingerbread quite so well as Prudy! I never made any but once, and then Norah took it out of the oven and put in the ginger and molasses. No, I'm not proud. I don't want to keep house. I shouldn't know how. It would be very much better to go back and behave, for I can't stay here without being lonesome." Dotty looked again at the red and gold text. "How different it seems to me now I'm humble! People needn't be proud if they'd swallow it down like a pill." Dotty's reasoning was rather mixed; still it is worthy of notice, that she was doing a remarkable thing for her, as she slowly walked back to her auntie's room. But all this while Prudy, too, had been suffering. She could never bear to have her young sister angry, and, if it had not been for Horace, would have gone to her with all sorts of promises--anything for peace. "She's an outrageous little tyrant, Prue. She ought to have a sound whipping." "O, Horace," said Prudy, quite shocked; "she can't help her temper; she has to be humored." "Poh! that's just what ails her! Been humored to death." "But, Horace, can't we change our play, somehow? It never will do for me to try to order her about." "Nonsense, Prue! But if you're going to be so fussy, you might keep boarding-house, and have her for lady boarder." Prudy's brow cleared. "Just what'll suit her, Horace! A lady boarder is so fashionable,--like the one they had at Mrs. Penny's,--always washing out laces. Now I'll go tell Dotty." Just then Miss Dimple appeared at the door with an uncertain smile. "I--I--thought--" "O, how kind of you to come back to us, my Lady Magnifico!" cried Horace, bowing himself double. "Your landlady was afraid you objected to your boarding-place." "You see," said Prudy, eagerly, "we are making believe I keep boarders. I've 'seen better days,' or something of that kind, as they say in story-books--O, seems to me my husband died." "Yes; I saw his death in the papers," said Dotty, briskly; "so you don't want me for your hired girl--do you?" Then she thought, "How glad I am I came back! It's always better to be humble!" and added aloud, with a fine-lady drawl,-- "No, mim; it's not the style I've been subject to. I was _necessiated_ to leave you, mim, because I can't eat out of anything but gold teaspoons." "That sounds so like Mrs. Pitkin Smith!" said Prudy, laughing. "She used to board at Mrs. Penny's, Horace. Come, let's go and dress in our costumes. I'll be Mother Hubbard; and Horace, you go into uncle's dressing-room and see what you can find." [Illustration: Little Miss Fly.] CHAPTER III. BORROWED JEWELS. "Of course I must take the best things," said Dotty; "for I'm to have the best part." So she chose a blue poplin dress, a pink sash, a scarlet bow, and a green pin. The dress was half a yard too long, and she caught it up in front with some artificial flowers she found in a box. Her head she surmounted with an old chignon, which bobbed back and forth, as she walked, like a pedler's pack. "O, see, Prudy," said she; "here is auntie's jewel cabinet. What cunning little sliding drawers!" "Don't open it; don't touch it, Dotty. I saw auntie look it up in her safe once; but I suppose she took it out again to get her watch." "No, she didn't; here's her watch," said Dotty, swinging open one of the little drawers. "That's her other watch, Dotty. She says it needs mending." "Then I'm going to wear it; it is just as good for a lady boarder, as a whole one." "Don't, Dotty; that's the watch Uncle Augustus gave her when they were married, and she thinks the world of it." "Well, he gave her the other one too--didn't he?" "Yes; last Christmas: don't you know how she found it in an orange?" "O, I remember. And she ought to think the most of that one, Prudy, because she loves him better now than she did when he gave her this one; ever so much better." "It's of no consequence to you if she does, or if she doesn't, Dotty Dimple. What right have you with that cabinet, I _should_ like to know? Shut it right up this minute. O please do, Dotty." Dotty's contrary spirit began to rise. She opened every one of the drawers, and poured out the glittering jewels. Of course Fly was on the spot in a twinkling; but Prudy caught her, and playfully pinned her little arms down to her sides; so her prying fingers had no chance to do mischief. "Didn't auntie tell us to dress up in her old finery?" said Dotty, thrusting the watch into her girdle. "Old finery, Dotty Dimple!" "And isn't this old? 'You're welcome to whatever you can find;' that was just the words she said, Prudy Parlin." "O, how many ways there are for people to do wrong if they want to!" cried Prudy, in despair. "When you _do_ get started, Dotty--Will you, or will you not, put up those things? If you don't, it's my duty to call Horace, and--" "_'Fore_ I'd be a tell-tale!" said Dotty, slipping off half a dozen rings in haste. "There, I won't wear but just two--one on each thumb. Who wants the old watch? Tick's all out of it. You don't know, Prudy, how tight those rings fit. I could wear 'em on my forefinger, but I shan't, you make such a fuss." Prudy answered by a look of unutterable contempt. "I suppose," said she, speaking with a vehemence quite unusual to her--"I suppose you know auntie's jewels are worth more money than father has in the world! If you lose one of them, I don't know who's going to pay for it; that's all." Dotty looked amazed, but answered coolly,-- "Of course I always knew that! Auntie has about as nice things as the governor's wife." She was sure she was very humble, since swallowing her pride like a pill; but somehow she was determined not to take off those rings. "Prudy needn't speak so sharp to me! I didn't care about wearing 'em in the first place; but now I'll do it to show her what's the use to preach!" Prudy, having done her duty, said no more, but proceeded to look over her auntie's wardrobe in search of a dress. "I s'pose she thinks I'm the awfulest girl," mused Dotty, fluttering in and out of the closet. "I s'pose she's thinking about that rag-bag last summer--how Jennie Vance no business to take those three dollars out of the saddle-bag pockets! Grandma said, 'You're welcome to all you can find.' Well, but that didn't mean for Jennie to steal! Prudy needn't go to thinking this is the same kind of a thing, for it isn't. I guess stealing is pretty different from borrowing." Dotty viewed herself in the glass with secret satisfaction. She really looked like a Fourth of July fantastic; but we do not see ourselves as others see us. "She won't be the least help to me about the house," thought Prudy, with a feeling of envy. "I shall have every single thing to do; and I declare I don't know what to get for dinner." She chose the worst looking wrapper her aunt's wardrobe afforded, and a gingham apron with pockets. Quite good enough for a woman keeping house without a servant. And as she had decided to call herself Mother Hubbard, she made an ample cap, by folding a "pillow-sham," and putting two of its ruffled edges around her face for a double border. Then, with green spectacles at her nose, a bunch of keys at her waist, and a pair of high-heeled slippers on her feet, she went to the door, and called for Fly. "Fly! Why, isn't she in there?" responded Horace, appearing on the landing, "You didn't think I had her with me--did you?" As Prudy wisely remarked, "How many ways there are for people to do wrong if they want to!" Seeing her betters disagree, little Fly had taken her turn at pouting. "They don't say nuffin' 'bout fixin' _me_ up. Goin' to let me go to the party in my old clo'es? Wisht auntie'd tookened me with her. Might just's well not! Might a' worn soft slippers, and not 'sturbed Uncle 'Gustus!" Fly wafted herself to the top of the bureau, and gazed down on the girls in stern displeasure. But she might as well have scowled at empty air, for no notice was taken of her. Dotty was giving an extra touch to her chignon, and Prudy trying on her cap. "Hark! What's that?" It was the street-cry away off in the backyard--"Fine fresh oranges." "Guess I'll go see what's the matter with that man," thought Miss Fly. "Guess he's got hurted." She slid down from the bureau, and stole softly out of the room backward; but her feet made no more sound on the carpet than the fall of a rose-leaf, and neither of the girls looked up. "For course I shan't go ou'doors, 'cause I _solomon_ promised I wouldn't," said she, pattering down the basement stairs. The fact was, she had no idea any one would let her go. But it so happened that thoughtless Rachel was the one who unlocked the basement door, and it was an easy thing to slip out behind her. "'Cause I spect she'll send me ri' back." But when Rachel looked around, and saw the pretty child with her fair hair blowing wild, she only laughed and went on gossiping with the orange boy. She saw no harm in letting Fly hop about the pavement on one foot sucking oranges, till she herself felt chilled by the keen wind; then she drew the little girl into the house, and shut the door against the snow-storm, saying,-- "Why, how happened you out here, little Miss Fly?" "She sawed me the whole time; she ought to sended me in," thought Fly, dancing up and down to shake off the snow. "Twasn't me was naughty; 'twas the rest the folks. They didn't pay no 'tention where I went to." But though she pretended to herself that she had done no wrong, she did not wish to be found out, and crept very softly up stairs, even as far as the cupola, and looked out of the windows with all her might. "Cold room up here, athout no fire," thought she, by and by, with a shiver; and just then she heard the girls calling. "Here I is," a voice replied, far up the height; and down ran Fly in a trice. "You haven't been 'up attic' all this time, Topknot?" "Well, you ought to paid 'tention where I's going to," returned Fly, sharply. "Nobody knows what I'll do next--auntie said there didn't!" Horace laughed. "Come, fix her up, girls; she's my baby." "I thought you were the 'Man in the Moon,'" said Mother Hubbard, "and he isn't married." "I've been a widower some time," sighed Horace, laying his hand on the left pocket of his blue swallow-tail coat. His costume was as droll as the girls'; for Uncle Augustus, who had figured the week before in some private tableaux, had a full Brother Jonathan suit. "The man in the Moon, if you please, Mother Hubbard, come down to inquire the way to Norridge." "Ah! I'm afraid you've 'come down too soon.' Didn't you forget your whiskers?" Horace rubbed his upper lip thoughtfully. "Will you inform me, ma'am, where I can get a boarding-place? I'm sort of turned round. Growing place. Last time I was down, there were only a few houses here; now it's pretty thick settled back of the meeting-house." "I'll take you," said Mother Hubbard, putting her handkerchief to her face. "How would my dog feel if he knew I had come to this!" "Come to what, ma'am?" "Why, to New York, to take boarders." "Are you in _indigenous_ circumstances, madam? And have you seen the first society? If so, I may possibly conclude to come too," said Dotty, sweeping forward, and losing a hair-pin out of her chignon. "O, what a fascinating creature!" said the Man in the Moon, making an eye-glass of his thumb and forefinger, and gazing at the lady boarder. "_Are_ you a widow, ma'am?" "Well, they don't say nuffin' 'bout fixin' _me_ up! Guess I shan't go to the party!" exclaimed Fly, opening and closing her eyes in token of outraged dignity. Prudy took her into auntie's room, and proceeded at once to robe her in her own night-dress, with a lace night-cap, and a cologne-mat for a bib. "Hollis didn't say for me to be such a _long_ baby," sniffled Fly, trying in vain to clear her feet from the trailing skirt. "This is your slip, dear. You're only a baby--musn't try to walk." "Then my papa must carry me down stairs," said Fly, entering into the spirit of the play. "You tell him so--I can't tell him, for I can't talk. _Argoo-goo._ My teeth haven't camed." "If you please, Master Clifford," said Nathaniel, appearing at the head of the stairs. Then he stopped short with surprise, hardly knowing the children in their strange attire; but being too dignified to laugh aloud, added, with a grim smile,-- "The woman that brought Miss Fly home the other day is down in the dining-room, and says,'Can she see one of the family?'" "A little girl with her, Nat?" "Yes, sir; the blind girl is with her." "And the freckled doggie!" asked "the long baby," suddenly raising her head from her father's shoulder. "I meant to told 'em to bringed that doggie." "Let's all go down and see," said Mother Hubbard. When they entered the dining-room, Mrs. Brooks started up in dismay. She had left her sick husband, and come a long distance through the storm, only to find Mrs. Allen gone, and a parcel of children decked out like circus-riders. It seemed like a cruel mockery. "Beg pardon," said she. "Maria, we'll go home now." Maria was sitting near her mother, trying to force back the tears which would find their way through her closed eyes. "You poor dear girl," said Mother Hubbard, going up to her, and taking her hand. "My auntie was so sorry to go off to-day, just when you were coming! but she had to, for Uncle Augustus is sick. And it looks funny to you--I mean to your mother--to see us dressed up this way; but auntie said we might, just to keep us from being so lonesome. And Mrs. Brooks, she wants you to call again the day after _the day after_ to-morrow. She thinks she'll be home then." "Yes'm," struck in my Lady Magnifico! "She thinks she'll come then with Uncle 'Gustus. He isn't much sick. If he was going to die, we wouldn't dress up so, certainly." "No," replied Mrs. Brooks, smiling. "It's just as well; my Maria must have patience; that's all." "Patience!" thought Maria; "haven't I had it, and had it?--But I do suppose God will attend to me when He thinks best. Is this what they call waiting on the Lord?" "When you come nex' time, I hope you'll bring that doggie," said Fly. Then they went away, and the last thing Maria listened to was Fly's melodious voice; and the last thing Fly looked at was Mrs. Brooks's nose moving up and down. CHAPTER IV. GOING TO HOUSEKEEPING. It was nearly noon before Mrs. Fixfax had made her room ready for housekeeping. She turned up her bed into a press that stood beside the wall, brought in a high chair, a small rocking chair, two ottomans, some pictures and picture-books, and nearly all the curiosities she could find in the house. A cunning little cooking-stove, highly polished, was set against the chimney, and the drollest shovel and tongs seemed to be making "dumb love" to each other across the fireplace, like a black Punch and Judy. Then there was a pair of brazen-faced bellows, hanging, nose downward, on a brass nail; a large table in one corner, with a cake-board on it, and near it a cupboard made out of an old clothes-press, with dishes in it, and flour, sugar, raisins, spices, rolling-pin, "aerating egg-beater," yellow bowls, wooden spoons, and everything that could be needed in cooking for a very large family. There were five rugs spread on the carpet, and a large oilcloth under the stove. Last, but not least, Mrs. Fixfax brought Mrs. Allen's tortoise-shell cat, and set her in a stuffed chair by the west window. Then she called the children; and Mother Hubbard and Lady Magnifico rushed in, followed by the Man in the Moon and his baby. "Good morning, all; I hope I see you well," said Mrs. Fixfax, as sober as Nathaniel himself. "This room is yours as long as you like. Make yourselves perfectly at home." "Thank you ever so much," replied Mother Hubbard, bobbing her head, while the "pillow-sham" ruffles waved this way and that, like a field of ripe grain. "Whenever you want anything, just ring this bell, and I will come; or, if you ring the other one, it will bring Rachel. And, Miss Prudy, here is the 'Young Housekeeper's Friend;' perhaps you would like to look it over." Mother Hubbard blushed to her cap-border, and took the book with another "Thank you ever so much," but did not know what else to say to such a dignified woman. The truth was, Mrs. Fixfax was trying so hard to keep from laughing, that her manner was rather stiff and cold. "I have left the ventilator open," thought she. "The children are full of talk, and I don't want to lose a word. Besides, Mrs. Allen would consider it safer for me to know all that's going on." "There, glad she's gone," said Lady Magnifico, as Mrs. Fixfax's stately form disappeared. "She isn't as pretty as the _new_ Miss _Fixfix_. 'Spect she's got the toothache," suggested the talking infant, who was trying to lie and coo on a rug, but was unable to do it. "Well said, little Toddle; false toothache, hey?" "Are they false, Mr. Moony? Then that was why she puckered up her lips so funny," said Mother Hubbard; "it was to keep 'em in!" "Yes; and take her, teeth and all, her face has about as much expression as a platter of cold hash. I'll leave it to you if it hasn't, Prue." "Why, there, Miss Fixfix never asked me to kiss her one time," said Fly, with sudden astonishment. "Reckon you'd have wanted a lump of sugar after it, Topknot." The good-natured housekeeper shook with laughter as she listened to these remarks from the next room. "What a terrible creature this _Miss Fixfix_ is!" thought she. "Well, if they've got such an idea of me, I won't try to change it. Not for the rest of the day, at any rate. I'll keep my distance, and let 'em work." Mother Hubbard began to look about her with the mien of a housekeeper. "Let us see: what are we burning here?" said she, taking off a stove-cover. "Wood, I declare. Mrs. Fixfax is afraid I couldn't manage coal!" "And here's a 'normous big box full of sticks," said Lady Magnifico. "I didn't s'pose wood grew in New York. What now, Mr. Moon? Don't I know wood is sawed out of trees? Well, what you laughing at, then?" "Laughing, my lady? Why, who can help it, to see such a jolly room, big enough to hold a mass-meeting? That's a loud-spoken clock up there. Wonder if Mother Hubbard notices it's just going to strike twelve?" Prudy looked up, but did not take the hint. "I'm so glad I remembered to bring that clock. I always used to tell my dog I prized it as much as he did his dear little tail.--Why, what's burning? That child has scorched her slip. Do take care of her, Mr.--what may I call you?--while I look over this cupboard." "Call me Dr. Moonshine, if you want to." "I'm glad I was so thoughtful as to order sugar," continued the landlady. "It's excellent to drop medicine on. What's this in a bowl? Ice-cream?" "Why, don't you know what that is?" said Lady Magnifico, sweeping along to the cupboard, and dipping in her dainty finger; "that's _condemned milk_.' "_Condensed_ milk, her ladyship means," said the doctor, "boiled down, you know, and thickened. When you make a custard for dinner, you'll have to put in a tea-kettle full of water." This was the second hint the young man had thrown out concerning dinner; but Prudy was not to be hurried. "What's this in a little caddy? O, it's rice. No; it's what Dotty used to call _coker whacker_." "What does she call it now, may I ask?" said the doctor, with an irritating smile. "_Patti-coker_--what you s'pose?" was the rash reply. Poor Lady Magnifico! Little tingles of shame ran down her fingers as soon as she had spoken, for she saw, by the glances between her landlady and the doctor, that she had made another mistake. "O, I like to keep house," cried Fly, holding up her trailing robes, and dancing over a carpet seam. "What's this goldy thing?" "Bellows, Toddlekins, to blow up the fire. See me fill out their leather cheeks." "What pretty little _blozers_! Let me blow 'em!" There was a second dash upon the stove, and another scorch in the slip. "There ought to be a fence built round that stove," said the anxious father. "Come, Mother Hubbard, have you seen all there is in the cupboard? Can't you give this poor old dog a bone?" "Well, here I am with the care of the family on my shoulders," thought Mother Hubbard, winking fast behind the green spectacles, and recalling uneasily the couplet her father often repeated:-- "Think well before you pursue it; But when you begin, go through it." "Now what'll we have for dinner?" Lady Magnifico was walking languidly about, admiring herself in the mirror, Dr. Moonshine rummaging an old closet, and Baby pulling out the bureau drawers. "They have the easy part. But never mind; I'll show them what I can do. Mother says I have a great deal more taste for cooking than Susy has. Didn't I make pickles all one vacation?" Then Prudy sat down with the "Housekeeper's Friend," and began at the first page to read. Half an hour passed, and no signs of her moving. "I'm hunger-y," whispered Baby, taking a sugar-coated pill out of a box, and touching it with her tongue. It was sweet till her teeth went into it, when out rolled the little ball upon the floor. "O, my shole! How bitter!" groaned she, wiping her mouth on a lace cuff. "'Spect that's a pill, and they cooked it in sugar; but I shan't eat it." "Little daughter, what are you doing there? Mustn't meddle with other folks' things." Dr. Moonshine sneezed as he spoke, having breathed some of the "dust of ages" into his nose off a top shelf, where Mrs. Fixfax kept a few herbs. Ten minutes more. The doctor stepped down from the chair-back on which he had been standing, and gazed hard at his landlady. She was turning the sixteenth page. "My Lady Magnifico!" "Sir?" "My lady, do you happen to have such a thing as a peanut in your pocket?" My lady shook the cat out of the armchair, and seated herself. "It isn't polite to carry round peanuts." "I was only thinking," continued the doctor, with a side glance at Mother Hubbard, "how nice a peanut would be to keep anybody from fainting away." Mother Hubbard started from her chair. "What unfashionable boarders! You don't expect dinner in the middle of the day, I hope! In the city of New York we don't have it till five or six o'clock. I'm afraid you came down too soon, Dr. Moonshine." "Afraid I did. Wish I was 'the man in the South.' I'd like to 'burn my mouth' on a little 'cold plum porridge.'" "Haven't any for you; but I'll give you a lunch. What say to omelettes and coffee?" "Excellent," said Dr. Moonshine, reviving. "Exquisite," drawled my lady. "_Exquit_," quoth Fly. "Only there isn't any coffee," said Mother Hubbard, going to the cupboard. "Call it tea," said the doctor, "and hurry up." "No, chocolate is better. How do you make chocolate?" said the landlady, turning to her cook-book. "I don't know, and don't care," fumed the doctor. "Baked in a _slow_ oven, most likely, with a top crust. Let the chocolate slide." "Well, I will. And now I'll make the omelette. Eggs? yes; there are eggs enough; but dear me, where's the milk? This _condemned_ kind my lady tells about won't do to make omelettes. I shouldn't dare try it." "Well, well, give us a little bread and butter. I've got past being particular." "O, Dr. Moonshine, such biscuits as I'm going to bake for you at five o'clock! But now I really can't find a speck of bread!" "I'll warrant it! I always heard that when old Mother Hubbard went to her cupboard she found the shelves were all bare." "Then you needn't have come here to board. Won't crackers and raisins do?" They had to do; and the boarders tried to be satisfied in view of the coming dinner. All the afternoon Mother Hubbard spent between the cake-board and the mouth of the oven. "Queen of the rolling-pin, can't you hush up this fire?" said Dr. Moonshine, looking at the thermometer; "we're nearly up to 'butter melts,' and I suppose you know that's ninety degrees." "Dr. Moonshine," replied Mother Hubbard, nervously, "I can't help it if the butter does melt. We've got to have something to eat." "Papa, pin up my dress," said the baby. "I want to do sumpin. I want some pastry to paste a book with." "You're a real failure, Toddlekins. Your teeth have come, and you talk and keep talking. I'm afraid Mother Hubbard will charge me full price for your board. You hear what she calls for, ma'am? Can you make her a little paste? Here's an old Patent Office Report; and I'll run the risk of her spoiling it. I'll cut some pictures for her out of these papers." "Lucky I don't keep a file of my newspapers," thought Mrs. Fixfax, listening from the next room. "If I did, those children would hear from me." "Yes, I'll make her some paste," said Mother Hubbard, dropping the aerating egg-beater, and setting the spice-box on the stove. Dr. Moonshine laughed. Mother Hubbard had never dreamed a boarder could be so disagreeable. She snatched off the spice-box, and setting a kettle on the stove, boiled paste enough to paper the walls of a room. Meanwhile Fly was making free with the nutmegs and soda, and the little cook could not remember how far along she had got with the cake. "Children don't annoy you, I hope," said the doctor, seating the baby at the side of the table, opposite Mother Hubbard, and giving her a stick with a rag wound around the end of it, in order to paste pictures into a scrap-book. "Thank you, doctor. I never did like children half as well as dogs," replied Mother Hubbard, forcing a smile. Then she tasted her cake slyly, to make sure whether she had put the butter in or not. "Madam Hubbard, mim," said Lady Magnifico, "may I trouble you for a glass of water?" "Mamma Hubbard, may I have a hangfiss to wipe off the pastry?" Old Mother Hubbard went to the cupboard, and got a goblet for the lady; to the closet, and found a rag for the baby. By that time she smelt something burning; it was eggs. She had left the patent egg-beater on the stove by accident, and its contents were as black as a shoe. "O, what a frightful, alarming odor!" cried Lady Magnifico. "If somebody doesn't throw up a window! Madam, do tell us what's afire now!" "Mother Hubbard's got a dumb chill," said the doctor; "she won't speak." But Prudy was saying under breath, "Please, God, let me keep pleasant. They don't mean any harm, and I _should_ be ashamed to get angry just about a play." "What ails you, Mother Hubbard? 'You look as blue as the skimmiest kind of skim-milk.'" "Do I? Well, no wonder, with such troublesome boarders. Suppose you and my lady go down to the parlor. I don't believe I'm a bit interesting, you know. I'll call you when dinner is ready." "Agreed! Sharp five, remember." "There," said Mother Hubbard, taking off her spectacles; "now I can cook." Could she? "Little folks we is to keep house--isn't we?" buzzed the little torment that was left behind. "Hush! don't you talk, Prudy. When you shake the table, then I make blots with my pastry." Prudy said nothing, but thoughtfully tasted the cake again. How could she tell whether she had left out the soda? "Are you _blind of your ears_, Prudy, Can't you hear nuffin what I say? Rag's come off the stick. Please to tie it on. And _I_ want to eat some o' that dough." Mother Hubbard did her blundering best; but ill luck seemed to pursue the cooking. "Needn't call that book the 'Young Housekeeper's Friend.' It's an enemy, a real bitter enemy," cried she, in great excitement. "Wood is hotter than coal, too. Mrs. Fixfax must have given it to me to plague me. How it does burn things up! I hope beefsteak is cheap. I won't ask anybody to eat this, all covered with ashes. I'll never try to broil any again on top of a stick of wood! I won't try that 'steamboat pudding.' Sounds as if 'twould burn, and I know it would. Let 'em go without pudding." After the most tiresome afternoon she had ever spent in her life, Mother Hubbard went down with Fly, whom she dared not leave by herself, to call her boarders to dinner. CHAPTER V. MOTHER HUBBARD'S DINNER. This was Mrs. Allen's "reception-day," the day on which she always staid at home, that her friends might be sure of finding her in. "Not at home," Nathaniel had kept saying to visitors that afternoon. But one of them, a queenly-looking lady, would not be satisfied with the answer. "Are the children here?" demanded she. "Those nieces and nephews?" Nathaniel did not know exactly what reply to make; so he invited the lady into the parlor, and went to inquire. Dr. Moonshine and Lady Magnifico were in the drawing-room, looking over engravings. "Gnat, gnat, you troublesome insect," said the doctor. "I heard auntie tell you we were not to be disturbed." "But what could I say?" asked the insect, humbly. "I couldn't tell her 'not at home.'" "You must say, 'Beg to be excused;' those are the proper words," said my lady. "Yes," added the doctor; "go, there's a good gnat, and sting 'em like sixty, if they don't start quick." Nathaniel obeyed, looking as dignified as ever, though nothing but a strong sense of propriety kept him from smiling. He had not crossed the hall before Mother Hubbard entered the parlor, dragging Fly, who was pinned to her skirts. Mother Hubbard was flushed and excited, her nose dusted with flour, her cap pulled entirely over her forehead; and she was saying, in a loud tone, "I can't take any peace of my life, Fly Clifford, you know I can't, unless I get you fastened somehow." "I don't 'low folks to _fassin_ me," responded Fly, shaking her lace cap in a blaze of wrath; "the next that _fassins_ me, I'll _scwatch who did it_!" It was not at all like either of the children to talk in this way, any more than it was like them to be dressed in such ridiculous costume. The effect upon the lady visitor was quite startling. She started, smiled, rose from her chair, and held out her hand. "Now tell me if this isn't Miss Prudy Parlin. I have seen your picture, my love." What eyes, to spy out a likeness under all the flour and furbelows, not to mention the green spectacles! Prudy quivered like a frightened mouse, but could not get away, for a trap was sprung upon her; a steel-gloved hand was holding her fast. "I am Madam Pragoffyetski, a Polish runaway. You may not have heard of me, but I know all about Prudy and little Thistledown Flyaway." "Nicely, thank you, m'm," responded Miss Fly, in a voice as faint as the peep of a chicken; at the same time darting forward and tearing a piece out of her slip. "If she runned away I'd be 'shamed to tell of it." "How awful for her to come here!" thought Mother Hubbard, stealing a timid glance at the lady's ermine muff. "She looks nice, but I don't want anything to do with such people." "Don't be afraid of me, dears," said the lady, laughing; "I call myself a runaway just in sport. I am a warm admirer of yours, and my dear friend, your auntie, has promised me a visit from you. I came on purpose to ask you, and your sister, and your cousins to my house to dinner to-morrow. Will you come?" Mother Hubbard gazed doubtfully at the steel-colored glove. What could she say? "Thank you ever so much, Mrs.--Mrs. Pradigoff, but Fly is not allowed to go out." Flyaway was greatly chagrined. "Well, I--I _solomon_ promised," said she, casting down her guilty eyes, as she remembered the orange man; "I solomon promised I would't go ou' doors, _athout_ somebody _lets_ me." "There's a tender conscience for you," laughed the Polish lady. "Why was she not to go out, Miss Prudy?" "Because she is so quick-motioned, ma'am. Before you know it she's lost. That's the reason I pinned her to my dress. You see, ma'am, we are playing 'keep house.'" "O, if her quickness is all the trouble, I'll take the responsibility that she shan't get lost. I'll bind her fast with a silken chain. Really, children, my heart is set on your coming. My house is full of things that make a noise--a canary, a paroquet, a mocking-bird, a harp, a piano, and a guitar. And--" Mrs. Pragoff did not add that she had invited a little party to meet them. She was afraid of frightening the timid souls. "Would you like to come, Miss Prudy? Tell me honestly, now." There was no need to ask Fly. She was dancing for joy--the absurd little image. "O, yes'm; I'd be delighted," replied Mother Hubbard, a smile lighting up her face even to the floury tip of her nose. "And I think Horace and Dotty would, too. Shall I go and ask?" Yes, Horace and Dotty were both pleased with the idea. "She's a foreigner," said Prudy, doubtfully; "but she talks our language beautifully. She's a dear friend of auntie's, too." "What I object to," said Horace, "is taking Toddlekins; but I may possibly hire her to stay at home." It was finally decided that Mrs. Pragoff should call next day and take the children to church with her, and thence home to a Christmas dinner. She laughed, as she rolled away in her carriage, thinking what droll figures they were, and how Prudy blinked through her glasses. "So I shan't have to cook but one meal more, and that will be breakfast," thought Mother Hubbard, her tired heart leaping up with something like joy. They sat down to dinner at last. "Tea urn been standing on the table all this while?" asked Dr. Moonshine, resuming his critical manners; "'twould take the tea some time to freeze on here, Mrs. Hubbard, if that is what you're trying to do with it!" Mrs. Hubbard pretended not to hear. "She's blind of her ears, papa; you have to speak loud." "What makes your child's face so red, doctor?" asked the landlady, pouring hot water till it overran the cup; "don't the darling feel well?" "Yes'm, pitty well; only but the white tea gets in my cheeks and makes 'em too hot." "White tea, I should think," remarked Dr. Moonshine; "why, Mother Hubbard, the tea-leaf in your urn must feel rather lonesome." Mother Hubbard took off the cover and peeped in. "None there, as true as you live! I'll jump right up, doctor, and stew two or three handfuls." "Don't rise for me, ma'am; don't rise for me. We'll swallow the will for the deed, ma'am; the will for the deed." "It's always so, doctor," said Lady Magnifico, in an undertone; "we've had to swallow these mistakes from time _immortal_." Her ladyship meant "immemorial." She was surprised at the ease with which she used large words. "All the mistakes are owing to the eccentricity of genius," said the doctor, bowing to Mother Hubbard. "Our landlady is what is called 'absent.' Here's a health to our _absent_ friend." "You'll have to excuse the biscuit," said Mother Hubbard, nervously. "I mixed 'em too tight, and I think the flour's half corn, they look so yellow; it _can't_ be all soda." "I presume not _all_ soda; some mixture of flour and water. But where are they, ma'am?" "O, I put them in the cupboard. I thought you'd like crackers better." "But these are the _mizzerble_ kind, that don't split," said Lady Magnifico, in tragic tones; "I told you so to-day noon." "Stop a minute, Miss Hubbard; my coffee's too sour," cried the youngest, determined to scowl as hard as Dotty did, if it was a possible thing. The worried landlady passed the sugar, and the small boarder corrected the _sourness_ of her white tea with three teaspoonfuls, heaping measure. "My little Toddlekins is eating nothing." said the doctor. "I hope her red cheeks don't indicate fever." "There's great quantities of sickness just now among children," said Lady Magnifico, crooking her little finger genteelly. "_Nervous Exhaustation_ is going about." "Nervous what, my lady?" "_Exhaustation_. I am well acquainted with a lady in the first society that had it dreadfully. She called in twenty-five doctors, if my memory _preserves_ me right; and _then_ she like to died." "You know it for a fact, my lady? I hope it won't come here (or the doctors either). Is it catching, Dr. Moonshine?" "Well, yes, Mother Hubbard; it's apt to catch fine ladies. Goes hard with 'em, too." "Ah me, then I'll never dare go out," drawled Lady Magnifico, looking at her rings. Here Mother Hubbard timidly passed the cake. "White Mountain; but I suspect it's a poor rule." "A poor rule that don't work both ways, hey? If this was ever white, ma'am, 'twasn't a fast color; faded to a rusty black. And as to it's being a mountain, ma'am, it looks to me like a pretty hollow valley." "I'm so sorry, doctor! But your little girl dusted my soda over the cat, and that was why the cake didn't rise." "Just so, ma'am; but did the cat rise?" "O, Dr. Moonshine, I see you're making fun of my cooking. And now I'll tell you something more. I got the butter ready, and forgot to put it in, and that's why the cake's so tough." "Never mind," said the doctor, very amiable as long as he could make his joke. "It is pretty tough cake, ma'am; but it's always tougher where there's none." "There's one thing about it," said Mother Hubbard, a little relieved; "it's sweet in the middle, and you needn't eat the bitter part, where it's burnt." "It's my practice to mix the bitter with the sweet," said the doctor, waving the butter-knife. "In this way, Mother H., your black-valley cake is almost as good as pills." "I ate a pill," observed Fly, "and 'twas worser'n this!" "You ate a pill, child? When? Where? I'll warrant that's what ails you." "No, it don't ail me now. I spitted it out." After nibbling a few crackers, and the inside of the cake, the happy family moved away from the table, hungrier than when they had sat down. "What is home without a mother?" sang Horace, in a plaintive voice; and Dotty joined in, with emphasis. Prudy looked as low-spirited as the "black-valley cake." "I hope Uncle Augustus will be able to come home to-morrow. I declare, we are real cruel not to feel worse about his being sick away off there in a hotel." "You'd better believe he gets things to eat," responded Lady Magnifico, aside to the doctor. "I'd rather be some sick than have a landlady that's purblind and _purdeaf_, and such _owdrageous_ poor cooking! Glad I'm going out to Christmas dinner." CHAPTER VI. PRUDY IN A NEW LIGHT. Mother Hubbard was heated, and tired, and hungry, and cross. It was all very well for a lady boarder to loll on an ottoman, play with her rings, and find fault. It was all very well for a gentleman boarder to fire poor jokes; but they couldn't either of them know how every word cut like a lash. When the doctor said, carelessly, "Some people think themselves great cooks, my lady; but the proof of the pudding's in the eating," why, that speech was "the pin in the end of the lash." Prudy saw now that she had pretended to know a great deal more than she really did. Pretension is very apt to get laughed at. She had always scorned Dotty's self-conceit; but hadn't she shown quite as much herself? Making her auntie suppose she understood cooking, and putting Mrs. Fixfax to all this trouble for nothing? How horrified auntie would be, and the housekeeper too, if they should dream that this little family was starving, with a cook-book lying open on the floor! "But I declare, it's real mean in you two to make fun of me," cried the young landlady, tipping the sugar-basin plump into the dish-tub; "you couldn't get any better supper yourselves, nor half so good; so there!" Surprised at the sharp sound of her own voice, dismayed at sight of the wet sugar, and completely discouraged by the aspect of things in general, Prudy burst out into a sort of frenzy. She was ashamed of herself, but she couldn't stop. "You think I can bear everything--you and Dotty both! People are careful what they say to Dotty, for her temper's just like live coals; but they talk to me, and say anything; anything they've a mind to." "Why, Prue," exclaimed Horace, as astonished as if Mother Hubbard's dog had spoken; "why, Prue!" "Yes, you think it's awful if I speak; but sometimes it seems as if I should bite my tongue out." "Don't, Prudy," exclaimed Dotty, looking on with awe and alarm, as if there had been a sudden eclipse of the sun; "I didn't mean to." "Don't Prudy," said Fly, clutching at the brown dress; "and I'll give you sumpin what I buy." There is an old saying, "Beware the fury of a patient man." Prudy had tried all day to "Smile and smile, While secret wounds were eating at her heart;" but now she could scarcely bear the touch of little Fly's hand. She did not care what she said, if she could only find words bitter enough. "I always have to bear, and bear, and bear. Nobody else does. I've noticed how different it is with Susy. She frets, and then people let her alone. And Dotty, how she tosses up her head like Aunt Martha's horse Lightning-Dodger! Haven't I always pacified Dotty, and humored her? Had to alter the play to suit her. And what does that child know or care, any more than if I was a common sister, that hadn't been giving up, and giving up, and _giving up_, ever since she was born?" Prudy's cap-strings shook violently, her teeth chattered, and the sharp words seemed to rattle out like hail-stones. Horace had never seen her in such a mood, and was half inclined to run away; but when she took her hands down from her face, and he saw how pale she was, his heart was moved. "Come, Prue, you're sick abed; that's what's the matter. Lie down, and let that lazy Dot take off her diamonds, and go to work." Prudy dropped upon the sofa and covered her face with her handkerchief, while Dotty, strange to relate, actually slid the rings off her fingers and thumbs, and began to put away the crackers. "O, dear," thought Prudy, blushing under the cap-border, spectacles, and handkerchief; "what did possess me to talk so? I had been holding in all day; why did I let go? If I ever do let go, I can't stop; and O, how shameful it is!" It seemed as easy for Prudy to be good as for a bird to sing; but it was not so. She had a great deal of human nature, after all. She liked her own way, but she never had it unless Dotty was willing. Was that a pleasant way to live? If you think so, dears, just try it. The secret of Prudy's sweetness was really this: In all trials she was continually saying, under breath, "Please, God, keep me from doing wrong." She had found that was really the only way--the only _safe_ way. "Everybody calls me amiable. They wouldn't if they knew how I have to grit my teeth together to keep from scolding. I like to be called amiable, but nobody'll do it again; and Horace sees now I'm not the girl he thought I was." All Prudy's hail-stones of wrath had melted into tear-drops, and she was sobbing them into her handkerchief. She did not clearly know whether she was crying because she had done wrong, or because Horace would see she "was not the girl he had thought she was." "Bless your dear little soul," said Dr. Moonshine, kneeling before her, while his blue swallow-tails swept the floor, "you've told the truth. Everybody knows Dot's a spitfire, and you're an angel; and she does impose upon you most abominably." Dotty stood staring, with a plate in her hand, too much astonished to defend herself. "And I'm ashamed of firing so many jokes at you, Prue; I am so. I'm a great joker (he meant a great _wit_!), but this is the first time I ever mistrusted you cared--you always take things so like a lamb,--or you'd better believe I wouldn't have done it. For there isn't a girl in the world I like so well as I do you, nor begin to." "O, Hollis," moaned the little one, stirred by sudden jealousy. "Hullelo! I forgot you, Topknot.--You're my heart's jewel; that's generally understood. When I say I like Prue, I mean next after you." The jealous Fly was satisfied, and folded her little wings against Horace's breast. Prudy felt greatly soothed, but her cap-strings were still shaking, and she could not trust her voice to speak. Nothing more was said for some time. Dotty clattered away at the dishes, kitty purred by the stove, and Horace rocked his little sister, who clung about his neck like an everlasting pea. Presently he stopped rocking, and exclaimed,-- "Why, what's the matter with my Toddlekins? What makes her breathe so short?" "My froat's short; that's what is it," replied the little philosopher, closing her eyes, as if she did not choose to talk. "But how does your throat feel, Topknot?" "Feels bad; why?" "Girls, this child has a sore throat, and a high fever. Her hands are as hot as pepper." Dotty wrung the dish-cloth tragically. "She's going to have the measles; you see'f she don't." "Hush!" said Prudy, springing up, and tucking back her sleeves. "Let's give her a warm bath. That's what mother does when we are sick, before ever she sends for the doctor." "I'd _ravver_ have a _turkey-wash_," said Fly, rousing a little, and then dropping her head again. "There, she's lost her senses; I knew she would," said Dotty, walking the floor. "Do stop that, Dot. She has her senses as clear as you have. When she says _turkey-wash_, she means a Turkish bath; it takes me to interpret. She had a very gentle Turkish bath once. Liked it--didn't you, Fly? Can't you rub her real hard with a crash towel, girls? That will be almost as good." "Of course we can," said Prudy, forgetting her gust of indignation entirely; "and what could be nicer than this little bathroom, with the silver faucets and ivory tub. Come, Fly, and have your turkey-wash. 'Twill make you feel a great deal better." After a nice bath, at which Prudy and Dotty presided, the little one was dressed in her nightie, and set on her brother's knee again. "Prudy said I'd feel better to be baved," said she, looking thoughtfully at the gas-light; "but now I was baved, and I don't feel any diffunt; I feel just's I did by-fore." "When can she have taken such a cold?" said Horace; "don't you see, Prue, she can't breathe out of her nose?" Then Fly remembered the orange-man, and something made her face grow red in a minute; but it was not the white tea. "Pitiful about my signess," sighed she, and thought she would never, never tell of her own disobedience. But Horace saw the blush and heard the sigh. "I am glad Fly always minds," said he, looking straight into the little guilty face. "For God sees everything she does," whispered he, solemnly. Horace never spoke of such subjects to other people; you would not suppose they were much in his mind; but to this precious little sister he gave his best thoughts, so far as he could make her understand them. "For God sees everything she does." Fly did not speak for as much as a minute, and then she said, timidly,-- "Hollis, I want to ask you sumpin; does God wear spetticles?" "No, dear; no, indeed." "O, I thought He did." "But He sees us in the light and in the dark, Topknot." The child winced. "Can He see Hisself athout looking in the glass?" "Yes, I suppose so." "Then, when I go up to God, I'll find He has four eyes,--two to see Hisself, and two to see other things. O, dear, I'm so sick, I guess I will go up to God." The housekeeper was listening from the next room. "That child's voice is growing hoarse. I must go and look into this business," thought she. She knocked at the children's door. "I came to ask if I can do anything for you, young ladies." Mrs. Fixfax had heard a great deal of the play, and had been in a state of amusement all day, without seeing the actors; and when she caught sight of them now, she had to twist her mouth very hard, "to keep her teeth in." The magnificent Lady Magnifico, the ridiculous Dr. Moonshine, and the becapped Mother Hubbard, all replied in chorus, "O, yes'm, we were going to ring for you. Do you see what ails the baby." Mrs. Fixfax approached the child in such a tender, motherly way, that Horace was ashamed of having compared her face to "a platter of cold hash." She had a strong, sensible look, as if she were capable of carrying a whole hospital full of children through all sorts of diseases; and Prudy and Horace, who had begun to have an unpleasant feeling of responsibility, were greatly relieved. "You don't think it's anything but a cold--do you, Mrs. Fixfax? I don't know much about sickness." Mrs. Fixfax allowed herself to smile this time, as her eye rested on the Mother Hubbard cap. "No, I don't see anything alarming yet. If this was my child, I should just gargle her throat with salt and water, wrap a pork rind round her neck, and put her to bed." Fly objected to nothing, if she could only sleep with her own brother Hollis. When told she might do so, she tried to clap her hands; but her heart was heavy, and her throat was sore; so all she could do was to kiss him and cry. "And now, my dears, how do you enjoy housekeeping?" asked Mrs. Fixfax, carelessly, as she attended to Fly's throat. "No--ot very much," returned Dr. Moonshine, faintly; for no one else seemed ready to speak. "Rather hard on the head of the family. Don't you say so, Prue?" But Prudy could not answer, on account of a throbbing at the roots of her tongue. "I see you have been taking an early dinner," contined Mrs. Fixfax, very coolly, as if she had no idea the children before her were half starved. "Ye--es'm." "So, perhaps you wouldn't object to going down and finishing off on roast turkey? I ordered the table set for you." "You did? O, thank you, ma'am!" cried Lady Magnifico, ready to throw herself on the housekeeper's neck. "I never object to roast turkey myself," said the doctor, his eyes gleaming with delight. Mother Hubbard said nothing; but she thought she should relish a good dinner as well as her boarders. They all went down but Fly, who was by this time fast asleep in Mrs. Fixfax's arms. "I reckon the servants thought we'd been wrecked on a desert island, by the dash we made at that turkey," whispered Horace, as they returned to the housekeeper's room. "How good you were, Horace Clifford, not to tell Mrs. Fixfax about my awful cooking." "And I didn't tell, either," said Dotty. "But wasn't it _mizzerble_?" As if Mrs. Fixfax didn't know, and wasn't that very minute laughing over the "tight biscuit" and low-spirited cake! CHAPTER VII. A FLY IN TRINITY CHURCH. The children went to bed that night cheered by a remark which Mrs. Fixfax dropped as if by accident. "The cook is to fry buckwheat cakes in the morning. I dare say you would like omelettes, too. Do you drink chocolate?" "She takes it for granted we are going to eat down stairs," thought Prudy. And now her troubles were over. Life bloomed before her once more like a garden of roses. Horace did not rest remarkably well. In the first place, the bed was too warm. Mrs. Fixfax had rolled Fly into a big bundle, with nothing out but the end of her nose, and was toasting her with soapstones. "Buried alive," Horace said, "with gravestones at her head and feet." "I'm all of a _personation_," gasped the child. "My mamma never did me so, Hollis. She gave me little tinty tonty pills,--sugar clear through,--not the big ones Miss Fixfix eats." "Well, lie still, Topknot, and don't roll towards me." For an hour or two Fly lay gasping; then she said, softly,-- "Hollis, Hollis, is He looking now?" "Yes, dear; but don't be afraid of the good God." "I didn't, Hollis, if I wasn't naughty. When I'm good I'm willin' He should look." "Naughty, Topknot?" "Yes, Hollis; I _solomon_ promised I wouldn't go ou' doors; but that new Miss Fixfix, she let me gwout, athout nuffin on my head, 'n' I got a awful cold." "O, little Fly!" "I know it, Hollis. I was defful sorry all the time. I ate ollinges, too; so for course I got the sore froat." "I'm glad you told me, Fly; now I know what ails you. But you mustn't ever disobey again." "Yes, um," said Fly, rolling towards her brother, and crying till the tears ran down on the flannel which was bound around her neck. A few moments after she whispered,-- "Now I don't feel any 'fraid, Hollis; I've telled God. I feel better, 'n' I'm willin' He should look." "Well, then, dear, that's right--go to sleep." "And now, Hollis, do you s'pose He'll send my spirrick back to me?" "What are you talking about, Topknot? Your spirit's in your body, child. Go to sleep." "No, it isn't in my body, too! I want my nice good little spirrick to come back," murmured the child. "Auntie said 'twould stay to me if I's good." Fly was thinking of her unseen guardian angel. It was a troubled night for Horace. Fly waked him no less than three times, to ask him if she had the measles. "No, child, no; don't wake me for that again." "Well, you ought to not go to sleep 'fore I do. You're a fast boy, Hollis!" Morning came, and Fly was rather languid, as might have been expected after such a night. "I don't see," mused Mrs. Fixfax, "where she caught this dreadful cold, unless it was your keeping the room so hot yesterday, children." Fly hid her face in her brother's back hair, for she was riding pickaback down stairs. "And can we go to see that Poland lady?" said Dotty. "If you asked _me_, I answer, No," said Horace, bluntly. "At any rate, Fly mustn't stir a step out of the house to-day." "I didn't ask you, Horace. I asked Mrs. Fixfax. She is the one that has the care of us." "I really don't know what to say about it," replied the housekeeper, hesitating. "We will wait and see how she seems after breakfast." "Rather a cool way of setting my opinion one side," thought Horace, indignantly. Fly ate only two small buckwheat cakes, but seemed lively enough, as she always did when there was a prospect of going anywhere. "I don't suppose it is exactly the thing, after steaming her so," said Mrs. Fixfax, as if talking to herself,--she did not even look at Horace;--"but really I don't know what else to do. I couldn't keep her at home unless the rest of the children staid; and if I did I presume she'd get killed some other way. She's one of the kind that's never safe, except in bed, with the door locked, and the key in your pocket." "Let her manage it to suit herself," thought brother Horace, deeply wounded; "she knows _my_ opinion." When Madam Pragoffyetski came, the housekeeper went down to the parlor to introduce the children--a step which Horace thought highly unnecessary. He was charmed at once with the foreign lady's affable manners, and would have liked to go with her, if only Fly could have been left behind. Mrs. Fixfax explained that the child had been sick, and must be treated like a hot-house plant. "We thought last night she was in danger of her _life_," said Dotty. "You expected she was going to die, Horace; you know you did." "Well, I wasn't going to," returned Fly, coughing. "I knew I should live--I always do live." "What was the matter?" said Mrs. Pragoffyetski, in alarm; for she knew as much about children's ailments as she did about the volcanoes in the sun. "Only a little sore throat," answered the housekeeper, still looking anxious, and not at all sure she was doing right. "Yes'm, sore froat. And Dotty wanted me to have the measles, too; but I wouldn't." "That is right," said Mrs. Pragoffyetski, with a musical laugh. "Indeed, your little cousin was cruel to ask such a thing of you. I'm glad you didn't do it." They took a street-car, and Dotty pressed her face against a window, expecting to see gay sights all the way. But no; the shops had their eyes shut. Yesterday how quickly everybody had moved! Now, men and women were walking quietly along, and there was no confusion anywhere. "How strange!" said Prudy. "I should think it was Sunday, only the boys are blowing tin trumpets." "Yes; and the babies are going to visit their grandmammas," said Mrs. Pragoff; "look at the one in the corner in its nurse's arms, with a point-lace bib under its chin. That pretty blanket, embroidered so heavily, must weigh more than the baby." Dotty kept her gaze steadily fixed on the streets. "It seems so funny for a steeple to be _preceding_ from the middle of those stores. 'Tisn't a very pious place for a church!" "Now I hope Dotty isn't going to be pert," thought Prudy. "I know what street that is, down there," added Miss Dimple, jumping out of the car with both feet; "that is Wall Street. Did they use to have walls both sides of it? Horace, you scared me so yesterday, I like to screamed. You said there were bulls and bears growling all the way along; but there wasn't a single bear, only a stuffed one sitting on top of a store, and he wasn't alive, and not on this street either." Here Prudy gave her sister's little finger a squeeze, which was meant for "hush;" but Dotty never could understand why it was not proper at all times to say what she had on her mind, especially when people listened so politely as this Polish lady. "Mrs.--Mrs. Pragoff-yetski, I hope you'll excuse me, but I can't remember your name." "That is it; you have it exactly; but never mind about the last part, my love. Pragoff is enough." "Yes'm.--Well, I was going to ask you, Mrs. Yetski, will you please sit between me and Fly when we go into church? O, you don't know how funny she acts, or you never'd dare take her. I wouldn't laugh in church for anything in this world; but Fly always makes me." "Does she, indeed! Ah me, that is very unfortunate!" said the queenly lady, looking down on little Miss Toddlekins as if she were actually afraid of her. She took care to put Dotty out of harm's way, by placing the untamable Fly between Horace and Prudy. The interior of Trinity Church was so magnificent, the Christmas decorations so fresh and beautiful, and the service so imposing, that no one thought of such a thing as smiling. "How could I have been so impatient, yesterday?" thought Prudy, as she listened to the plaintive chant, "He was a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief." "Why, if you only think of that, how our Saviour had trouble every minute, it doesn't seem as if it makes so much difference whether we people and children have a good time or not." Here, as they were about to seat themselves at the close of the chant, Fly, who, in spite of her brother's warnings, had been tilting back and forth on a stool, suddenly tipped forward, and hit her nose furiously. Blood flowed from the wound; and the sight of it, together with the pain, made the child frantic. She forgot where she was and screamed. Poor Mrs. Pragoffyetski! Though a good woman in the main, she was rather proud of appearances, and had just been thinking the four children did her credit. But now! The shrill cry of distress called everybody's attention to her pew. The whole audience were looking up from their prayer-books in astonishment. "Tut, tut! My dear! My love! Hush, my babe, lie still,--O, can't you stop crying?" Horace, too, was trying to quiet the child; but Fly sincerely believed she was bleeding to death; so what did she care for proprieties? "O, my shole!" piped she aloud, plunging both hands into the stream of blood, and afterwards into her hair. Thus, by the time Mrs. Pragoff and Horace got her into the aisle, she looked as if she had been murdered. "I wish I was twenty-one," thought Horace, bitterly. "Mrs. Fixfax had no business steaming this child. I believe it has gone to her brain." The party of five marched out of church, for Mrs. Pragoff did not wish to make a second sensation by coming back after Prudy and Dotty. "I never go with Fly but I get mortified," thought Miss Dimple; "and now, O dear, I shan't hear those Christmas chimes!" But Prudy was thinking how sorry she was for Mrs. Pragoff and Horace. They all went into a druggist's, and, after a few minutes spent in the use of a sponge and water, poor Fly ceased to look like a murdered victim, but very much like a marble image. When they reached Mrs. Pragoff's, she was placed on a sofa, and for once in her life lay still. Horace bent over her with the wildest anxiety, thinking some terrible crisis was coming. As soon as she felt a little better, she began to cry. "O, darling, what is it?" said he, glad to see her in motion once more. "Cause my Uncle 'Gustus is sick." "Poh," said Dotty; "crying about that? See! _I_ don't cry." "Well, you don't love Uncle 'Gustus so hard as I do," said Fly, with another burst. Mrs. Pragoff looked on with interest, and tried to remember whether she had ever heard that children shed tears when they were "coming down" with scarlet fever. This elegant mansion was a very interesting place to visit. To say nothing of things which "made a noise," there was no end of curiosities from the four quarters of the globe; and Mrs. Pragoff was so truly well-bred that the children soon felt at home. Dotty was deeply engaged in examining a sea-horse, when Prudy suddenly whispered,-- "Dotty, what did you do last night with those two rings?" "Rings? What rings?" Then a look of absolute terror spread over Dotty's face. She remembered slipping off her auntie's rings when she washed the dishes; but where had she put them? "Why, Prudy, I _persume_ I left 'em in--in--where I ought to leave 'em." "O, I'm glad you did," returned Prudy, quite satisfied, for she was listening with one ear to the liquid notes of "The Wandering Sprite." "Why didn't Prudy Parlin ask me before?" thought Dotty, in much agitation; "and then I could have gone all round and looked to see if I'd put them in the right place." [Illustration: "DOTTY DIMPLE, YOU HERE?"] CHAPTER VIII. DOTTY'S WINDPIPE. It mattered little to Dotty, after this, what happened. She cared nothing about the elegant masters and misses who dropped in to dinner, though Prudy was too frightened to speak; nothing about the paroquets, and dried butterflies, and Japanese canoes she pretended to look at; nothing about the chatting and laughing, and very little about the Christmas plum-pudding, the oyster-pies, and ice cream. Dotty had no heart for any of these things. She was thinking continually, "Where are those rings?" Fly did not dine, and Dotty had begged to stay with her. "No," said Mrs. Pragoff, patting Miss Dimple's cheek with her dainty hand, which did not look as if it had ever been soiled with anything coarser than rose leaves; "I am glad to see you so kind to your dear little cousin; but she is asleep on my bed, and does not need you." Prudy sat at her hostess's right hand, and in spite of her bashfulness, was as happy a child as ever broke a wish-bone. No one who has not had the care of a family can imagine the relief she felt now the cooking was off her mind. But Dotty was wringing her hands under the table-cloth, and thinking, "I don't want to see anybody. My heart is certainly broken." "Why, Dot, what's the matter? What are you scowling at so?" said Horace, in a low tone. Upon that Dotty began to smile. No one must know her heart was broken, for fear the question might arise, "What broke it?" Of course her smile was a make-believe, nothing more nor less than a simper. The large boy across the table looked at her in surprise. "Handsome as a picture," thought he, "but no brains." "O, my sorrows! What'll I do? I can't remember whether I put those rings in my blue pocket, or carried 'em up stairs. Seems to me I dropped 'em in a salt-cellar. No; I thought I'd lay 'em in a book, but we flew round so when Fly was sick, that I shouldn't wonder if they got into the wood-box." All the while Dotty went on simpering and saying, "If you please, sir," every time a dish was passed her. Her singular behavior surprised Horace, and when she took three olives, which she very much disliked, and immediately afterwards tucked them under her plate, he said,-- "Dot, I believe you are crazy." It was an unfortunate remark. A little more, and there would have been a scene at the table; but Dotty, with all her self-control, forced back the tears. "Wonder if he wanted to make me cry," thought she; "but I won't cry. And he needn't think he can make me 'mad' either. S'pose I'd show temper right before these people?" On the whole, Dotty contrived to keep up appearances, and no one but Horace and the youth opposite noticed her much, or suspected her of being an idiot. But the moment dinner was over, she stole away from the party, and found her way up-stairs to Mrs. Pragoff's room. There, on the outside of the bed, lay Fly, half undressed, and still very pale. "Gas-light makes folks look _gas_-ly," thought Dotty, "but she isn't much sick, or Horace wouldn't have eaten any dinner. There, when I first got a peek at this bed-quilt, I thought it was so queer; and now I'm going to see what it's made of." Instead of a common coverlet, the bed was adorned with two enormous crimson satin cushions stuffed with swan's down. The cushion on the lower half of the bed was two feet deep, to cover the lower part of the body, and the one at the upper part not quite so thick, for it was to cover the shoulders. Then a sheet of the finest linen was turned over at the top and sides, and buttoned on to the cushions. The pillows were of crimson silk, the bedstead enormously high, and carved all over with figures of gods and goddesses. Dotty stood gazing with surprise, and almost forgetting her trouble. "She must have brought it over from Poland when she ran away, only it's so heavy. But then I don't s'pose she ran on foot. Came in the night, in the cars, prob'ly. Poland's up by the North Pole. I'm going to ask auntie about it." But the moment auntie came into her thoughts Dotty was wretched again. She went to a window, drew back the damask curtain, and gazed out. "The night came on alone, The little stars sat, one by one, Each on his golden throne." "Those stars twinkle like auntie's rings. Let's see: one was full of little pieces of glass, about as big as raspberry seeds. I shouldn't think glass would cost much. And the other was red, like a drop of blood, with ice frozen over it. That can't be so expensive, should you think, as a string of beads?" Dotty tried hard to comfort herself, but could not stay comforted. "You don't s'pose auntie's jewels cost more than my papa is worth? How he must feel to be so poor! If he has to pay for those rings, we shan't get enough to eat. Have to live on crackers and olives. And when we come to the table, father will look at me, and say, 'This is on the account of your naughty conduct, child!' O, dear! I can't speak one word, for it will be true, what he says. Grandma Read will have enough to eat; Norah will set it on her end of the table. Grandma is rich; I've seen her counting over bills in her desk; but how could I ask her for any, when she'd look right in my eyes, and say, 'What was thee doing with other folks' rings on thy thumbs?' "Well, I know 'twasn't right; but 'twas Prudy's fault some. If she hadn't told me not to so hard, I _persume_ I shouldn't. What made her speak up, and get me started? "O, did you ever see such a beautiful string of beads? One, two, three,--I guess there are a thousand." Dotty threw the necklace over her head, and the air became as fragrant as a garden of spices. "I don't mean to meddle with other peoples' things any more; mother has taught me better. But there's one thought keeps coming into my mind: Isn't it wicked to have so much jewelry? The 'postles didn't wear any, nor Job didn't wear any, nor Moses. "Well, nor auntie don't, either. Nothing but a watch and wedding-ring. Horace says that's so queer. "Now, what's the use of it, just to lock up away from the _morths_? I don't believe auntie knows how many rings there were in that casket!" This was a new idea. Dotty's eyes began to sparkle. They would have made a jeweller's fortune if he could have put them in a gold setting, and sold them for sapphires. "The rings are somewhere round. I'm sure I can find them; but if I can't, will it be very wrong not to tell, when 'twouldn't make the least difference, and auntie never wears 'em? Ought never to have 'em at all; ought to have the ornaments of meek and quiet spirits, instead of rings. "Prudy would think 'twas awful not to tell; but Prudy can't say anything to me. Didn't she get mad yesterday, real, shaky mad? 'Twas a great deal wickeder for her than it is for me--her disposition is real good, and mine was born awful. So Prudy can't say a word to me about anything I do. "And I declare, who wants to eat olives and fried pork? Prudy wouldn't like it any better'n I do. She would _think_ she'd tell, but p'haps she wouldn't any quicker'n me. "All just for two old rings, that never did me any good, and didn't have much of a time keeping house, either." "Dotty Dimple, you here?" said Prudy, appearing at her sister's elbow, like an accusing angel. "Why, I've been hunting you all over the house. You mustn't wear that on your neck; it is a rosary; it doesn't belong to you." "Prudy little knows how my heart's broken," thought Dotty, "or she wouldn't talk about beads. And me wanting to go home so I could 'most fly, just to find those rings." "I have been hunting for you," repeated Prudy. "Mrs. Pragoff sent a man over to Uncle Augustus's to find out whether they came to-night in the cars; but they didn't. There was a letter that uncle wasn't able; but they'll come to-morrow afternoon." "That's splendid," thought Dotty; "now I'll have to-night and all to-morrow forenoon to hunt." "And then Mrs. Pragoff said we might just as well stay here all night as to go home," continued Prudy. "O, dear, dear! we're not going to stay here. Prudy Parlin? Why didn't you come and ask if I was willing?" "I did hunt for you, Dotty, but I couldn't find you. I thought you'd like to stay. They are playing so beautifully down stairs. I'm just proud of Horace; he acts like a little gentleman." "I don't care how Horace acts, and I don't want to play with people that have their hair frizzed. I want to go back to auntie's.' "But you can't, Dotty. Mrs. Pragoff has sent to Mrs. Fixfax for our night-dresses." Dotty rolled herself up in the curtain, and screamed into the folds of it. "Why, Dotty, what am I going to do with you? Please come down, and behave." "O, Prudy, I don't want ever to go down again. I don't want ever to see folks, or behave, as long as I live." "But, Dotty, all these little boys and girls came here just to see us. It is our Christmas party. You'll mortify Mrs. Pragoff. You know how Fly mortified her this morning. Please _don't_ be contrary." Dotty unrolled herself from the curtain with a triumphant smile. "You needn't say anything, Prudy Parlin! You got mad your own self, I s'pose you know!" Prudy's eyes dropped suddenly. "But, Dotty, why do you want to go back to auntie's to-night?" "I want to go for something particular. I--" Prudy's mouth was opening for another question. "Because I---I've swallowed something the wrong way." "O Dotty, not a pin!" "No; what you s'pose? Guess I've done something to my windpipe. Wish you wouldn't talk." Prudy, in spite of her vexation, could not help smiling at Dotty's fierce grimaces, of which she got a vanishing view as the child went into the curtain again. "If we don't go home, Prudy, I'll have to go right to bed. I don't feel like sitting up." "Then I must ask Mrs. Pragoff where we are to sleep." And next minute Prudy was half way down stairs, thinking,-- "What's gone wrong? I never can find out by asking _her_. She don't think or care how impolite she is, and how hard she makes it for me." It was a very brilliant party, composed of some of the most refined and accomplished little people in the city of New York. Such fine dresses and such die-away manners overawed Prudy. She did wish her mamma had sent a thin summer dress in the trunk. It was dreadful to have to wear woollen, high-necked and long-sleeved. It cost her a great effort to cross the room. She felt as awkward as a limping grasshopper in a crowd of butterflies. But reaching her hostess at last, she timidly whispered,-- "My sister _says_ she isn't very well, Mrs. Pragoff, and that's why she stays up stairs. If you please, perhaps she'd better go to bed." Prudy was very much ashamed to say this; but politeness required her to make some excuse for wayward Dotty's behavior. Of course Mrs. Pragoff went up stairs at once. At the sound of her steps, and the words, "You poor, forlorn little dear," Dotty came out of the curtain, looking as miserable as could be desired. "I am so sorry, darling! I wished you to become acquainted with these nice little gentlemen and ladies." "But I--I--it hurts me to talk, ma'am." "_Your_ throat, too? O, my love!" cried Mrs. Pragoff, seeing a dreadful vision, with her mind's eye, of two cases of scarlet fever. She was a childless widow, and children puzzled as well as interested her. She did not know what to make of Dotty's confused statement that she "wasn't sick and wasn't well," but undressed and put her to bed as if she had been six months old, resolving to send for the doctor in the morning. "What have you on your neck, precious? O, that rosary. It is one of my curiosities. Do you fancy it?" "Here is the box in which it belongs. I give you the box and the beads, my charming dear, for a Christmas present and a consolation. See the card at the bottom of the box:-- "'Life is a rosary, Strung with the beads of little deeds Done humbly, Lord, as unto Thee.' "I hope your life will be the most beautiful of rosaries, darling, and all your little deeds as lovely as these beads. "And now, good night, and may the Christ-Child give you your dreams." As soon as Dotty was alone, she covered her head with the bed-clothes, and made up faces. She wished she could push herself through the footboard, and come out at Portland. She never wished to set eyes on the city of New York again, or anybody that lived in it. CHAPTER IX. TWO LIVE CHILDREN. As Dotty lay tossing on her bed, she heard the laughing, and the lively music of the piano, and began to find she had missed a great deal by not going down stairs. Horace and Prudy were getting a taste of fashionable society. True, Prudy did tire of the fixed questions, "How do you like New York? Have you been in the Park?" asked by girls in pink, and girls in blue, and boys in wondrous neck-ties, with hair parted very near the middle. She was astonished when Mrs. Pragoff proposed games. How could such exquisite children play without tearing their flounces and deranging their criêped hair? But games were a relief to Prudy. When she was playing she forgot her thick winter dress, and appeared like herself. "I don't believe Dotty can get to sleep in all this noise. Here's a nice chance to slip out, and I'll run up and see." She was not quite sure of the room, but the words, "Is that you, Prudy?" in an aggrieved voice, showed her the way. "How do you feel, darling?" "Feel? How'd _you_ feel going to bed right after dinner?" "But you said you were sick." "Well, yes; my--windpipe; but that's done aching. I can talk now. You get my clothes, and I'll dress and go down stairs." "Why, Dotty, I've excused you to Mrs. Pragoff, and it wouldn't be polite to go now." "Why not? Mother went down once with her head tied up in vinegar. Besides, it shakes me all over to hear such a noise. And it's not polite to stay away when the party's some of it for me." Prudy resigned herself to this new mortification, and helped the child dress. Dotty went down stairs with such an appearance of restored health, that Mrs. Pragoff was quite relieved, and gave up her fear of scarlet fever. But Miss Dimple's friends were all sorry, half an hour afterwards, that she had not staid in bed. Among other games, they played "Key to Unlock Characters;" and here she proved herself anything but polished in her manners. The key coming to her as "the girl with the brightest eyes," she was told, in a whisper, to give it to the person of whom she had such or such an opinion. The little boys were interested to know which one of them would get it, for it was usually considered a compliment. But Dotty did not notice any of the boys; she quickly stepped up to a young girl with frizzes of hair falling into her eyes, and gay streamers of ribbons flying abroad. Little miss took the key with an affected smile and a shake of her shaggy locks, never doubting she was receiving a great honor. But when, at the close of the game, the players explained themselves, Mallie Lewis was startled by these words from the little Portland girl:-- "I was told to give the key to the most horrid-looking person in the room, and _I did so_!" Dotty had not stopped to reflect that "the truth should not be spoken at all times," and is often out of place in games of amusement. But to do her justice, she was ashamed of her rudeness the moment the words were spoken. Prudy was blushing from the roots of her hair to the lace in her throat. "Why hadn't Dotty given the key to Horace or herself? Then nobody would have minded." Ah, Prudy, your little sister, though more brilliant than you are, has not your exquisite tact. Mrs. Pragoff tried to laugh off this awkward blunder, but did not succeed. The moment Dotty could catch her ear, she said, in a low tone,-- "I'm so sorry, Mrs. Pragoff-yetski. Will it do any good to go and tell her she made me think of a Shetland pony?" Mrs. Pragoff laughed, and thought not. But afterwards she took Mallie into a corner to show her some "seven-years" African flowers, and said,-- "Mallie, dear, I wish you wouldn't veil those bright eyes under such fuzzy little curls. That was why you got the key. Dotty Dimple isn't used to seeing young ladies look like Shetland ponies." Mallie's face brightened, or that part of it which was in sight. O, it was only her hair the country child called horrid! After this she actually allowed Dotty to sit beside her on the sofa, and look at the fan which Mrs. Pragoff said Marie Antoinette had once owned. Miss Dimple was remarkably polite and reserved. "Safe as long as she stays in a corner," thought Horace; and he took care to keep her supplied with books and pictures. He enjoyed the party, not being overawed, as poor Prudy was. Wasn't he as good as any of them? Better than most, for he didn't have to use an eye-glass. "These fellows are got up cheap. What do hair-oil and perfumery amount to?" The boys, in their turn, looked at Horace, and decided he was "backwoodsy." Nobody who sported a silver watch could belong to the "first circles." However, when he allowed himself to be "Knight of the Whistle," and hunted for the enchanted thing which everybody was blowing, and found at last it was dangling down his own back from a string, and they were all laughing at him, he was manly enough not to get vexed. That carried him up several degrees in every one's esteem. In his own, too, I confess. As for Prudy, the girls could not help seeing she had no style; but the boys liked her, for all that. If they had only known what their hostess thought, there would have been some surprise. "These little misses look to me like bonnet flowers made out of book-muslin. Prudy, now, is a genuine, fresh moss rose bud. There is no comparison, you dear little Prudy, between artificial and natural flowers!" Mrs. Pragoff was called a "finished lady." She was acquainted with some of the best people in Europe and America. What could she see in Prudy? The child was not to be compared with these exquisite little creatures, who had maids to dress them, and foreign masters come to their houses and teach them French, music, and dancing. Why, Prudy did not know French from Hebrew; she had only learned a few tunes on the piano, and could not sing "operatic" to save her life; her dancing was generally done on one foot. What was the charm in Prudy? Just one thing--_Naturalness_. She was not made after a pattern. "It was a great risk inviting them here, and that youngest one seems very delicate; but let what will happen, I make a note of this: I have seen four live children." Live children indeed! And here comes one of them now--the unaccountable Fly, darting into the room very unexpectedly, rubbing her eyes as she runs. "Why, Topknot!" cried Horace, making a dash upon her; for her frock was unfastened, and slipping off at the shoulders, and her head looked like a last year's bird's nest. "Scusa me," whispered the "live child," very much astonished to see such a crowd. "But you ought not to come down here half undressed, you little midget!" "What if I wanted to ask you sumpin?" stammered the child, more alarmed by her brother's sternness than by the fire of strange eyes. "'Spec' I mus' have my froat _goggled_; have some more _poke-rime_ round it, Hollis!" added she, in a tone loud enough to be heard by half the party. Think of mentioning "poke-rime" in fashionable society! "Tell her she must dance 'Little Zephyrs,' or you'll send her right back," suggested Prudy, who was famous for thinking of the right thing at the right time, and so making awkward affairs pass off well. "Yes, Fly, come out in the floor, and dance 'Little Zephyrs' this minute, or you must go back to bed." Anything for the sake of staying down stairs. Hardly conscious of the strange faces about her, the child flew into the middle of the room, rubbed some more sleep out of her eyes, and began to sing,-- "Little zephyrs, light and gay, First to tell us of the spring." She seemed to float on air. There was not a bit of her body that was not in motion, from the tuft of hair a-top of her head to the soles of her twinkling boots. Now here, now there, head nodding, hands waving, feet flying. "Encore," cried the delighted hostess. "Please, darling, let us hear that last verse again." Mrs. Pragoff was curious to know what sort of jargon she made of the lines,-- "Where the modest violets grow, And the fair anemone." Fly repeated it with an exquisite sweetness which charmed the whole house:-- "Where the modest _vilets_ grow, And the _fairy men no more know me_." "The fairies do all know you, darling." exclaimed Mrs. Pragoff, kissing her rapturously. "Your feet are more light than a faery's feet, Who dances on bubbles where brooklets meet." "There! Dancing on bubbles!" said Prudy aside to Horace. "That's just what I always wanted to call it, but never knew how." On the whole it was a pleasant evening, and Mrs. Pragoff had no reason to regret having given the little party. Everybody went to bed happy but Dotty, who could not shut her eyes without seeing the blaze of two rings, which burned into her brain. CHAPTER X. RIDING ON JACK FROST. Fly slept in a little cot beside her hostess's bed. Mrs. Pragoff, poor lady, reclined half the night on her elbow, watching the child's breathing; but, to her inexpressible relief, nothing happened that was at all alarming. Fly only waked once in the night, and asked in a drowsy tone, "Have I got a measle?" But just as Mrs. Pragoff was enjoying a morning nap, a pair of little feet went pricking over the floor, towards the girls' room, but soon returned, and a sweet young voice cried,-- "O, Miss Perdigoff, I can't wake up Dotty!" "Can't wake her, child!" "No'm, I can't; nor Prudy can't: we can't wake up Dotty." Mrs. Pragoff roused at once, with a new cause for alarm. "Why, what does this mean? Did you try hard to wake her?" "Yes'm; I shaked her." Mrs. Pragoff now remembered, with terror, that there had been a little trouble with Dotty's windpipe. Could she have choked to death? Rising instantly, she threw on her wrapper, and was hurrying across the passage, when Fly added,-- "'Haps she'll let _you_ wake her; she wouldn't let me 'n' Prudy." "You little mischief, is that what you mean? She won't _let_ you wake her?" "No'm, she won't," replied artless Fly; "she said she wouldn't be _bovvered_." Mrs. Pragoff went to bed again, laughing at her own folly. Dotty, it seems, was feeling very much like a bitter-sour apple. It had always been a peculiarity of hers to visit her own sins upon other people. Prudy did not suspect in the least what the matter was, but knew, from experience, it was safest to ask no questions. "I'm going back to auntie's, this morning." "Why, Dotty, Uncle Augustus and auntie won't be home till night. Mrs. Pragoff said she would take us to the Park and the Museum, you know." "I don't care how much you go to parks and museums, Prudy; I want to be at home long enough to get my hair brushed and put away my things." Prudy looked up in surprise; but the rousing-bell sounded, and both the little girls had as much as they could do to get ready for breakfast. When Mrs. Pragoff met them in the parlor, she saw two lovely dimples playing in Dotty's cheeks; for the child was old enough, and had pride enough, to conceal her disagreeable feelings from strangers. All very well, only she might have carried the concealment a little farther, and spared poor Prudy much discomfort. Not that Prudy thought of complaining,--for really her younger sister's temper was greatly improved. For a year or two she had scarcely been known to get seriously angry, and Prudy did not mind a sharp retort now and then, or even an hour's sulks. While Dotty sipped her chocolate from a cup so delicate that it looked like a gilded bubble, she was wondering how she could get home. She did not know the way, and could not ask any one to go with her without making up an excuse. "I could say I am sick, but that wouldn't be true, and me eating muffins and honey. I'm afraid 'twasn't quite true last night. I did feel rather funny, though, in my windpipe, now honest." There seemed to be no other way but to wait and go home with the rest of the children. Dotty tried to think there might be time enough, after all, to find the rings. They started for the Park. "May I depend upon you, Master Horace, to take the entire charge of your little sister!" said Mrs. Pragoff, fastening her ermine cloak with fingers which actually trembled; "I confess I haven't the courage; and I see you understand managing her perfectly." Of course Horace always expected to take care of Topknot. He would gladly have done a much harder thing for a lady who was so polite, and appreciated him so well. Mrs. Pragoff gave a hand to Prudy and Dotty, saying gayly, as they all five took a car for the Park,-- "'Sound the trumpet, beat the drum; Tremble, France; we come! we come!'" There was just enough snow to whiten the ground, but none to spare. Everybody was determined to make the most of it while it lasted, and the Park was full of people sleigh-riding. It was really a wonderful sight. There were miles and miles of sleighs of all sorts, shaped like sea-shells, cradles, boats, water-lilies, or any other fanciful things. The people in them were so gay with various colors, that they looked like long lines of rainbows. Many of the horses had silver-mounted harnesses, and on their necks stood up little silver trees, branching out into sleigh-bells, and sprinkling the air with merry music. "See, children, let us ride in this beautiful sleigh; it is shaped like a Spanish gondola, and we ought to have music as we float." "Fly can sing the 'Shepherd's Pipe coming over the Mountains,'" said Dotty; and forthwith the child began to warble the softest, sweetest music from her wonderful little throat. Dotty queried privately why it should be called the shepherd's _pipe_: how could a shepherd smoke while he sang? "O, how beautiful!" said everybody, when the music ceased. They meant that everything was beautiful. The air was so balmy, and the sky so soft, that you might fancy the sun was walking in his sleep, writing his dreams on the white clouds. "Splendid!" exclaimed Fly, forgetting, perhaps, that she was not a flying-fish, and trying to dive head first out of the gondola. "Tell me, children, if you don't think our Park is very fine?" "Yes'm," was the faint reply in chorus. "Why don't you say, 'We never saw the like before?'" "O, we have, you know, ma'am," said Prudy; "it's just like riding round Willow-brook." "Fie! don't tell me there's anything so beautiful in Maine! I expect you to be enchanted every step of the way. Look at this pond, with, the swans sailing on it." "O, yes; those are beauties," cried Dotty; "I never saw any but cotton flannel ones before. But do you think the pond is as pretty as Bottomless Pond, Prudy, where Uncle Henry goes for pitcher-plants?" "You prosy little creature," said Mrs. Pragoff, laughing; "I am afraid you don't admire these picturesque rocks and tree-stumps as you should." Dotty thought this was certainly a jest. "Pity there's so many. Why don't they hire men to dig 'em up by the roots?" Horace smiled on Dotty patronizingly. "They'll do it some time, Dot. The Park is new. Things can't be finished in a minute, even in New York." Mrs. Pragoff smiled quietly, but was too polite to tell Horace the rocks had been brought there as an ornament, at great expense. "I like the Park, if it isn't finished," said Prudy, summoning all her enthusiasm; "I know you'll laugh, Horace, but I like it better for the rocks; they make it look like home." The ride would have seemed perfect to everybody; only a wee sleigh passed them, drawn by a pair of goats, and Fly thought at once how much better a "goat-hossy" must be than a "growned-up hossy, that didn't have no horns." She thought about it so much, that at last she could contain herself no longer. "There was little girls in that pony-sleigh, Miss Perdigoff, with a boy a-drivin.' 'Haps they'd let me go, too, if _you_ asked 'em, Miss Perdigoff. My mamma don't 'low me to trouble nobody, and I shan't; only I thought I'd let you know I wanted to go, Miss Perdigoff." Mrs. Pragoff laughed heartily, and thought Fly should certainly have a ride, "ahind the goat-horses;" but it was not possible, as the cunning little sleigh was engaged for hours in advance. A visit to the Zoological Gardens comforted the little one, however, after she got over her first fear of the animals. There they saw a vulture, like a lady in a cell, looking sadly out of a window, the train of her grey and brown dress trailing on the ground. Horace thought of Lady Jane Grey in prison. There was a white stork holding his red nose against his bosom, as if to warm it. A red macaw peeling an apple with his bill. Brown ostriches, like camels, walking slowly about, as if they had great care on their minds. Green monkeys biting sticks and climbing bars. A spotted leopard, licking his feet like a cat. A fierce panther, looking out of a window in the same discontented mood as the vulture. "See him stoop down," said Dotty; "he makes as much bones of himself as he can." A horned owl, with eyes like auntie's when she looks "'stonished." An eagle, with a face, Horace said, like a very cute lawyer. A "speckled bear," without any spectacles. A "nelephant" like a great hill of stone, and a baby "nelephant," with ears like ruffled aprons. An anaconda that "kept making a dandelion of himself." A great grizzly bear hugging a young grizzly daughter. "Who made that _grizzle_?" asked Fly, disgusted. "God." "Why did He? I wouldn't!--Miss Perdegoff, which does God love best, great ugly _grizzles_ or hunkydory little parrots?" "O, fie!" said Mrs. Pragoff, really shocked; "where did a well-bred child like you ever hear such a coarse word as that?" "Hollis says hunkydory," replied Fly, with her finger in her mouth, while Horace pretended to be absorbed in a monkey. Mrs. Pragoff turned the subject. "Tell me, children, which do you consider the most wonderful animal you have ever seen?" "The lion," replied Prudy. "The whale," said Dotty. "Which do you, Mrs. Pragoff?" "This sort of animal, that _thinks_," replied the lady, touching Dotty's shoulder: "this shows the most amazing power of all." "You don't mean to call me an animal," said Dotty, with a slight shade of resentment in her voice. "Why, little sister, I just hope you're not a vegetable! Don't you know we are all animals that breathe?" "O, are we? Then I don't care," said Dotty, and serenely followed the others up stairs, "where the dried things were." Next they went to Wood's Museum, and saw greater wonders still. The "Sleeping Beauty," dreaming of the Prince, with lips just parted and breath very gently coming and going. Dotty would not believe at first that her waxen bosom palpitated by clockwork. There were distorted mirrors, which Horace held Flyaway up to peep into, that he might enjoy her bewilderment when she saw her face twisted into strange shapes. The Cardiff Giant, which Horace said "you might depend upon was a hoax." An Egyptian dromedary, which Fly "just knew" had a sore throat; and a stuffed gorilla in "buffalo coat and leather gloves." Then they had a lunch at Delmonico's, quite as good, Prudy admitted, "as what you found in Boston." After this, to Dotty's dismay, they went to the Academy of Design, and criticised pictures. The statue of Eve Horace regarded with some contempt. "No wonder she didn't know any better than to eat the apple! What do you expect of a woman with such a small head as that? Look here who do you suppose was Eve's shoemaker? Cain?" "Shoemaker? Why, Horace, she's barefoot." "So she is, now, Dot; but she's worn shoes long enough to cramp her toes." "Strange I never noticed that before," said Mrs. Pragoff. "I think the sculptor ought to know your criticism, Master Horace." "She's a woman that understands what a boy is worth," thought Horace, very much flattered. "Tell you what, I never saw a more sensible person than Mrs. Pragoff." "Now, dears, shall we go to Stewart's?" "O, no'm; please don't," cried Dotty. "Because," added she, checking herself, "their curtains are all down; and don't you s'spose Mr. Stewart and the clerks have gone off somewhere?" Mrs. Pragoff laughed, but, concluding the child was very tired, proposed going home; and, to Dotty's great joy, they started at once. "I shall so grieve to part with you!" said Mrs. Pragoff, as they went along. "I wish you were mine to keep, every soul of you." But Dotty noticed that while she spoke she was looking at Prudy. CHAPTER XI. THE JEWEL CABINET. Alas for the diamond and the ruby rings! New York is "a city of magnificent distances," and by the time the children were safely at home, there was a great stir through the house. Colonel Allen and wife had come. Too late now to think of hunting for anything. "Where are my little folks?" rang Uncle Augustus's cheery voice through the hall; and in he came, not looking ill in the least. His eyes were as black as ever, and he carried just as much flesh on his tall, large frame. Somehow, he cheered one's heart like an open fire. So did Aunt Madge. There wasn't so much of her in size, but there was what you might call a "warm tone" over her whole face, which made you think of sunshine and fair weather. So in walked "an open fire" and a "ray of sunshine," and "took off their things." Of course there were laughing and kissing; and Fly, without being requested, hugged Uncle 'Gustus like a little "grizzle." "Sorry I cried so 'bout you bein' sick. Didn't 'spect you'd get well." "Beg pardon for disappointing you. How many tears, did you waste, little Crocodile? Why, children, you're as welcome, all of you, as crocuses in spring. But no; it's you who should bid _us_ welcome. I understand you are keeping house, and auntie and I have come visiting?" "O, no, no, no," cried Prudy; "we've got all over that; and I tell you, auntie, now you've come home, I feel as if an elephant had rolled right off my heart." "Why, I hope nothing serious has happened," said Mrs. Allen, looking at the pile of nutshells Fly had just dropped on the carpet, and at Dotty's cloak, which lay beside Horace's cap on the piano-stool. "Yes'm, there is sumpin happened," spoke up Fly from the floor, where she sat with "chestnuts in her lap, and munched, and munched, and munched." "I've had the fever, but I didn't die in it." "She wasn't much sick, auntie; but it frightened us. Mrs. Fixfax rolled her up six yards deep in blankets, and we thought 'what is home without a mother?' And then, you see, I didn't know the least thing about cooking, for all I pretended. I tell you, auntie, it's very different not to have anybody to ask how to do things." "Such messes, you ought to seen 'em, auntie," struck in Dotty, without the least pity. "Pshaw! we didn't starve, nor anywhere near it," cried Horace. "I wouldn't say anything, Dot, for Prue worked like a Trojan, and you dawdled round with rings on your thumbs." At the mention of rings, Dotty blushed, and stole a glance at Mrs. Allen. "See, auntie," said she, taking off her rosary, "this is my Christmas present; but it doesn't make me a Catholic--does it?" "How beautiful, my child! A full rosary of one hundred and fifty beads. It is called 'a chaplet of spiritual roses.' Red, white, and damask. Pray, who could have given it to you?" "A lady that ran away from Poland. Now don't you know? Sleeps with a feather bed over her, covered with satin." "Mrs. Pragoff? You haven't been to her house?" "Yes'm, we did, and to her church in Trinity; and she made a party for us, and we staid all night." "That's a remarkable joke," said Colonel Allen, rubbing his hands. "She must have had a bee in her bonnet with all these rollicking children round her." "No'm, she never; but I had the nosy-bleed on the _pew-quishon_ awful. Had to be tookened home. Didn't eat no supper." "You don't tell me there was a scene in church," cried Aunt Madge, looking at Uncle Augustus, who rubbed his hands again, and laughed heartily. "How happened you to go, Horace?" "It wasn't my doings, auntie. Topknot had been lying in a steam all night, and I told Mrs. Fixfax she wasn't fit to go out of the house; but no attention was paid to what _I_ said. Notice was served on me to take the little thing off visiting, and I had to obey. But I tell you I was thankful she didn't do anything worse than to bump her nose, though she did scream murder, and we followed her out in a straight line." "And this transpired at Trinity Church," said Colonel Allen, intensely amused. "Rather severe for a woman who worships Saint Grundy." "Saint who? I thought she was queer, or she wouldn't run away," said Dotty, much shocked. "Fie, Augustus!" said Aunt Madge, who was laughing herself. "I wouldn't have had this happen on any account. Mrs. Pragoff asked me, before the children came, if I would let them visit her; but I gave her no decided answer; thought, perhaps I might go with them just to drink tea. But the idea of her taking them while I was gone! And her house so full of elegant little trifles! How much did Fly break?" "Nothing, auntie," replied Horace. "I didn't let her stir but I was after her. I flatter myself I saved considerable property." "There, Margery, don't mind it," said Uncle Augustus. "Mrs. Pragoff needed all this mortification to humble her pride. Come here, Fly; here's a bonbon for you. They say you are going about doing good without any more intention of it than the goose that saved Rome." "That reminds me to inquire," said Aunt Madge, "if Fly's blind girl came that day?" "Yes, auntie, and she was so sorry you were gone; but they will be here again to-morrow." "It was too bad to disappoint her," said Aunt Madge, with such lovely pity in her face that Prudy seized one of her hands and kissed it. "I tell you what it is," broke in Dotty; "I always thought Mrs. Pragoff must be queer as soon as I heard she came from Poland, where grandma's cropple-crown hen came from; don't you remember, Prudy? the one that hatched the duck's eggs. But I didn't know she worshipped things. Only I noticed that she didn't buy any black pins when those pitiful little boys ran after us, and said, 'O, lady! please, lady!' I thought that was mean." "Miss Dotty Dimple, come sit on my knee, and let me explain. Mrs. Pragoff is no heathen. She only loves to dress elegantly, and your auntie and I sometimes think she cares too much about it, and about what other people say. That was what I meant by her 'worshipping Saint Grundy;' but it was ill-natured of me to criticise her. As for the black pins, she is a remarkably benevolent woman, Puss; but she can't buy black pins _all_ the time; you may set that down as a fact. Why, Fly, what now?" The child had snapped her bonbon, and, instead of candy, had found a red paper riding cap trimmed with gold fringe; with this on her head, she was climbing the drop-light, à la monkey. Fortunately the gas had been lighted only in the chandelier; but three inches more, and Fly's gold tassels would have been on fire. Uncle Augustus rose in alarm; but Horace laughed, believing the little witch could be trusted to keep out of fire and water. After dinner, as they were returning to the parlor, Uncle Augustus said to his wife,-- "Between us, Margery, I don't believe you'd dare invite that little will-o'-the-wisp here again without her mother." "Never," returned auntie, laughing,-- "'Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear, And the rocks melt wi' the sun.'" They all sat chatting around the parlor fire,--Uncle Augustus always would have an open fire,--when Dotty slipped out unobserved, and went round the house hunting for the lost rings. She went first to auntie's chamber, and looked in the blue pocket; but it was empty. The wardrobe and closet had been restored to perfect order, and the jewel cabinet was not to be seen. Then she went slowly along to the housekeeper's room, and knocked, with her heart in her mouth. "How do you do, Mrs. Fixfax? Isn't it nice to get that old stove out? I thought you'd let me come in and look to see if I've--I've left anything." "Certainly, dear. What have you lost?" Mrs. Fixfax went on with her reading, and did not seem to hear Dotty's muttered answer about "running round so when Fly was sick. Didn't know but she'd put--wasn't sure.--Guessed not." "Why, you see," said Dotty, to herself, as she left the room with downcast eyes, "it's no use to hunt there. Cupboard's gone, stove's gone. Nothing in the bathroom but soap and towels. I believe auntie's cat has swallowed those rings." She went back to Mrs. Allen's room, turned the gas higher, and looked mournfully at herself in the glass. "Shall I tell her the truth, that they're gone, and I lost them? Would my dear Aunt Madge go and take all father's money away? Mother says we must do what is right, and God will take care of the rest." Just then Fly entered, followed by Mrs. Allen. "You here, Dotty? I see my chamber is in excellent order. Let me look at the drawers. What? My jewel cabinet? Didn't I lock that in the safe? All right, no doubt, but I'll examine it." She wheeled up a little easy-chair, sat down, and poured the jewels into her lap. What were Dotty's feelings as she stood there looking on? The gas-light seemed to turn the glittering diamonds into points of flame; but Dotty could not help gazing. Why, what was that? Did her eyes deceive her? That ring with glass raspberry seeds! And, O, was it possible? The one like a drop of blood with ice frozen over it! Both there. She learned afterwards that Mrs. Fixfax had found the rings in the bottom of the ivory bathing-tub, where Fly had had her "turkey wash." Hark! Auntie was counting: "One, two, three, four. All safe. Not that I supposed any one would meddle with my cabinet, of course." "Auntie," burst forth Dotty, her face tingling with shame, "_I_ did. I wore two of those rings, and lost 'em off my thumbs. I don't see how they ever came back in that cabinet, for the only thing I know certain true is, I never put 'em there. O, auntie, if I had't found 'em, I was 'most afraid to tell you about it, because my father's so poor." "Child, child, you wouldn't have deceived me? I could bear anything better than that. And, Dotty, I don't believe it of you. You would have told the truth." "Yes, auntie, I do guess I should. It's better to eat fried pork than to act out a lie." What the truth had to do with eating fried pork, Aunt Madge could not imagine; but she assured Dotty she fully believed her when she promised not to meddle in future; and the child bounded down stairs with a heart like a bubble. Fly had come up to go to bed. "I've found sumpin," cried she, peeping into a basket behind the door. "It's got eyes, and I know it's a doggie." "You little rogue! I didn't mean you should see that dog to-night." "O, it's no matter 'bout me. If _Dotty'd_ seen it, she'd been _'spectin'_ it!" The quick-witted child knew just as well then as she did next morning, that the dog--a King Charles spaniel--was intended for her. Mrs. Allen was so amused that she could scarcely sing Fly's by-low hymn:--- "Sleep, little one, like a lamb in the fold. Shut from the tempest, safe from the cold; Sleep, little one, like a star in the sky, Wrapped in a cloud, while the storm-wind sweeps by." It was quite as hard to keep a grave face when Fly added to her evening prayer the petition,-- "God f'give me speakin' a naughty word _'fore Miss Perdigoff_." "What naughty word, darling?" "Hunkydory," replied Fly, with a deep sense of guilt. Not that she thought it wrong to use a coarse word, only wrong to use it "'fore Miss Perdigoff." Aunt Madge entered into a short explanation of the true nature of right and wrong; but her words were thrown away, for that "curly dog" filled every nook and corner of Fly's little mind. CHAPTER XII. "FOLDED EYES." "Folded eyes see brighter colors Than the open ever do." It stormed next day; but as "brooks don't mind the weather," Maria and her mother appeared again. When Aunt Madge went down to see them, Maria was sitting near the dining-room door, the scarlet spots of excitement coming and going in her cheeks. She could think of nothing but the wonderful, unknown doctor, who would know in one moment whether she could ever see or not. "We hadn't ought to have come in this snow-storm, ma'am," said Mrs. Brooks; "but poor Maria, she couldn't be denied. She said she must come, whether or no. But of course we don't hold you to your promise, ma'am, and I hope you don't think we're that sort of folks." While Mrs. Brooks was talking, with her nose moving up and down, Maria's face was turned towards Mrs. Allen, her quick ears eager to catch the first sound of her voice. What if the word should be No? But Aunt Madge was never known to break a child's heart. "Who minds a snow-storm?" said she, gayly. "I love it as well as any snow-bird. I am very sorry you were disappointed the other day. I'll have my wraps on in two minutes." The children watched from the bay-window as John came round with the carriage, and the three ladies got in. "She's a rare one," remarked Horace, with a sweep of his thumb. "Who? Maria?" "No, Dot; the one in front; the handsomest woman in the city of New York. Tell you what, 'tisn't everybody would go round and look up the poor the way she does; and she rich as mud, too." "Why, Horace, that's the very reason she ought to do it. What would be the use of her being rich if she didn't?" "Poh!" said Horace, with a look of unspeakable wisdom. "Much as you know, Prue. Rich people are the stingiest in the world. The fact is, the more you have, the more you don't give away." "O, what a story!" said Dotty. "The more I have, the more I do--I mean I _shall_, if I ever get my meeting-house full." Horace laughed heartily. "What'd I say now, Horace Clifford?" "I was only thinking, Dot, that's what's the matter with everybody; they're waiting to get their meeting-houses full." Dotty did not understand the remark, but thought it safe to pout. "I can't help thinking about that poor Maria," said Prudy. "Do you suppose, Horace, the doctor can help her?" "Yes, I presume he can. It will probably take him about five minutes," replied Master Horace, as decidedly as if he had studied medicine all his days. "But do you suppose he'll do it for nothing? Not if he knows it. He'll see the carriage, and find out auntie has money; and then won't he make her pay over? Just the way with 'em, Prue. He's one of these doctors that's rolling in gold." "Rollin' in gold," repeated Fly, thinking how hard that must be for him, and how it would hurt. But Horace was quite mistaken. The doctor did not say one word about money. He asked Mrs. Brooks to tell him just how and when Maria had begun to grow blind. And though she made a tedious story of it, he listened patiently till she said,-- "Now, doctor, I am poor, and we've been unfortunate, and I don't know as I shall be able to pay you, and I--" "No matter for that, my good woman. I shan't charge you one penny. Don't take up my time talking about money. It's my business to talk about eyes. Lead the child to the window." The scarlet spots in Maria's cheeks faded, leaving her very pale. She held her breath. Would the doctor ever stop pulling open her eyelids? It was not half a minute, though. Then he spoke:-- "Madam, are you willing to do exactly as I say? Can you both be patient? If so, I have hope of this child." Maria swayed forward at these words, and Mrs. Allen caught her in her arms. Mrs. Brooks ran around in a maze, crying, "We've killed her! we've killed her!" and wildly took up a case of instruments, to do, she knew not what; but the doctor stopped her, and dashed a little water in Maria's face. When the dear little girl came out of her swoon, she was murmuring to herself,-- "I thought God would be willing! I thought God would be willing!" She did not know any one heard her. Mrs. Brooks rushed up to her. "You are the best man alive, Maria," said she. Then she turned to the doctor, calling him "my dear little girl," and might have kissed him if he had not laughed. "Why, I beg your pardon, sir," cried she, blushing. "I don't believe I know what I am about." "I don't believe you do, either, so I'll give my message to this other lady. I want the little girl to come again to-morrow without fail. It is well I saw her so soon. A few weeks longer, and she could not have been helped." "You don't say so, doctor! And I never thought of coming. I shouldn't have stirred a step if it hadn't been for this good, kind Mrs. Allen. O, what an amazing world this is!" "And you know, Mrs. Brooks," returned Aunt Madge, "I should never have heard of you if my baby niece hadn't run away. As you say, it is an amazing world!" "And there's One above who rules it," said the doctor, as he bowed them out. "Yes, there's One above who rules it," thought happy Maria, riding home in the carriage. "If I've asked Him once, I've asked Him five thousand times, and somehow I knew He'd attend to it after a while." "O, what did the doctor say to her? What did he do?" cried the children, the moment their aunt appeared in the parlor. "He says he can cure her if she will only be patient." Prudy screamed for joy. "O, dear! why didn't he cure her right off?" cried Dotty. "We s'posed she was seeing like everything." "Why, child, do you expect things are going to be done by steam?" said Horace, forgetting he had calculated it would take about five minutes. "Well, if he didn't had no steam, he could 'a' tookened the sidders, and picked 'em open," sniffed Fly, who had great contempt for slow people. "Ah, little Hopelover," laughed auntie, "you're like us grown folks all the world over, scolding about what you don't understand." * * * * * A few more days were spent in uninterrupted happiness. Fly declared "Santa Claus _is_ a darlin'," when she received the King Charles spaniel, which, by the way, had not been purchased without the full consent of Horace, who was even willing, for his little sister's sake, to take him home in the cars. The youth, in his turn, was made happy by the gift of a silver-mounted rifle; while Prudy rejoiced in a rosewood writing desk, and Dotty in a gold pen. "All's well that ends well." Uncle Augustus was at home, and that in itself was as good as most fairy stories. Fly had the kindness to "stay found" for the rest of the visit, and did not even take another cold. Dotty was unmixed sweetness. Maria came every day with such a beaming face that it was delightful to see her. Mrs. Pragoff asked for all their photographs, and gave the Parlins some Polish mittens to carry home to their mother. "I s'pose you know," said Dotty, privately to Prudy, "there's not another girl at my school been to New York, and treated with such attention; but O, I tell you, I shan't be proud. I shall always love Tate Penny just the same." When the day came to separate, it went hard with them all. "Just as we got to having a good time," said Dotty, her face in a hard knot. "But we shall all meet next summer," said Prudy, hopefully. "I don't want to wait," moaned Fly, going into her pocket-hangfiss--all but her back hair and the rest of her body. I have a great mind to let her stay there till we come to the next book, which is, AUNT MADGE'S STORY, TOLD BY HERSELF. [Illustration: SOPHIE MAY'S "LITTLE-FOLKS" BOOKS.] "The authoress of THE LITTLE PRUDY STORIES would be elected Aunty-laureate if the children had an opportunity, for the wonderful books she writes for their amusement. She is the Dickens of the nursery, and we do not hesitate to say develops the rarest sort of genius in the specialty of depicting smart little children."--_Hartford Post_. LEE AND SHEPARD, PUBLISHERS, BOSTON. SOPHIE MAY'S "LITTLE-FOLKS" BOOKS. [Illustration: Sophie May] "The children will not be left without healthful entertainment and kindly instruction so long as SOPHIE MAY (Miss Rebecca S. Clarke) lives and wields her graceful pen in their behalf. Miss CLARKE has made a close and loving study of childhood, and she is almost idolized by the crowd of 'nephews and nieces' who claim her as aunt. Nothing to us can ever be quite so delightfully charming as were the 'Dotty Dimple' and the 'Little Prudy' books to our youthful imagination, but we have no doubt the little folks of to-day will find the story of 'Flaxie Frizzle' and her young friends just as fascinating. There is a sprightliness about all of Miss CLARKE'S books that attracts the young, and their purity, their absolute _cleanliness_, renders them invaluable in the eyes of parents and all who are interested in the welfare, of children."--_Morning Star_. "Genius comes in with 'Little Prudy.' Compared with her, all other book-children are cold creations of literature; she alone is the real thing. All the quaintness of children, its originality, its tenderness and its teasing, its infinite uncommon drollery, the serious earnestness of its fun, the fun of its seriousness, the naturalness of its plays, and the delicious oddity of its progress, all these united for dear Little Prudy to embody them."--_North American Review_. SOPHIE MAY'S "LITTLE-FOLKS" BOOKS. [Illustration: LITTLE PRUDY STORIES BY SOPHIE MAY ILLUSTRATED SIX VOLUMES] _Illustrated, Comprising:_-- LITTLE PRUDY. LITTLE PRUDY'S SISTER SUSIE. LITTLE PRUDY'S CAPTAIN HORACE. LITTLE PRUDY'S COUSIN GRACE. LITTLE PRUDY'S STORY BOOK. LITTLE PRUDY'S DOTTY DIMPLE. * * * * * In neat box. Price 75 cents per volume. SOPHIE MAY'S "LITTLE-FOLKS" BOOKS. LITTLE PRUDY. "I have been wanting to say a word about a book for children, perfect of its kind--I mean LITTLE PRUDY. It seems to me the greatest book of the season for children. The authoress has a genius for story-telling. Prudy's letter to Mr. 'Gustus Somebody must be genuine; if an invention, it shows a genius akin to that of the great masters. It is a positive kindness to the little ones to remind their parents that there is such a book as LITTLE PRUDY."--_Springfield Republican_. * * * * * LITTLE PRUDY'S SISTER SUSIE. "Every little girl and boy who has made the acquaintance of that funny 'Little Prudy' will be eager to read this book, In which she figures quite as largely as her bigger sister, though the joys and troubles of poor Susie make a very interesting story."--_Portland Transcript_. "Certainly one of the most cunning, natural, and witty little books we ever read."--_Hartford Press_. * * * * * LITTLE PRUDY'S CAPTAIN HORACE. "These are such as none but SOPHIE MAY can write, and we know not where to look for two more choice and beautiful volumes--SUSIE for girls and HORACE for boys. They are not only amusing and wonderfully entertaining, but teach most effective lessons of patience, kindness, and truthfulness. Our readers will find a good deal in them about Prudy, for so many things are always happening to her that the author finds It impossible to keep her out." SOPHIE MAY'S "LITTLE-FOLKS" BOOKS. [Illustration: "There were a few articles to be ironed for the bride; and Prudy had a mind to try the Jewish flatirons; so, with Barbara's leave, she smoothed out some handkerchiefs on a chair."] SPECIMEN OF "LITTLE PRUDY" CUTS. SOPHIE MAY'S "LITTLE-FOLKS" BOOKS. LITTLE PRUDY'S STORY BOOK. "This story book is a great favorite with the little folks, for it contains just such stories as they like to hear their aunt, and older sister tell; and learn them by heart and tell them over to one another as they set out the best infant tea-set, or piece a baby-quilt, or dress dolls, or roll marbles. A book to put on the book-shelf in the play-room where Susie and Prudy, Captain Horace, Cousin Grace, and all the rest of the 'Little Prudy' folks are kept."--_Vermont Record_. * * * * * LITTLE PRUDY'S COUSIN GRACE. "An exquisite picture of little-girl life at school and at home, and gives an entertaining account of a secret society which originated in the fertile brain of Grace, passed some comical resolutions at first, but was finally converted into a Soldier's Aid Society. Full of life, and fire, and good advice; the latter sugar-coated, of course, to suit the taste of little folks."--_Press_. * * * * * LITTLE PRUDY'S DOTTY DIMPLE. "Dotty Dimple is the plague of Prudy's life, and yet she loves her dearly. Both are rare articles in juvenile literature, as real as Eva and Topsy of 'Uncle Tom' fame. Witty and wise, full of sport and study, sometimes mixing the two in a confusing way, they run bubbling through many volumes, and make everybody wish they could never grow up or change, they are so bright and cute." SOPHIE MAY'S "LITTLE-FOLKS" BOOKS. [Illustration: LITTLE PRUDY'S CAPTAIN HORACE.] "You wide-awake little boys, who make whistles of willow, and go fishing and training,--Horace is very much like you, I suppose. He is by no means perfect, but he is brave and kind, and scorns a lie, I hope you and he will shake hands and be friends." * * * * * SPECIMEN OF ILLUSTRATIONS TO PRUDY BOOKS. SOPHIE MAY'S "LITTLE-FOLKS" BOOKS. [Illustration: DOTTY DIMPLE STORIES DOTTY AT PLAY.] _Six Volumes. Illustrated. Comprising:_-- DOTTY DIMPLE AT HER GRANDMOTHER'S. DOTTY DIMPLE OUT WEST. DOTTY DIMPLE AT HOME. DOTTY DIMPLE AT PLAY. DOTTY DIMPLE AT SCHOOL. DOTTY DIMPLE'S FLYAWAY. * * * * * In a neat box. Price 75 cents per volume. SOPHIE MAY'S "LITTLE-FOLKS" BOOKS. [Illustration: DOTTY GOING WEST] "'Please stop,' said Dotty faintly, and the boy came to her, elbowing. 'I want some of that pop-corn so much! I could buy it if you'd hold this baby till I put my hand in my pocket.' The youth laughed, but for the sake of 'making a trade' set down his basket and took the '_enfant terrible_.' There was an instant attack upon his hair, which was so long and straggling as to prove an easy prey to the enemy." * * * * * SPECIMEN OF "DOTTY DIMPLE" ILLUSTRATIONS SOPHIE MAY'S "LITTLE-FOLKS" BOOKS. DOTTY DIMPLE AT HER GRANDMOTHER'S. "Sophie May's excellent pen has perhaps never written anything more pleasing to children, especially little girls, than DOTTY DIMPLE. If the little reader who follows Dotty through these dozen chapters,--from her visit to her grandmother to the swing under the trees,--he or she will say: 'It has been a treat to read about Dotty Dimple, she's so cunning.'"--_Herald of Gospel Liberty_. * * * * * DOTTY DIMPLE OUT WEST. "Dotty's trip was jolly. In the cars where she saw so many people that she thought there'd be nobody left in any of the houses, she offers to hold somebody's baby, and when it begins to cry she stuffs pop-corn into its month, nearly choking it to death. Afterwards, in pulling a man's hair, she is horrified at seeing his wig come off, and gasps out 'O dear, dear, dear, I didn't know your hair was so tender.' Altogether, she is the cunningist chick that ever lived."--_Oxford Press_. * * * * * DOTTY DIMPLE AT HOME. "This little book is as full of spice as any of its predecessors and well sustains the author's reputation as the very cleverest of all write of this species of children's books. Were there any doubt on this point, the matter might be easily tested by inquiry in half the households in the city, where the book is being revelled over."--_Boston Home Journal_. SOPHIE MAY'S "LITTLE-FOLKS" BOOKS. [Illustration: "As Dotty seized two locks of the Major's hair, one in each hand, and pulled them both as if she meant to draw them out by the roots, out they came! Yes, entirely out; and more than that, all the rest of his hair came too. His head was left as smooth as an apple. You see how it was. He wore a wig, and just for play had slyly unfastened it, and allowed Miss Dotty to pull it off. The perfect despair of her little face amused him vastly, but he did not smile; he looked very severe. 'See what you have done,' said he. Major Laydie's entire head of hair lay at her feet, as brown and wavy as ever it was. Dotty looked at it with horror. The idea of scalping a man."] * * * * * SPECIMEN OF "DOTTY DIMPLE" ILLUSTRATIONS. SOPHIE MAY'S "LITTLE-FOLKS" BOOKS. DOTTY DIMPLE AT SCHOOL. "Miss Dotty is a peremptory little body, with a great deal of human nature in her, who wins our hearts by her comic speeches and funny ways. She complains of being _bewitched_ by people, and the wind 'blows her out,' and she thinks if her comrade dies in the snow-storm she will be 'dreadfully 'shamed of it,' and has rather a lively time, with all her trials in going to school."--_New York Citizen_. * * * * * DOTTY DIMPLE AT PLAY. "'Charming Dotty Dimple' as she is so universally styled, has become decidedly a favorite with young and old, who are alike pleased with her funny sayings and doings.--DOTTY AT PLAY will be found very attractive, and the children, especially the girls, will be delighted with her adventures."--_Boston Express_. * * * * * DOTTY DIMPLE'S FLYAWAY. "This is the final volume of the DOTTY DIMPLE SERIES. It relates how little Flyaway provisioned herself with cookies and spectacles and got lost on a little hill while seeking to mount to heaven, and what a precious alarm there was until she was found, and the subsequent joy at her recovery, with lots of quaint speeches and funny incidents."--_North American_. "A Little Red Riding-Hoodish story, sprightly and takingly told."--_American Farmer_. SOPHIE MAY'S "LITTLE-FOLKS" BOOKS. [Illustration: LITTLE PRUDY'S FLYAWAY SERIES] _Six Volumes. Illustrated. Comprising:_-- LITTLE FOLKS ASTRAY. PRUDY KEEPING HOUSE. AUNT MADGE'S STORY. LITTLE GRANDMOTHER. LITTLE GRANDFATHER. MISS THISTLEDOWN. Price 75 cents per volume. SOPHIE MAY'S "LITTLE-FOLKS" BOOKS. LITTLE FOLKS ASTRAY. "This is a book for the little ones of the nursery or play-room. It introduces all the old favorites of the Prudy and Dotty books with new characters and funny incidents. It is a charming book, wholesome and sweet in every respect, and cannot fail to interest children under twelve years of age."--_Christian Register_. * * * * * PRUDY KEEPING HOUSE. "How she kept it, why she kept it, and what a good time she had playing cook, and washer-woman, and ironer, is told as only SOPHIE MAY can tell stories. All the funny sayings and doings of the queerest and cunningest little women ever tucked away in the covers of a book will please little folks and grown people alike."--_Press_. * * * * * AUNT MADGE'S STORY. "Tells of a little waif of a girl, who gets into every conceivable kind of scrape and out again with lightning rapidity, through the whole pretty little book. How she nearly drowns her bosom friend, and afterwards saves her by a very remarkable display of little-girl courage. How she gets left by a train of cars, and loses her kitten and finds it again, and is presented with a baby sister 'come down from heaven,' with lots of smart and funny sayings."--_Boston Traveller._ SOPHIE MAY'S "LITTLE-FOLKS" BOOKS. [Illustration: PRUDY KEEPING HOUSE.] "'Oh, what a fascinating creature,' said the Man in the Moon, making an eye-glass with his thumb and fore-finger, and gazing at the lady boarder. 'Are you a widow, mem?'" * * * * * SPECIMEN CUT TO "LITTLE PRUDY'S FLYAWAY SERIES." SOPHIE MAY'S "LITTLE-FOLKS" BOOKS. LITTLE GRANDMOTHER. "Grandmother Parlen when a little girl is the subject. Of course that was ever so long ago, when there were no lucifer matches, and steel and tinder were used to light fires; when soda and saleratus had never been heard of, but people made their pearl ash by soaking burnt crackers in water; when the dressmaker and the tailor and the shoemaker went from house to house twice a year to make the dresses and coats of the family."--_Transcript_. * * * * * LITTLE GRANDFATHER. "The story of Grandfather Parlen's little boy life, of the days of knee breeches and cocked hats, full of odd incidents, queer and quaint sayings, and the customs of 'ye olden times.' These stories of SOPHIE MAY'S are so charmingly written that older folks may well amuse themselves by reading them. The same warm sympathy with childhood, the earnest naturalness, the novel charm of the preceding volumes will be found in this."--_Christian Messenger_. * * * * * MISS THISTLEDOWN. "One of the queerest of the Prudy family. Read the chapter heads and you will see just how much fun there must be in it: 'Fly's Heart,' 'Taking a Nap,' 'Going to the Fair,' 'The Dimple Dot,' 'The Hole in the Home,' 'The Little Bachelor,' 'Fly's Bluebeard,' 'Playing Mamma,' 'Butter Spots,' 'Polly's Secret,' 'The Snow Man,' 'The Owl and the Humming-Bird,' 'Talks of Hunting Deer,' and 'The Parlen Patchwork.'" 
43983	----	scanned images of public domain material from the Google Print archive. WANTED: A COOK WANTED: A COOK Domestic Dialogues _By_ ALAN DALE INDIANAPOLIS THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY PUBLISHERS Copyright, 1904 The Bobbs-Merrill Company _To_ JENNIE SHALEK: _housewife_, who, in my hour of drab and dreary cooklessness, when my heart fainted, and tragedy impended, sent her four fair daughters to my aid, with an ancient Hibernian curio destined to eke out a livelihood at my expense; who knows the true inwardness of this tragic topic, and who would gladly lend a willing hand and an unwilling cook to any sufferer, I gratefully dedicate these simple, plaintive dialogues. ALAN DALE _New York City_, _September, 1904_ WANTED: A COOK CHAPTER I My Letitia! It was indeed a proud and glowing moment when I slipped the little golden circlet on her fair, slim, girlish finger, and realized that she was assuredly mine. We were so eminently suited to each other--both young, enthusiastic, and unspotted from the world. We had our own pet theories, and long before marriage we had communed on that favorite, misunderstood topic--the sanctity of the home. Letitia was exceedingly well-read, and the polish upon her education shone. It was no mere thin veneer, to be worn off by a too brutal contact with the rough edges of the world. It was an ingrained polish. She adored the classics. Other girls would sit down and pore over the Sarah-Jane romances of the hour. My Letitia liked Virgil. In French she was fearfully familiar with Molière and Racine. In German she coquetted with Schiller in the most delightful manner. She knew most of the students' readings of Shakespeare. In fact, she fascinated me by her arch refinement. We were both great sticklers for refinement. We pitied the poor silly things who knew how to sew and cook. Refinement--we were both certain of it--was the cultivation of the gloriously useless. We despised the abominably useful. It was so sordid. We felt convinced that our "home" could be conducted upon suave and easy lines, without abandoning even one of our theories. Letitia told me that "home" was the Anglo-Saxon _ham_, and I was so much in love with her, that I didn't mind in the least. In fact, I hinted that I had suspected as much. How could "home" be anything else but Anglo-Saxon? My little girl had been "finished" in Paris, at a select, and pleasingly dismal, _pension_ in the Avenue du Roule. I, myself, had taken a B. A. at Oxford. Yet we were triumphantly patriotic Americans. We returned to these shores absolutely convinced that they were beyond criticism. After all, people only go abroad in order that they may realize the inferiority of Europe. They never go for a "good time," or for mere frivolous amusement. The great armies of Americans in London and Paris are there simply because they prefer America and want that fact brought home to them. If you don't believe me, ask them. Nail them down to their patriotism. However, both Letitia and I grudgingly admitted that in England home life did seem a bit more potent than on this side. "It naturally would," said Letitia, "because you see 'home' is really an Anglo-Saxon idea." But we were going to have a home of our own in the very midst of seething New York. The mere notion of a vulgar, degrading "boarding-house" was detestable to us, while as for the "apartment hotel," where you sat at dinner in your best clothes with a crowd of unsympathetic strangers, we sniffed at the bare suggestion. We wanted a little refuge, tiny yet dainty, where we could be alone to live our lives. "To live our lives" was one of Letitia's expressions. She abstracted it unconsciously, I believe, from Ibsen. A chaste and cherishable resort, where of an evening my wife could read _The Iliad_ in the original, and I, in a becoming smoking-jacket and velvet slippers, could work at my _Lives of Great Men_, was what we clamored to possess. And possess it we fully intended to do. I may add that Letitia also believed in the "new thought." She was of the opinion that you could will anything you wanted. She doted on sitting still, and sending out telepathic waves from her cunning little brain, and I loved to look at her telepathing. She was at her prettiest. Aunt Julia Dinsmore, Letitia's only relative, and a sedate old lady with drab ideas, mentioned something about the "servant question" as she listened to our domestic rhapsodies. She suggested to us that there must be some satisfactory reason to explain the lack of well-appointed homes in New York. Americans liked comfort just as well as other people, said she. Did we suppose that they were uncomfortable because they preferred discomfort? And again she referred to the "servant question." The "servant question"! How we laughed! Letitia nudged me under the table and arched her eyebrows. She turned to Aunt Julia and quoted one of Shakespeare's most beautiful passages: "How well in thee appears The constant service of the antique world, When service sweat for duty, not for meed!" It is one of the many charming things in _As You Like It_. Aunt Julia said that it had nothing whatsoever to do with the case. Perhaps it hadn't. In fact, as I think it over now, I can't quite see its relevancy. Yet what mattered relevancy? It was a treat to listen to Letitia when she quoted. "Your Shakespeare will die when your cook comes in," said Aunt Julia, and she laughed. People are so fond of laughing at their own epigrams. It is most irritating--just as though the utterance of this perverted form of philosophy were a relief. "You dear silly old thing!" exclaimed Letitia to her aunt, "we shall not worry. We don't read the comic papers. Americans believe all the wretched jokes, dished up for them, to be founded on fact. Americans believe anything. They have no time to think for themselves. Have they, Archie?" All I could reply was: "No." I should like to have been pungent and clever, but somehow or other, I never can follow Letitia. She generally appeals to me with a deft query, destined to color her own delightful train of thought, and I have nothing better to say than "no"--or occasionally "yes." After that, Aunt Julia dropped the "servant question," as she called it. The "servant question"! As though there could be such a question! How could refined and educated people elect to permit the mere matter of domestic drudgery to be a "question"? Art might be a question. Science was certainly a question. But to allude to the handmaiden, who opens your front door, or to the person who Marylands your terrapin, as a "question" was too ludicrous. It was making mountains out of molehills. Ah! Letitia and I were for the glorious mountains, with their sun-kissed peaks and their exultant elevation. We were neither of us freighted with that detestable thing dubbed a "sense of humor." Thank goodness for that! A sense of humor is a handicap in the world's race. People afflicted with it seem to spend their time laughing at their friends, scoffing at serious situations, and extracting spurious merriment from the gravity and dignity of life. We both believed that a sense of humor was unrefined. Comic story-tellers, comic poets, comic critics--how we loathed them! They were parasites on the face of things, giving you stones when you craved bread--furnishing nasty, sickly ridicule in lieu of delicate, intellectual analysis. Thank goodness, that both Letitia and I had been spared the curse of a "sense of humor." We had been educated beyond it. Aunt Julia, as I said, was henceforth silent--or comparatively silent--on her banal, squalid "servant question." But she was rampant and interfering again when we selected the pretty little apartment--in a beautiful neighborhood--that was to be our home--Letitia's and mine! We took it without a question, there being nothing that we wanted to know. It was not one of those American institutions in which, to get from the drawing-room to the dining-room, you were forced to walk through the bedrooms, no matter who happened to be in them, asleep, or dressing. It had a "private hall," and each room possessed a window. Why each room shouldn't possess a window, I can't explain, but windows in up-to-date apartments are a luxury, and not a necessity. I dare say that they are very old-fashioned, but they are one of the last remnants of old fashion to which I cling. It was a small apartment with "six rooms and bath"--very cozy, and quite light and cheerful without furniture. After we had seen our dainty "belongings" moved in, we were bound to admit that some people might say that it all looked "stuffy." Letitia didn't think so; nor did I. Much we cared! Still, it was quite remarkable what a difference furniture made. It really seemed to be in the way. The drawing-room was almost blocked up with its chairs and sofas, what-nots, and ottomans. It had seemed quite a spacious apartment when in its natural state. One would have thought that it mutely rebelled at the indignity of furniture. Yet one must furnish! The only thing to do in our drawing-room was to sit down. It was quite comfortable sitting down. It seemed like refuge to get to a chair--out of harm's way. When up and doing, you had to dodge and to steer yourself. We often went there before we were married, just to get used to the position of the furniture. In front of the fireplace--where there would never be any fire, as everything was steam-heated--we placed the tiger-rug, with the real tiger-head, that Aunt Julia gave us. It was rather dark by the fireplace, as a bookcase, a what-not, a dear little _tête-à-tête_ chair and a "cosy corner" were in its vicinity and we always fell over the tiger's head. It was most amusing at first. I laughed when it brought Letitia down. Letitia laughed when she saw me prone. But one tires so quickly of innocent pleasure! The last time we visited the apartment before the gorgeous day when it literally became "ours," I fell over the tiger-head, and--it palled. For the first time it didn't seem so funny. I am glad to say that Letitia laughed just the same, her mind being more ingenuous than mine. In the dining-room, too, there was a wealth of furniture. It was such a cheerful room when we first saw it, but when curtained and upholstered, it was necessary to switch on the electric light in order to see where the table was. Of course, this didn't matter at all. It was merely a new experience and deliciously odd. Still, we both agreed that if we preferred air and light to material, bodily comfort, our "home" was infinitely brighter unfurnished. As a matter of fact, the simplest necessities of domestic life were encumbrances. We had to ponder over an extra chair. The disposal of a small footstool called for a mathematical mind. As for the table, it had--like most other tables--four legs, but three of them were ridiculously in the way. They seemed like abnormal growths. We were delighted at all this innovation. We prattled about our "home" by the hour. These--or rather, this--might be the ancestral halls of our great-great-grandchildren, though at present it seemed destined for one generation at a time--and a small generation, too. There was scarcely room for even an ancestor, and I couldn't help feeling thankful that ancestors were not usual in New York. The bedrooms surprised us. They were called bedrooms, because nobody had yet thought out any other name for them. We were both loud in praise of their coziness. They were simply full of coziness. There was no room for anything else. Furnished with ledges or bunks as on board ship, they would have been most spacious and agreeable. With beds in them they bulged. Letitia admitted this, when I called her attention to it. She laughed and quoted Ben Jonson's memorable words: "I will not lodge thee by Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie a little further to make thee a room." And, as usual, I kissed her. Her splendid thoughts were independent of mere space. They rose above and superior to close modernity. Thank goodness, again, for the lack of a sense of humor! With it, I might have said things about Chaucer, Spenser, and Beaumont, at which the groundlings, would, perchance, have smiled. The humorists, so-called, would sell their souls for a laugh. We never once looked at the kitchen. Not for worlds would we have betrayed so mean and petty a spirit. Undoubtedly there are women who would have peered into this food-resort, and have held forth on such disgusting topics as "tubs" and "hot and cold water." Ugh! How nauseating! Letitia simply passed it by with a shrug. It _had_ to be there, of course, but it had nothing to do with our case. Cook would probably know if it were properly appointed. This was what cook was for. The agent had told us that a bedroom for a cook was conveniently adjoining. To which Letitia had replied, in evident amusement, "No doubt. Why not?" I thought it clever, and I believe that the agent did, for he turned his face quickly away. Aunt Julia had supplied the cooking utensils, I am thankful to say. We had no interest in them. We agreed that they were necessary, but we were willing to pay, and to pay well, for a careful custodian of that sort of thing. But as I began to say before, Aunt Julia, after having wisely dropped the "servant question," became rampant and interfering on the subject of our apartment. She asked distressing questions about "dumb waiters," and "janitors," and "washing." Letitia was reading Cicero's _De Amicitia_ at the time, I remember, while I was making notes of some incidents in the life of Goethe that I meant to incorporate in my book. I bore with Aunt Julia most patiently. As I could not answer her questions, I parried them very good-naturedly. After all, she was Letitia's only relative, and she was old, and rather infirm. One must be polite, even when it would be excruciatingly exquisite to be otherwise. "I must say," remarked Aunt Julia, "that you don't seem to have looked at anything. You have taken an apartment, and you know nothing at all about it. You are a couple of silly children." "Pardon me," I said, "but we have looked at all that it was necessary to look at. I don't expect Letitia to grovel." "Grovel!" cried Aunt Julia, "grovel! I like that. In my time, a housewife knew what she was doing--" "That's just it," I interrupted. "In your time, Aunt Julia, there were housewives. I hate the phrase. Housewife--wife of the house. I want my wife for myself, not for my house. In your time, I dare say, women so far forgot themselves--yes, forgot themselves, Aunt Julia--as to discuss the laundry, or the market, with their husbands. That, I may say, is not our idea. I want your dear little niece to stay in her drawing-room--" "Stay in her--what?" cried Aunt Julia ferociously. "I repeat: her drawing-room. Oh, I know that you would prefer that I say 'parlor.' I decline to do so. It is a word that grates on my nerves. In England, they have 'parlors' in hovels. You enter the 'parlor' direct from the street. It is quite unnecessary to cast a stigma on a room. Drawing-room sounds much more refined. With us it will be drawing-room." "I think Archie is right, Aunt Julia," said Letitia, looking up from _De Amicitia_, and smiling at me--dear little girl! "It is a prettier term, isn't it? 'Parlor' sounds so awfully poor, and--well, dear, we are really not awfully poor. It is the little refinements of life that count. I don't think I could feel at home in a parlor. I just adore the notion of my drawing-room." Aunt Julia laughed. It wasn't one of those laughs that signify merriment. It was that contemptuous something that we call a laugh for want of a better word. I should classify it as a snortch, or a sniffth. It angered me considerably. "There are no drawing-rooms," continued Letitia's relative, "in One-Hundred-and-Fourth Street, near Columbus Avenue. I should think you would be satisfied to hear them called 'parlors.' Cubby-holes would be more appropriate. Of course, I may be all wrong. Of course. Ha! Ha! To talk as though you owned Marlborough House, or Buckingham Palace, or Vanderbilt's mansion! Ha! Ha! It is too preposterous." I saw a flush on my Letitia's face. She had closed her Cicero with a sigh. All this small-talk was nerve-racking. "A drawing-room," persisted Aunt Julia, "is literally the room to which the guests withdraw after dinner. I imagine that your guests will withdraw to it not only after dinner, but after luncheon and breakfast as well. In fact they will be obliged to withdraw there or sit on the fire-escape. By-the-by, have you a fire-escape?" As though I knew or cared! Fancy selecting a home, and inquiring if there were any means by which you could escape from it. I did not answer. My mind was brooding over the question of withdrawing from the dining-room. Next to our dining-room was the bathroom. It was rather an odd arrangement, especially as bathing is considered dangerous immediately after eating. The man who designed our "home" evidently thought that a bath after a meal was a good thing. Otherwise, why place the bathroom next to the dining-room? I recovered my equanimity instantly. "You are trying to discourage us, Aunt Julia," I said, "but it won't work. You can call the drawing-room a 'parlor' if you like. But we shan't. Nor are we trying to ape Buckingham Palace. We are too American for that. The trouble here is that whenever you try to be nice, refined, and courteous, you are accused of aping something. We ape nothing at all. We prefer a drawing-room because it has a more cultured sound. Just as we intend to call the china-closet a 'pantry.' This is a free country." "Fiddlesticks!" cried Aunt Julia. "You are very devoted to your drawing-room and your pantry, but I'm grieved to think that a sensible girl like Letitia, and an able-bodied young man, like yourself, haven't thought it worth while to ask the janitor about the disposition of the garbage." That settled it. I had endured a good deal. I had been patient, polite, kindly, and amused. Yes, I had been half-amused. When I heard Aunt Julia sully her lips with a word so coarse as "garbage" in the presence of my innocent little unsophisticated Letitia, I decided that the time for protest had indeed arrived. "Mrs. Dinsmore," I said--not even "Aunt Julia"--"I must really ask you to avoid such disgusting words and topics, or, if you must mention them, to do so to me alone. I can stand it--perhaps. But it is not nice for your niece. There may be such a thing as garbage in the world--I believe that there is--but one does not care to allude to it at home." I looked at Letitia. A slight expression of disgust manifested itself on her face, although she tried for my sake to conceal it. "It is a word that has come to us, Archie, from the old French _garbe_," she said quickly, with her own admirable tact. "It was once more disgusting than it now seems to be. Americans use it to express kitchen refuse or anything of that sort. Of course, our cook will have no refuse, for we shall get a good one. Probably, in low, unrefined households they do have refuse. It is possibly quite general--for average people do not understand the refinement of living. Aunt Julia meant nothing, I am sure." Letitia, the sweetest and most diplomatic girl I have ever met, rose and kissed Aunt Julia, and I was bound to feel mollified. Not that Aunt Julia was in the least upset by my dignity. In fact, she was convulsed with laughter, but it was the same sort of laughter that I prefer to call a snortch, or a sniffth. "If you ever eat oranges," she persisted in continuing, "what are you going to do with the peel? And your potato skins? And your melon rinds? And your old bones? And your tin cans? And your grocery boxes? That is what we unrefined people call garbage. But I dare say that you and Letitia will put it all in your drawing-room and make a cozy corner of it, or tie it up with blue ribbons. You silly children!" she cried, drying the laughter from her eyes, "if you weren't so amusing I could be angry with you." Letitia looked at me. I looked at Letitia. She put her index finger to her lips to signify silence. It dawned upon us both that Aunt Julia--poor old thing--was cursed with the terrible commodity known as the "sense of humor." That is the way it always manifests itself. It is irrelevant laughter at serious subjects. My opinion is that it is a disease, and that a remedy for it will be found one day. They seem to be discovering that remedy in the comic papers, which no longer, I have heard, appeal to the afflicted. Letitia went on reading _De Amicitia_; I renewed my acquaintance with Goethe, and Aunt Julia fell asleep with a book in her hands. I couldn't help seeing that it was called _Hints to Housewives_. Certainly Letitia's only relative was a bit disenchanting. CHAPTER II It was while we were honeymooning at Niagara, that Aunt Julia, in a letter dated from her home, at Tarrytown-on-the-Hudson, wrote to tell us that she had secured a cook for us, a colored woman, who had been highly recommended, and whom we should find awaiting us when we took possession of our cunning little domicile. "I need not say, my dear Letitia," she wrote, "that a good servant is merely the result of a sensible and far-seeing mistress. Be firm with her, but not necessarily unsympathetic. Remember that the servant-girl question and its many evils constitute a grave national problem. I think you may consider yourselves lucky. Anna Carter appears to be an excellent servant." This letter reached us the day before we returned to New York. Letitia read it aloud to me at breakfast as we sat before our morning eggs. It had a prosaic sound, but--well, morning eggs are not freighted with romance. Unfortunately, we were neither of us built for a diet of rose-leaves and dew-drops, delightful though they would have been, during the honeymoon. I am, however, bound to say that Letitia's extremely healthy appetite did not disenchant me. Nor, when I returned for a second egg, furtively during the first week, but more boldly later on, did Letitia repine at my materialism. One thing we did avoid--and that was the distasteful discussion of food. We ate what was placed before us without comment. Only once was this tacit rule broken. It was when, at dinner, Letitia rompingly annexed an evil oyster. Even then, she merely uttered a little cry of pain--which went to my heart--and dropped the subject; also the oyster. "It is really awfully good of Aunt Julia," she said, pretending not to notice that I had arrived at egg number three. "She is a dear, good old soul. I am delighted at the prospect of a colored maid. Aren't you, Archie?" "They are always very good-tempered and docile," I replied, "and with you, Letitia, any girl will be exceedingly happy. Ah, in the years to come, Anna Carter may be our 'old retainer,' to be pensioned off. Think of her weeping, and begging to be allowed to remain with us--clinging to us, as it were, and even offering to stay without wages." "Which I should never allow,"--Letitia's tone was wonderfully firm--"I can't imagine how self-respecting people permit such a thing. They always do it in plays. I shan't countenance it. If Anna persists in staying with us, when she is too old to work, then she shall have exactly the same wages. Am I not right, Archie?" "Always," I cried admiringly; "always, my dear girl." "I think," said Letitia musingly, "I think a colored maid always looks so neat and attractive in a plain black dress, buttoned down the front, and a white cap--something fluffy and lacey--a wide, stiff, white collar and pretty cuffs. I shall dress Anna Carter like that. I have quite made up my mind to it. Oh, Archie," she went on rapturously, "don't you think that the _bonnes_ in Paris--you see them in the Champs Elysées, and everywhere--look perfectly lovely in the caps with the long satin ribbons trailing to the ground?" "But they are nurses, dear," I suggested, just for the sake of arguing with my little wife. "That doesn't matter at all," she cried triumphantly. "There's no law to prevent our dressing Anna in just that style, if we like, is there, Archie? You must admit that there isn't. I shall get her a pretty cap, with yards of olive-green ribbon, to match the burlap on the dining-room wall. Isn't it a charming idea? And colored people love a bit of finery--a ribbon or so. I can imagine her delight. I hope she isn't fearfully colored--an unbecoming shade--as green would be such a bad match. We should be obliged to have red, and that would be so glaring with the green walls. I can't help feeling a bit sorry--since we have heard from Aunt Julia--that we didn't have red burlap in the dining-room. But one can't think of everything, can one, Archie?" "No, dear," I said soothingly. "You are a wonderful little woman to have thought of all this." "And I do hope," she went on, "that Anna has a black dress, buttoning down the front. I have set my heart on it, Archie. It may be a trifle, but somehow or other, those old-fashioned buttoned bodices look so comfortable and homelike." We journeyed exultantly back to New York, eager to get to our home. We could scarcely wait. To be sure, the hotel at Niagara was delightful. We had the "bridal suite" and all the luxuries that money could command--for a honeymoon comes but once to people with our ideas. Still this hotel life, even under such advantageous circumstances, palled upon us. We did not care for sight-seeing, and the pastimes of the hayseed mind. The fact that the Falls happened to be there, brought little satisfaction to us. We stayed at the hotel most of the time, and tried to imagine that it was home. Letitia read Ovid's _Ars Amatoria_ and _The Responsive Epistles of Aulus Sabinus_. Aunt Julia had given us Hall Caine's _Eternal City_, and Marie Corelli's _Temporal Power_, but Letitia threw them from the window of the train. They took up so much valuable room. They were mute testimony to a disorderly mind, she said, and I quite agreed with her. On our way back Letitia announced that she had sent a telepathic message to Anna Carter. She sat quite motionless for ten minutes, during which time she tried to impress Miss Carter's mind with a picture of ourselves. "Sometimes it works," she said, "and sometimes it doesn't. It all depends upon the psychic endowment of the recipient. Some of the negroes have an exceptional psychic equipment. At any rate, Archie, it doesn't cost anything but the mental effort. Telepathy is cheaper than telegraphy. Anna will probably know that we are coming." "I think a wire would have been surer, dear," I ventured. "I really don't mind the expense. I don't want my little girl to be too laboriously economical." At the Grand Central Station we parted for the first time since our wedding--I, to set forth for my office in West Twenty-third Street, where I was junior partner of a profitable little publishing house, which would ultimately offer my _Lives of Great Men_ to the world; Letitia to go home. How sweet the word sounded! In reality, I could have postponed my visit to the office until the next day. But I was anxious to savor the delight of "going home" to Letitia at the conventional hour. I wanted to see what it was like--this return to a sweet, expectant little wife, eagerly looking for me out of the window, while the "neat-handed Phyllis" prepared a cozy dinner. Letitia quite understood why I went to the office, and she was delighted at the pretty subterfuge. It was almost impossible to sink my mind to the dull level of business. They must have found me singularly unresponsive at the office. The details of the publishing business seemed unusually sordid, and I am afraid I spent most of the time looking at my watch, and waiting for the moment when I could legitimately rejoin Letitia. My partner, Arthur Tamworth, evidently regarded me as a joke, and uttered various pleasantries of the usual caliber. However, I asked him up to dinner one night during the week, and he accepted the invitation with gusto. At five o'clock I left the office, and half an hour later I arrived at my dainty little uptown apartment. Sure enough, Letitia was looking out of the window on the third floor and waving a handkerchief. Regardless of appearances, I kissed my hand, overjoyed at the sight of domesticity realized. Briskly I reached the elevator, and almost knocked down a most remarkable looking lady who was stepping out. I begged her pardon abjectly. She wore one of those peculiar veils, with an eruption of large, angry, violet spots, through which I could see that she was colored. Her dress was of mauve silk, and her hat was a veritable flower-garden of roses, violets, and lilies of the valley. She chuckled coonily at my apology and pursued her way. "Who on earth is that?" I asked the elevator boy. That official seemed tired. He answered indifferently: "Somebody's cook, I suppose." I couldn't help laughing. "Somebody's cook!" I repeated. "Who in the world would own a cook like that?" It was an amusing idea, and I quite enjoyed it. Letitia opened the door herself, which was charming and unconventional. She wore an exquisite little dinner dress of pink taffeta (I believe) trimmed with white chiffon (I imagine). Her neck and arms gleamed in enchanting evening revelation. We had both resolved always to "dress" for dinner. Probably Aunt Julia would accuse us of our favorite pastime of "aping," but we had not discussed the matter with her. "Dressing for dinner" was merely a little delicate formality that cost nothing at all. We looked upon it as a mutual courtesy--one of those small refinements that mean so much to the well-bred mind. Even when we were entirely alone, evening dress was to be _de rigueur_, as they say in plebeian circles. "Oh, Archie!" cried Letitia, "I'm so glad you've come, dear. It must have been at least a week since we parted. Isn't the 'home' lovely? Oh, I can scarcely believe it is mine. Now, run away and dress, like a good boy, and then we'll talk." I struggled into my evening clothes. My new dinner coat was a particularly fetching garment, and I flattered myself, as I emerged from my room--it seemed smaller than ever--that there was something distinctly patrician about me. Letitia was in the drawing-room with Ovid. A lamp with a red shade cast a rosy light upon her. Anything prettier than this picture I have never seen. I went in rather coyly, and fell over the tiger-head, at which Letitia laughed merrily--still the same, bright, unchanged little girl. When I had picked myself up, I looked out a channel between chairs, stools, sofas and what-nots, and plowed myself through it gingerly, until I reached Letitia. "Now, dear girl," I said, "tell me everything. Begin with Anna Carter." She took my hand as I sat beside her on the sofa. "Well," she started, "Anna was quite surprised to see me. She had not received my telepathic message. You remember I sent it at 11:32 this morning. But it appears that she was singing at that time. Isn't it fun, Archie? When I arrived, I found Anna at the piano practising her scales." "How extremely--er--disrespectful!" "Nonsense," laughed Letitia, "it seems that she belongs to a choral society and is first soprano. You know, Archie, I thought it best to be sympathetic at first. So I listened to her. I imagined that she was going to apologize for being discovered at the piano. But she didn't. She merely explained. The choral work will render it necessary for her to go out every night--" "But, my dear--" "Don't interrupt, Archie. After dinner, you know, we really don't need anybody. The old rigid idea of mewing a girl up in her room all evening is a bit out of date--don't you think so, dear, in these enlightened days? And isn't it much better to know that a cook is a woman above the usual old-time, sordid, servant brand? Her voice is really beautiful. She told me that they are rehearsing the _Messiah_ for Christmas Eve. I was quite impressed with her." "What does she look like?" I was a bit sullen, as so much oddity perplexed me. "Well," Letitia replied, "she didn't expect us, as my telepathic message miscarried. It was a pity, after all, dear, that I didn't take your advice and send a wire. Anna did not wear a black dress buttoned down the front. Probably she will appear in that to-morrow. I found her in mauve silk--really magnificently made, and her hair was done pompadour. She looked just like one of Williams and Walker's girls in _In Dahomey_." "Mauve silk!" I cried in surprise, "why Letitia, just as I was entering the elevator to come up here, I fell against a most remarkable looking coon in mauve, with a veil, and a hat like the Trianon gardens at Versailles." "It was Anna!" cried Letitia merrily. "She had to go out very early to-night, as the rehearsal was called for seven o'clock. You needn't look so vexed, Archie. This is surely our festival time, and why shouldn't Anna be in it? Time enough for discipline later. You silly boy, to frown and pout in that way--" Letitia kissed me, and I felt quite ashamed of my momentary ill-temper. I must have inherited an ugly propensity for slave-driving. Here I was, forgetting that this was our first night at home, because, forsooth, our cook had gone out in mauve silk to sing! "What about dinner?" I asked, and I succeeded in smiling. "It's all right, you ravenous person," she replied. "To-night, Anna has provided us what she calls a delicatessen dinner. I don't know what it is--but I left it all to her. She suggested it, and was astonished when I didn't know what it meant. She told me that it is very popular in New York, and that she can always get us one, even if she should have to go out earlier. I dare say it's lovely, Archie. She has laid it out in the dining-room, and I haven't looked at it, because I thought it would be jollier for us to make our acquaintance with the delicatessen dinner together. Anna isn't a bit servile, or humble, and I rather like that. I hate to see these women cowed. Not for a moment did Anna seem cowed." My good spirits returned. After all, it was exceedingly delightful to listen to my loquacious little wife, as she sat there in her pretty evening clothes. The idea of the delicatessen dinner--whatever it might be--alone with Letitia, in our newly-acquired home, was simply captivating. We went into the dining-room, arm-in-arm, and I almost wished that there was somebody there to snapshot us. My wife, with her blonde hair beautifully arranged, and her soft, pink silk draperies, with the white swirls of chiffon, was a vision of loveliness; and beside her, in my immaculate white waistcoat and admirable _piqué_ shirt, I afforded a sympathetic contrast. The dining-room, with its green burlap and handsome furniture, was absolutely correct, and in the glow of the electric lights looked like fairy-land. The effect was somewhat marred by the appearance of the festive board. It was scarcely festive. "Isn't it odd?" cried Letitia. And it was. On a quaint little thin wooden plate, was a mound of very cold looking potato salad. On another of these peculiar little dishes, were half a dozen slices of red sausage with white lumps in it. On a third wooden dish reposed two enormous pickles, very knobby and green. A loaf of bread lurked at one end of the table. Two plates and a knife and fork apiece completed the service, with a pitcher of water and two glasses. "Where is our pretty dinner set, I wonder?" asked Letitia; "I don't remember these funny little wooden dishes. And--what's in that paper parcel?" The paper parcel, by the loaf of bread, had escaped our notice. Letitia opened it, and revealed an immense piece of Gruyère cheese, very hole-y, and appetizing looking, and moist, but appearing to lack a cheese dish, and the necessary table equipment. "What a strange way of laying a table!" I remarked rather gloomily, feeling decidedly small in my satin-lined dinner-coat, and _piqué_ shirt-front. "It is rather like camping out," said Letitia, in a perplexed voice, "but perhaps this is merely the _hors-d'oeuvres_ course. Anna said something about an ice-box. Let's investigate, dear. It really is fun, though, isn't it?" Letitia led the way to the kitchen, her pink silk dress rustling musically. A few moments before, I had wished for somebody to snapshot us. But as we stood, peering into the ice-box, in our rigid evening dress, I felt rather relieved that we were alone. I should have hated Aunt Julia to have been there. In the ice-box there was nothing but ice and one bottle of ale, part of which had been consumed. The ice-box seemed awfully cold and we shivered, though we naturally shouldn't have expected an ice-box to be warm. Returning to the dining-room, rather meditative, and serious, and amazed, we sat down to table. There seemed to be such a quantity of table. It was almost appalling. "You must buy a plant, Archie," said Letitia. "Aunt Julia always has a fern, or something, in the middle of the table. It looks so dressy." I refrained from saying that Aunt Julia also had other things on the table. That would have been unnecessary. After all, this was a novelty, and it is only hopelessly conservative minds that ruthlessly reject innovation. And in spite of all, our first delicatessen dinner passed off gaily enough. In fact, the potato salad was delicious and we both agreed that Anna Carter was certainly a good cook. We were hungry, and the slices of sausage disappeared very quickly. We ate the pickles, not as a relish, but desperately, as solid food. They were almost a course, by themselves. "I'm really glad, Archie," said Letitia, "that Anna is out. This is so amusing, and for our first night at home, so appropriate. It would have been embarrassing to have had Anna hovering around, passing things." Although it occurred to me that Anna would have found very few things to pass, I did not say so. My mind had righted itself, and I was enjoying myself. The bread was fresh and appetizing. Never had I eaten so much bread, and with the hunks of Gruyère cheese I felt almost like a day-laborer. All I needed was a clasp-knife and a red handkerchief. I mentioned this to Letitia, and we both laughed so heartily that we forgot everything but our mirth. "My dear old day-laborer in a Tuxedo coat!" said Letitia. "And my dear old day-laborer's wife in low neck!" I added, catering to her fantasy. It really was very jolly. I don't believe that we could have been any jollier had there been ten courses, winding up with a _parfait au café_ and a _demi-tasse_. Instead of these, we finished our dinner with the remainder of the pickles and a nice glass of cool water. Letitia drank my health and I drank hers. We clinked glasses in the continental fashion. Then we waited, for we couldn't dispossess our minds of the belief that there was something to follow. I wouldn't admit to Letitia that I felt a trifle--er--incomplete; while Letitia certainly made no such confession. Yet there was a something lacking--an indescribable finishing touch. The delicatessen dinner undoubtedly lacked a finishing touch. It was all beginning. The appearance of the table after dinner was even more eccentric than we had found it at first sight. The empty wooden dishes, the paper that had held the Gruyère, and the two mere plates, had no suggestion of rollicking dissipation. Nor did they even suggest an overweening domesticity. Letitia, at last, rose from the table and I did the same. I advanced to the door and opened it for her, and she passed into the drawing-room, leaving me alone to enjoy a whiff or two of my cigarette. We determined to keep up the etiquette of refined life in its every ramification. The door of the bathroom stood wide open and rather spoiled the illusion. But Letitia did not notice it. I saw her pass down the hall like a queen, her head in the air, and her pink silk dress _froufrou_-ing deliciously. I threw myself back in an arm-chair, and sighed luxuriously. Then, before joining Letitia, I donned my smoking-jacket, and felt exquisitely at home. This was comfort, such as the maddened bachelor, in his infuriated solitude, can scarcely imagine. The petty cares of life took unto themselves wings and fled. Letitia, in the drawing-room, awaited me anxiously. We were both inclined to look upon the prescribed separation of the sexes after dinner as a relic of barbarism. But it was a polite relic, and we had no intention of shirking it. She looked up from her Ovid as I entered, and then, rising, she threw her arms around me and kissed me. It was eight o'clock, and we had a long evening before us. I had promised myself a holiday from my _Lives of Great Men_ to-night. Letitia had guaranteed entertainment, and this took the form of reading a translation of Ovid, aloud. She would have preferred to entertain me in the original, but excellent Latin scholar though I was, I clamored for a translation. With one's wife, a man can be perfectly frank. Ovid, in the original, was a trifle--heavy. She read on, and on--and still on. "Banquets, too, with the tables arranged, afford an introduction; there is something there besides wine for you to look for. Full oft does blushing Cupid, with his delicate arms, press the soothed horns of Bacchus there present. And when the wine has besprinkled the soaking wings of Cupid, there he remains and stands overpowered on the spot of his capture. He, indeed, quickly flaps his moistened wings, but still it is fatal for the breast to be sprinkled by love. Wine composes the feeling--" The clock struck ten. I interrupted Letitia rather irrelevantly. "My dear girl," I said, "I hate to be so prosaic, but I really feel horribly empty." She looked at me rather oddly, I thought. "You feel empty?" she queried; "what an atrocious expression, Archie. If you mean by that, that you are hungry--" "I am, Letitia, ravenously hungry. In fact, I feel quite faint. I can't think of Ovid, but only of supper. Oh, Letitia, a team of deviled kidneys--" "Don't," she cried, "don't. I can't bear it. Isn't it disgraceful, Archie? I, too, am simply starving. It must be that bracing atmosphere of Niagara. It has made plow-boys of us. Never before have I felt that Ovid was a trifle--er--inadequate. Yet we have dined, Archie. We have partaken of a delicatessen dinner. We ate everything--" "I believe," I said feverishly, "that there was a little bread left. We did not eat the entire loaf, Letitia. I am quite sure that there was a heel--a crust--on the table. It caught my eye. Shall we--shall we go and see?" We went back to the dining-room, _not_ arm-in-arm. And truly enough, we discovered that half a loaf was indeed better than no bread. I cut the crust in two and nobly gave Letitia the larger piece--nobly, but I am bound to say, enviously. Once more I felt relieved that there were no camera fiends to intrude upon our privacy. Letitia, in her _décolleté_ pink silk gown, eating dry bread with a famished expression, seemed unconventional. So did I, as I buried my teeth in the fresh, crisp crust. There was no butter. Had there been butter,--well, we should merely have eaten it. We drank some more of that nice cool water, that bubbled as I poured it from the pitcher with uplifted hand. "And now, dear," I said, "as I am going to be hungry again in five minutes--I feel it coming on--I think I'll go to bed, and forget it." "We--we--can't go to bed yet," murmured Letitia, "we must wait for Anna. She has no latch-key, and can't get in--" "Can't get in?" I exclaimed--and I'm afraid I was testy--"surely she intends to conform to the rules of all well-appointed establishments--" "Now you are wrong, dear," said my wife nervously. "It is not her fault that she has no latch-key. She asked for one. Yes, Archie, she even demanded it. It was very considerate of her. It is quite impossible for her ever to be back before midnight, and she hated the idea of keeping us up. It was very nice of her, and you shouldn't misjudge people, Archie. To-morrow, we will all have latch-keys. At present, we are without them, so I couldn't lend her one." "Then there is an hour and a half to wait--" "Oh, Archie,"--Letitia's eyes filled with tears--"you are getting to be a regular--husband! You talk of waiting an hour and a half--alone with me--as though it were a hardship. Oh, I'm so sorry. I never could have believed--" A stinging sense of remorse overcame me. I could have bitten out my tongue for those foolish words. I explained that it was not the hour and a half of waiting with Letitia that annoyed me; I protested that it was the principle of the thing; I insinuated that I was unstrung, and still hungry; I--but I fancy that Letitia understood. She smiled again, and declared that she was too sensitive--and also a bit hungry. So we went back to the drawing-room, and once more immersed ourselves in the intellectual contemplation of Venus, and Paris, and Cupid, and Diana, and Bacchus, and Thalia,--with minds out-rushing to Anna Carter. Shortly after midnight the electric bell pealed and Letitia flew to the door. "It's Anna!" she cried joyously, as though it could possibly be anybody else. Miss Carter glided in, enormous and imposing. She almost filled the hall. Letitia and I were obliged to lean tightly against the wall in order to let her pass. She surveyed Letitia's costume in bland astonishment. "Say!" she exclaimed, "don't you jes' look too cute for words! My! Ain't it stylish?" "To-morrow you must have a latch-key, Anna," said Letitia majestically. "You can now retire." The mauve silk dress made twice as much rustle as Letitia's. Its owner passed to her room, humming in a very exhilarating manner. My wife and I, a trifle awed, moved rather gloomily toward our own apartment. "An egg apiece, and some cawfee in the morning, I suppose." The words floated in to us. They came from Anna's room. Letitia looked at me, and I looked at Letitia. Certainly our handmaiden was neither abject nor cowed. Yet we were bound to uphold the spirit of independence, the very backbone of our institutions. "Anna!" called Letitia. I noticed a timid inflection in her voice but as I said nothing myself, I was unable to notice anything similar in my own. "Never call to me," Letitia ventured to remark, as cook appeared with her mauve silk bodice unbuttoned, revealing a pair of scarlet corsets, "always come. I am not at all inaccessible," she added loftily. "Yes, eggs and coffee will do for to-morrow. We shall breakfast at--" "Nine," interrupted Anna. Letitia pondered for a moment, and then nodded her head assentingly as Anna departed. I felt relieved that she left when she did. She was slowly disrobing, as she stood before us, and I anticipated a catastrophe if she remained two minutes longer. "Nine is awfully late, Letitia," I said, "I really ought to be at the office at eight--" "I don't want Anna to think you are a bricklayer, dear," asserted Letitia. "One never hears of really nice people breakfasting at such an ungodly hour. You see, she herself suggested nine. Evidently, Archie, she has been in good families. Later on, I can always explain to her that we desire an earlier meal. But just at first--" "But, my dear girl," I said weakly, "you are really mistaken in your notion that it is only the bricklayer world that rises in the early morning. The best people do it. Why, Gladstone was at his desk every day at six--" "Oh, Gladstone!" she protested with a smile, dismissing the late right honorable gentleman from her consideration, as though he were not a mere mortal of flesh and blood, with everyday sensations; "you mustn't mention Gladstone, dear. If you were Gladstone, you could afford to do as you liked--to have your breakfast at midnight, and indulge in other eccentricities." This was a bit irritating. Naturally, I knew I was not quite in the same class as the gentlemen who have made history, but one does not care to be reminded of that fact by one's wife. Even in jest, such a remark seemed unnecessary. But it was not a matter to argue. I took no further heed of it, and turned to the more vital question of our cook. "Don't you think that she is extremely familiar--" "Well, dear, perhaps friendly," said Letitia. "I think I prefer it to servility. These bashful, deferential women are probably sneaky and deceitful. Still, of course, I shall not permit her to be as friendly as she was to-night. One must have discipline." Letitia was combing out her hair before the silver, beveled mirror. I watched the comb as it strayed through the shining golden strands. I was soothed by the sight, that appealed to my sense of the artistic. "To-morrow, dear," I said, "I suppose you will give her the cap with the olive-green ribbons trailing the ground, and inquire about the black dress buttoned down the front?" Letitia was silent. She tugged at a refractory bit of hair and not until it had earned its right to pass through the comb, unmolested, did she speak. "I was thinking, Archie," she said reflectively, "that some girls attach so much more importance to little matters of that sort, if a man--if a man puts it to them. Aunt Julia has often told me that she would have had a much easier time if there had been a man in the house. Perhaps, Archie, you would like to--" "Not at all, Letitia," I remarked with emphasis, "not for worlds, dear, would I interfere in your household matters. It is good of you to suggest it, Letitia, and to permit me the luxury of meddling. But no, dear,"--in tones of noble self-sacrifice--"I shall refrain." "Well, then, to-morrow," she said pensively, "I will attend to the matter. No doubt Anna will be delighted. And, Archie, she has just the sort of face that would look well beneath a cap." "I didn't like her in the hat trimmed with Trianon gardens," I muttered with strange persistence. "Perhaps it was a bit elaborate," Letitia agreed. "But now, Archie, I'm sleepy, and--let us drop Anna. Next week, perhaps, I shall buy her a pretty little black bonnet, tied with strings, under the chin. I intend to treat her nicely and generously and--" "I know I shall emaciate during the night," I couldn't help declaring, as I switched off the light, "I'm as hungry as a hunter, and--and--we finished the bread!" CHAPTER III "Since Eve ate apples, much depends on dinner." If Byron, whose genius few will deny, can make such a remark, there is no need for me to apologize for dwelling upon a topic that long-haired dreamers, with bad digestions, might call niggledy-piggledy. In fact, I have no intention of so doing. It has long been my idea that dinner is not so much a mere matter of material indulgence, as of artistic communion, to which food is an accompaniment. The fact that the very best music, cruelly harmonized, must distress--that Melba, Calvé, and Nordica warbling to a discordant accompaniment, would produce nausea--can certainly need no discussion. It is a fact that is self-evident. It has an Euclidian Q.E.D-ness that is instantly apparent. I told Letitia that I was not going to emulate the example of so many men and treat myself each day to a choice luncheon in town. That has always seemed to me to be a greedy process. Better--far better is it--to return to one's home at night, hungry as a hunter, with an appetite for healthful food, rather than an abnormal craving for _suprême de volaille_. Don't you think so? I intended to save myself up for Letitia--to accumulate hunger-pangs, and bring them to her table for artistic treatment. My wife fully agreed with me, and although I brought the due amount of hunger-pangs to our first dinner at home and discovered, perhaps, that "delicatessen" food didn't treat them quite as artistically as they deserved, I was not discouraged. My appetite next evening was really in a wonderfully unimpaired condition. I rejoiced to find that I was so healthy, and as I wended my way homewards, I looked longingly at mere apples in the street, while the peanut stands and the roast chestnut stoves almost suggested assault. On this occasion Letitia was not at the window, and I was disappointed. Evidently she was busy and unable to look for my advent. Perhaps it was selfish of me to expect her to dance attendance upon my comings and goings, but a newly-made husband is inclined to be unduly exacting. Even when I entered the apartment there was nobody to meet me, and it was not until I reached the drawing-room that I found Letitia. She was sitting there, looking at the fireplace that the steam-heat rendered so unnecessary. If there had been glowing embers there she would have been gazing into them. But there were none--merely gas-logs, unlighted. On the floor by her side was a little white arrangement, around which were coiled yards and yards of olive-green ribbon. Instantly I remembered Anna's cap. I asked myself apprehensively why it was on the floor, and not on Anna? Letitia's face was flushed; her eyes were red; her pose was listless; her manner strange. Something evil must have happened, and I sprang forward with the cry: "Letitia!" She started, and then came forward to kiss me. Her face felt feverish, and for a moment my heart stood still and I was unable to ask for an explanation. Letitia herself, however, came to my rescue. "I've had such a horrible time of it, Archie, that I almost telephoned for you to come back. Then, I thought you would be frightened, so I simply telepathed. And--and--that didn't work, so I determined to wait--" The tears rushed to her eyes. I was frantic. I had never before seen Letitia like this. She had been, hitherto, so impassive, so immovable, so admirably self-controlled. "What is it, dear?" I asked tenderly, thinking up dozens of possible catastrophes. "That!" she replied tremulously, pointing to the cap on the floor. "Archie, I bought it this morning, trimmed it with seven yards of the finest ribbon I could get, and then--when I offered it to Anna, I was insulted--grossly insulted--although--although she told me that I--I, Archie--had grossly insulted her. Oh, I shall never forget it." "I don't understand, dear. Please explain--when you feel calmer." "I'm calm, now," she asserted, with a telltale gulp. "First of all, dear, when I gave her the cap and told her that I hoped she would always wear it--as it matched the burlap in the dining-room so well--she burst out laughing. Oh, how she laughed! She put her hands to her sides--akimbo, I think they call it--and made such a noise that I was afraid. Oh, that coon laughter! And, then, Archie, what do you think she asked me? You would never guess. What she meant I can't quite figure out, but she asked me if I thought--if I thought--" "Tell me, Letitia." "She asked me if I thought she was a blooming circus! A blooming circus, Archie! She told me that if I hadn't a quarter to go and see a variety show, she would lend me one. The humiliation of it! Then she said that she wasn't going to do any 'vaudeville turn' here. Vaudeville turn, if you please, Archie. She told me that I had airs and manners 'to burn'--which I imagine must be slang. Nothing would induce her to put on the cap. She said it was a merry-andrew affair, and though I explained to her that in Paris such caps were quite the thing, it had no effect on her. In fact, she almost told me that I lied, for she declared that she had been in Paris herself and had never seen such degradation." "Had she been in Paris, Letitia?" I asked, surprised. "Yes, dear," replied Letitia, brushing back her disheveled hair, "in Paris, Kentucky. She was born there. Poor girl! When I realized that she was quite ignorant, I felt sorry for her. I said to her in a very gentle voice: 'Anna, I wanted you to wear this cap, because I thought it would look so well with the nice black alpaca dress that I am going to give you.' On the spur of the moment, Archie, I had decided to present her with a black alpaca dress--" "And then--?" "And then," continued Letitia, "she turned on me again. I could keep the black alpaca dress, she said, until she was ready for the Old Ladies' Home. That was the livery there, she informed me. No black dresses for her. Red was the only thing worth living for, she said, and mauve came next. She insisted that she wasn't working for black alpaca dresses. If she so far forgot her dignity as to go out to domestic service, it was because she needed silk gowns, and flower hats--" "She saw you were young and inexperienced," I said bitterly, "and she was just imposing. I think I'll go and have a talk with her--" "You can't," cried Letitia nervously, "she's out. Oh, I'm so glad she's out, for I was really frightened, Archie, and can't forget her as she stood there--just where you are--in an old weather-beaten black silk skirt with half the beads on, and a bright red jersey with half the buttons off." "She must go!" I exclaimed imperiously. "She must go." "No, Archie, no. The matter has been settled in an amicable way. Just as she was leaving me she burst out crying, and I felt most horribly guilty. I have no idea why I felt guilty for I had merely intended to be kind, though firm, as Aunt Julia said. Still, I felt guilty. Half an hour after she came back, quite lively, and dressed to go out, in the mauve silk, with the flower hat. She told me not to be angry, and not to worry--that sometimes when she was unstrung, she was taken that way; that she hadn't really meant anything, as she knew I was only joking about the cap and the black dress. I felt so relieved, Archie, it was a weight off my mind." "And dinner?" I carefully tried to suppress a few pangs that were rioting. "She was so upset, dear, that I really believed that she would go without even thinking of dinner. But I wronged her, for she didn't. She is not really a bad girl--merely odd, some one to study psychologically. In spite of her hysterical condition she has prepared dinner--another delicatessen dinner. I hope you won't mind, dear." I sank wearily into an arm-chair. "I had an apple for luncheon, Letitia," I said with a yearning for sympathy; "one apple, and nothing more. What did you have?" "Anna boiled me an egg," she replied; "it was really beautifully cooked, and I had some bread, and butter, and coffee. I wanted tea, Archie, but Anna had forgotten to get any in the house, as she prefers coffee. Isn't it funny, Archie? She says she simply can't drink tea--it nauseates her--and that she is quite famous for her coffee--" "Letitia," I interrupted, "I don't think I could undergo another delicatessen dinner. The potato salad was certainly very nice, so were the pickles--as appetizers. But," with a weak attempt at humor, "I really couldn't give them an encore. Let's go out to dinner. Let's put on our things, and go down to the Martin--" Letitia clapped her hands. "How gorgeous!" she cried ecstatically, "what a lovely idea!" "It seems silly," I said, "to abandon our home as soon as we get into it, doesn't it, Letitia? Here we are dining out before we've dined in--" "But, Archie," suggested Letitia triumphantly, "Aunt Julia says that nearly all New Yorkers dine at restaurants, when it is cook's night out--" "In our case, dear,"--with a little sarcastic inflection--"every night appears to be cook's night out. So we really ought to subscribe to a restaurant--" "That is unjust, Archie. We have been at home two nights only. Last night we really did enjoy the novelty of the delicatessen dinner, and to-night there is another waiting for us. If it hadn't been for the cap with the ribbons--which was an accident--this second delicatessen dinner wouldn't have occurred. And I'm sure--" "Well, to-morrow night we dine at home, Letitia," I remarked rather haughtily, "for I have invited Arthur Tamworth, who is quite an epicure. When we get back from the restaurant we will arrange a little menu, and Anna can then give us a taste of her quality." "And I dare say that she will," said Letitia, bestowing a kiss upon me. "Probably she is an exceedingly good cook. We are paying her heavy wages, Archie--the wages of a very good cook, Aunt Julia says. I don't fancy that Anna is the woman to sail under false colors--" "Unless mauve be a false color," I interposed wittily, and then we both laughed and good temper was restored. Like a couple of children, we went gaily off to the restaurant, with ne'er a thought of the cold sausage and the buff salad that graced our own mahogany. It was a very long and well-furnished dinner, but it was not too long for us. We were famished. At various times I have seen Letitia "toy" with her food. I have often told her that she merely coquetted with her meals. But now she labored strenuously, and this dinner was a serious affair. We were both too busy even to talk. The waiters looked at us in amazement, as they removed dish after dish, with naught to tell the tale of its quality. It was even alarming. It was not until we had arrived at the coffee that we paused in our mad career. Letitia glanced at me a trifle shamefacedly, I thought; I returned the glance, perhaps a bit abashed. Possibly she was vexed that she had shattered the rose-leaf-and-dewdrop theory, for she had certainly done so. I had never seen her in the desperation of hunger, simply battling for food. "We _were_ hungry," said Letitia, with a little sigh of greedy satisfaction, as I lighted a cigarette. And I was glad that she included me. It put her at ease and, as a matter of fact, I had been just as ardent. It was unusual--but it seemed better for her to be plural in her remarks. "If Anna saw us," I was puffing contentedly at my cigarette, "I don't think she would suggest another delicatessen dinner. Oh, those pickles--that sausage--the ecru potato muddle! Really, Letitia--" "I suppose that when one is positively hungry," Letitia murmured, "such food is trying. Few cooks, however, anticipate appetites like ours, dear." Once again I was included. It was quite natural that Letitia should arraign me with herself. But the idea dawned upon me that though I had done my duty to this dinner just as nobly as had my wife--her appetite, for a fragile girl, was really more extraordinary than was mine for a full-fledged man. As soon as we were home again, Letitia suggested that we start at once to arrange the little menu for the dinner at which Arthur Tamworth was to be present on the following evening. We sat in the drawing-room, although we should have preferred the cozier dining-room. In that apartment, however, the delicatessen dinner was still laid. We took one look at it and then fled. In our state of repletion it seemed too insolent to endure. Anna was not there to remove it, and Letitia's education was such that the sordid details of clearing a table were a bit beyond her. "I wish," she said, "that we had arranged this menu before dinner. It is hard to think up things, after one has dined so well." "Yes, dear," I assented, "soup just now is so unattractive and--er--meat palls." "But to-morrow we shan't feel like that," she declared triumphantly, "and one must look ahead, Archie. You just smoke quietly, dear, and I'll write out the menu. Then we'll talk it over. I shall make it out in French, dear. The simplest things sound almost epicurean in French. I shall buy three very pretty menu cards to-morrow--with little artistic drawings on them, one for each of us. And I dare say that Mr. Tamworth will like to take his home with him." "But Anna won't understand French." "I've thought of that," said Letitia, biting her pencil. "I shall make the list out in English for Anna, so that she can buy the things and serve them properly. Of course, she may know French--she certainly does if she has lived in good families--but I won't rely on it. Every cook really should be proficient in the gastronomic phrases that are so popular to-day." "Strange, isn't it, Letitia, that English and American menus should always affect French?" "No, dear," replied my wife, "not at all. We copy the Latin countries in all the arts. Why not in that of dining? Dining _is_ an art, and not--as we regard it in England and America--a mere vulgar physiological process." For ten minutes Letitia thought and wrote--and wrote and thought. She looked up at the ceiling for inspiration; she glanced at me, unseeingly, and when I made a face at her, never noticed it. She sat there, working, while I idly admired her and thought what an admirable little housewife she was. For such a blue-stocking, Letitia was doing wonders, it seemed to me. At the end of the ten minutes she had finished and, bringing her work to my chair, she sat on the tiger-head at my knee and announced with much satisfaction that her efforts had been successful. "Listen, Archie," she began, with her paper comfortably settled on her lap. "First of all, let me say that I have made out a very simple dinner. I hate ostentation and glare. My idea is to be dainty and unpretentious. We don't want Mr. Tamworth to think that we are living beyond our means, but we do want him to realize the fact that we know how to be refined and inexpensive at the same time." "Certainly. You are quite right, Letitia. Go on." "As _hors d'oeuvres_," she continued, "we will have olives and _anchois à l'huile_. That is quite enough for a little home dinner. You write it all in English for Anna as I read it to you. Here, take this piece of paper and pencil, dear." I wrote: "Olives. Anchovies at the oil." "For soup," she went on, "I shall have things that sound really much better than they are, as I don't want to confuse Anna. Just two soups, Archie, _consommé julienne_, and _crème d'asperges_. I did think of _petite marmite_, but there is just a chance that Anna might fail at it, as even in Paris none but the finest _chefs_ really succeed with _petite marmite_. So just put down _consommé julienne_, and _crème d'asperges_." "Beef soup with vegetables. Cream of asparagus," I wrote. "Don't you think, Letitia, that one soup would have been enough--one thoroughly artistic and satisfactory soup?" "No, Archie," she responded with some asperity. "I hate pinning people down to one thing--taking a tailor-like measure of their tastes, as it were. Doesn't it all sound horrid in English?" she queried with a laugh. "One might really fancy a little _consommé julienne_, whereas beef soup with vegetables sounds absolutely tin-can-ny, and red-handkerchief-y." I thought of Letitia at the restaurant, just one hour previously, and realized what absolute hunger can do for a lissome little lady. "Just one _entrée_, Archie,"' said she, "merely _homard naturel_. Everybody likes it, and I prefer to class it as an _entrée_. I did think of having it _à la Newburg_, but it is a bit too heavy, don't you think, dear? I don't want our dinner to be a foody affair--" "Like that we have just finished," I interposed thoughtfully. "No," she agreed rather reluctantly. "We were both disgracefully hungry, and--and--you needn't keep discussing that meal, for it was a meal, and _not_ a dinner. Now, write down, please, as _entrée_, _homard naturel_." "Natural lobster," emerged from my pencil tip. "After that, a solid dish," Letitia declared. "You see, Archie, Mr. Tamworth is American, and we don't want to worry him with quail, or squab or little unsatisfactory game. I've thought it carefully over and it seems to me that a tiny, dainty _bifsteck aux pommes de terre_ will be energetic without being squalid. What say you, boy? Don't you agree with me?" "Beefsteak with potatoes," I wrote glibly, but even as my pencil framed the words, I shuddered. After our recent heavy dinner the thought of it seemed so arduous. Letitia understood. "You see, it's all due to the coarseness of the English language," she insisted, "and you must remember that you are Englishing it for Anna only. I wonder," she added pensively, "if Anna would make us some of those _soufflé_ potatoes--you know, Archie, those things that are all blown out, and that seem like eating fried air. They are most delicate. We used to have them every Sunday at the _pension_, in the Avenue du Roule. However, I won't tax the girl. Perhaps she may give us the potatoes in that style without being told. I fancy, dear, that she is going to surprise us. I dare say it will be a relief to her to see that we really know what good living is. I shall leave the potatoes to her." "We may as well give her a chance," I agreed. "Personally, I would just as soon have the potatoes _maître d'hôtel_. It is very likely that Anna will prefer that method, as it is more usual." "And after that," Letitia cried gaily, "nothing, but _glaces aux fraises_--" "Strawberry ices," I wrote. "And a _demi-tasse_." "Coffee. It is very convenient in New York, dear," I said, "Anna will not have the worry of making the ices. All she will have to do will be to order a quart and they will send it over in a cardboard box." Letitia shivered. "Yes, I know, Archie. It is very coarse, isn't it? Imagine thinking of ices by the quart! Picture them in a cardboard box!" "They speak of it in the singular here, dear. It is ice-cream. You talk of a quart of _it_; not of a quart of _them_. It doesn't really matter, though. The taste is the same." "Ugh!" Letitia exclaimed, "it is very discouraging. Why people call delicious foods by such ugly titles, I don't know. 'A quart of ice-cream' has such a greedy sound, whereas 'a strawberry ice' is pretty and artistic to the ear. But as you say, dear, it really makes no difference. But what do you think of the dinner, dear? Does it appeal to you? After all, Archie, I would sooner it pleased you than Mr. Tamworth, though he _is_ the guest." "It is lovely," I said enthusiastically, "and, Letitia, so are you. And you would sooner please me than Arthur Tamworth, oh, most charming of wives? Well, you will do that, my dear. Yet I bet that our little dinner will be a red-letter affair for Arthur." "I shall get the menus at Brentano's to-morrow," announced Letitia, "some pretty little water-color, or etching, if possible. I don't intend to economize, Archie. Our first dinner-party--for three is a crowd, isn't it?--must, and shall be delightful." CHAPTER IV Before going to the office next morning, I accompanied Letitia to the florist's. She was determined to select the table decorations herself. Later on, she declared, when Anna had become acclimatized and our way of living was to her as an open book, Letitia promised to leave everything to her. We were rather surprised at the cost of the flowers Letitia coveted. Orchids and American Beauty roses appealed to her strongly, and she paid no attention to less expensive blooms. Not that I minded. This little dinner really meant a good deal to me. Besides being a personal friend of mine, Arthur Tamworth was my senior partner, and it was upon him that I relied for the publication of my _Lives of Great Men_, a work that was to make my name ring through the land and perhaps, through the ages. In fact, I delighted to do him honor, and if my motives were somewhat selfish, they were not less so than those of the majority. This is a practical age. Letitia went home, flower-laden and smiling. She was neither when I returned at five o'clock. In fact, she seemed distinctly weary and her kiss was more perfunctory than any I had hitherto experienced at her lips. "Anna is so surly, Archie," she said droopingly, "that I simply can't cope with her. She is furious at the idea of being late at her class. This was to be her great night, she says, as she was to sing _With Verdure Clad_, and she seems indignant. I was kind though firm. I insinuated--though I didn't say so--that her verdure would keep, and that my dinner must be served properly." "Quite right, dear." "I felt it was a sort of crisis," Letitia continued, "a kind of tide in the affairs of the household. Then her sister came, and I suggested that if Anna liked, the girl could remain and wait at table." "But does she know how?" I asked. "What is there to know?" queried Letitia, with a tinge of annoyance. "Anybody can wait at table. It is very simple. Anna seemed pleased, or, rather, not displeased. But she is very sulky and I have arranged the flowers on the table myself. I've never worked so hard in my life and I feel quite tired out. But I realize, dear, that one must do something useful--at least at the beginning of housekeeping. I have also placed the _hors d'oeuvres_ on the table. It all looks very charming." "Poor Letitia!" I exclaimed, stroking her hair, "I hate the idea of your laboring. You mustn't do it again. I have no doubt but that Anna could have done it all, but as she was so cross you were right to heap coals of fire on her head. She is probably remorseful enough by this time." "No," Letitia remarked thoughtfully, "I don't believe that Anna has a remorseful nature. The colored disposition--I mean by that the disposition of the colored people--is peculiar, Archie. When we have quite settled down, I shall study Anna, psychologically." "In the meantime, dear," I said, airily jocular, "let us hope that the _crème d'asperges_ won't be too psychological." Letitia looked a picture in blue _crêpe de chine_, with her beautiful neck and shoulders emerging from one of those spidery lace effects that render the masculine pen impotent. Her _trousseau_ contained so many evening dresses that one might have imagined that our entire life was to be spent at night, and that morning counted for absolutely nothing. Some of the orchids, remaining from the table decorations, Letitia wore at her bosom, and one exquisite American Beauty rose nestled in the golden glories of her hair. "You see how economical I am, Archie," she said, "for instead of throwing away the superfluous flowers, I wear them. Aunt Julia says that the essence of good housekeeping consists in utilizing everything." We sat in the drawing-room to await Arthur Tamworth, and although we both made an admirable feint of ease and nonchalance, it was so obviously a feint that we gave it up, and simply killed time. Of course, we were both accustomed to dinners and receptions--in fact, we had been nourished on them. But other people's affairs are--other people's affairs. This was ours, and our first, and there is no use concealing the fact that we were both nervous. Letitia read Ovid, upside down, and seemed to derive intellectual entertainment from it, judging by her face. I merely looked out of the window, not to watch for Tamworth's advent, but because the window seemed to be such a fitting place to look out of. When the bell finally rang, Letitia had the decency to adjust Ovid, and I stood by the fireplace in an unstudied, host-like way, with my hands behind me, although there had never been any warmth in that fireplace and never would be--as long as we had steam-heat for nothing. As we waited, a colored head and nothing more popped in at the door, and the younger Miss Carter--for it must have been she--remarked: "There's a man outside who wants to come in." "Never let any one in," I said sternly, for there had been an epidemic of burglars, while suspicious characters simply prowled, seeking whom they might devour. "Always keep the chain on the door." "He says he's come to dinner," remarked the colored head, with a chuckle. Letitia jumped up as though shot. I felt myself redden. Under the caption of "man" we had not recognized Arthur Tamworth. Of course, he was a man in the best sense of the word, but the best sense of the word is not polite society's. I rushed to the door in a fever, and unchained it noisily. Arthur Tamworth stood outside looking just a trifle annoyed--but not more annoyed than I was. "Come in, old chap," I said, with elaborate cordiality, "we were waiting for you. The maid who opened the door was not our maid, you know--merely her sister--and--er--" "That's all right, Fairfax," Arthur Tamworth declared, as he shook my hand, "I didn't know what I had struck. Having, however, lived in New York all my life, I know something about the ladies who help. Hope I'm not late?" I insisted that this was Liberty Hall--a remark that is always supposed to put all at their ease. Then I escorted him to the drawing-room where Letitia stood, peerless in her blue diaphanous gown. Mr. Tamworth was so engrossed with Letitia's appearance that he did not notice the tiger-head, and tripping over it, fell at her feet. I assisted him to rise and introduced him to my wife. His fall, however, had irritated him a bit. He was much older than we were, being a somewhat portly person of fifty summers, with iron-gray hair and a florid complexion. "I'm so sorry," said Letitia graciously, "Archie and I always fall over that tiger-head, and have really grown to like it. But it is a stupid thing--very much in the way." "I always think, Mrs. Fairfax," Mr. Tamworth remarked, rubbing his shin, "that tiger-heads are meant to trip people up. And the worst of them is that they are always so hard. They must be stuffed with rocks." Letitia's delightful manner, however, soon restored his equanimity. She talked to him so gracefully, so appealingly, so irresistibly, that Arthur Tamworth was under the spell of her presence long before we went in to dinner. I felt proud of her as she held--in the palm of her hand, as it were--this worldly, rotund person. The fate of my _Lives of Great Men_ seemed to be settled. Mr. Tamworth did not wear evening dress, but affected that horrible garb known as a "business suit," with a rude, short coat. This annoyed me, as I was afraid that Letitia would think my friend lacking in respect. In fact, she looked extremely surprised when, just before we moved toward the dining-room, he said: "Had I known we were going to the opera to-night, Mrs. Fairfax, I should have dressed. But Archie did not tell me." "We are not going to the opera, Mr. Tamworth," Letitia responded, her eyes betraying her astonishment. "Why should you think so?" Then, with a charming determination to make him feel comfortable, she added: "Archie and I dress for each other. I like him better than any audience at the Metropolitan, and he has the same sort of regard for me." Wasn't it pretty? Mr. Tamworth remarked, "You're a lucky dog, Fairfax," and then Letitia took his arm, and we set forth for the dining-room, cheerful and expectant. I noticed that Tamworth took particular heed of the tiger-head this time. The dignity of our march was also impaired by the fact that the bathroom door stood wide open, and if it had not been for Letitia's presence of mind, we should all have marched in. Nothing could have looked more fairy-like than the dining-room, except, perhaps, fairy-land itself. Mr. Tamworth's face expanded in a pleasant smile at the mere anticipation of the dinner that awaited him. The orchids, framed in maiden-hair fern, were exquisite, and the roses in long vases of opalescent glass were fragrant as well as beautiful. At each place was a dainty menu-card, bearing misty little water-color pictures. Mr. Tamworth's was called "Children at Play," which did not seem appropriate, but was nevertheless neat and well-done. The _hors d'oeuvres_ passed off admirably. Letitia was lively, Mr. Tamworth was wonderfully loquacious, and I sat and reveled in their clever encounters of wit. Letitia and I scarcely touched the olives, and the _anchois à l'huile_, but Mr. Tamworth seemed hungry, and partook of them as though there were nothing to follow. Then Letitia touched a little bell, and after what seemed an eternity the younger Miss Carter appeared. I could not help gasping when I saw her. She wore a coffee-colored dress with bright yellow ribbons, and nestling in her woolly hair--in the style affected by Letitia--was a rose, most red and artificial. On her face was a broad grin. I looked at Letitia, and saw that she was flushed but endeavoring to overcome her vexation. Tamworth's gaze appeared to be riveted upon the picture of "Children at Play." "Will you take _consommé julienne_, or _crème d'asperges_?" asked Letitia, nervously fingering her dinner-card, and trying to smile in an unconcerned way upon Mr. Tamworth. Mr. Tamworth selected the _crème d'asperges_; so did Letitia and I. My wife whispered to the Zulu in yellow: "Asparagus soup for everybody," rather anxiously, and then turning to our guest tried to think of something to say. I say, tried to think, because, at that moment, voices were heard in the kitchen, which was as near to us as the bathroom. In fact, the voices seemed as though they were in the dining-room. "They'll all take sparrowgrass soup," said the younger Miss Carter, with a loud laugh. "Oh, they will, will they?" retorted the elder Miss Carter. "You jes' ask 'em how they're a-goin to do it. They'll take what I've made, or they'll leave it. I don't know nothin' about no sparrowgrass. She's crazy, askin' for two different soups. Here. You take in them three bowls o' veg., and no back talk. I'm sick and tired of this kind o' monkey business. You bet I am. And just you hurry, Sylvia; we're a-missin' all of our choruses, and--" By some horrid, demoniac freak of fate, we sat hatefully and relentlessly silent. In vain I tried to think up some remark--be it ever so banal--that would distract Tamworth's attention. I could see that Letitia was in the same quandary. Not an idea lurked in my mind. Even the weather failed. Each word from the kitchen reached us as though by megaphone. Letitia's lip trembled, as she sat, apparently racking her brain for something--anything--to say. It was too cruel. "Take in the veg. soup, and if you drop it I'll skin you," sang out Miss Carter. Rescue came, but it was too late. "You really have a charming little apartment, Mrs. Fairfax," said Arthur Tamworth diplomatically, "I don't know when I've seen prettier appointments." A dainty soup-plate was placed before each of us by the grinning maiden. Sylvia, if you please--Sylvia! It was "beef soup and vegetables" with a vengeance. It stood in a solid mass in each plate and there seemed to be everything in it but soup. It approached the spoon with glutinous reluctance and appeared to be begging to be cut with a knife and put quickly out of its misery. "Oh, I'm so sorry about the _crème d'asperges_," Letitia murmured, her lips parched, and a fever spot on each cheek, "I suppose that she didn't understand." "This is delicious, Mrs. Fairfax," said Arthur Tamworth nobly, "there is nothing I like better than good _consommé julienne_. I really prefer it to the other." We did not sip our soup, but we worked at it. It tasted like boiled everything, served up with the water. There were nasty little flecks of red and streaks of yellow in it. One expected anything, at each spoonful. Not if I had been starving, could I have eaten it. Arthur Tamworth plodded along laboriously, like a youth with his way to make in the world, and Letitia, as hostess, evidently felt bound by the rules of etiquette to do what she could. She had recovered her equanimity, wonderful little girl! "As we were saying before dinner," she remarked, trying not to look at the odious Sylvia, as she clattered away the plates, "the modern novel does seem to have deteriorated. If you consider all these irritating romances, so vastly inferior to the splendid imaginings of Dumas, you must admit the weakness, the effeminacy of such efforts to-day. It assuredly does seem as though all virility had departed from the modern band of so-called romance-weavers--" Letitia's effort at "polite conversation" suddenly ceased. The _homard naturel_ arrived and we could scarcely believe our eyes. Instead of the splendid crustacean that we had anticipated--the glowing macrurous delicacy that we had expected to see crouching in a juggle of water-cress--a hideous can, with a picture of a lobster on it, was placed before me. The can had been opened, and there, in poisonous looking obsequiousness, lurked our _homard naturel_. "This is absurd," I said, and my voice shook. Tamworth was an old friend, but sometimes old friends respond to insult, apparently deliberate. "I--I--can't understand," Letitia managed to say. "What--what is it?" "Simply a can of lobster," replied Arthur Tamworth, with a pleasant smile; "and very good it is, too, no doubt. Suppose you assist us, Fairfax, and cease looking as though you had lost all your available relatives, and your wife's as well." To say that I felt mortified was to put the matter mildly. The fact that Tamworth was generously trying to make the best of things irritated me the more. After all, at a little dinner, one does not want charity, even though it be supposed to "begin at home." I was too overcome to eat, though I saw Letitia frowning at me and noticed that she was partaking liberally. I was so angry that I could have torn up my dinner-card. The "Children at Play" on Tamworth's did not seem so awfully inappropriate, after all. "Children Playing at Dinner" would have been more to the point, though. "What are your views on the servant question, Mrs. Fairfax?" asked Arthur Tamworth lightly, as he toyed with a piece of what looked like brick-red india-rubber. "Do you know"--with a smile--"that I am studying it? Positively I am." A look of freezing severity appeared on Letitia's face. In a voice shiveringly Arctic, she asked: "What _is_ the servant question, Mr. Tamworth? I have never heard of it. If you imagine--" "Not at all, Mrs. Fairfax, not at all"--he made the rejoinder quickly--"I do not imagine that you will let it upset you. But, honestly, it is one of the topics of the day." "With silly women, lacking in intellectuality," interposed my wife, with the sublimest inflection of contempt that I have ever heard. "Brainless women must talk about something. They have no interest in the life beautiful and artistic. Rather than adopt a policy of silence which would effectually cover their mental shortcomings, they discuss the kitchen and food. At least, I am told that they do. Personally, I do not know. I do not associate with them." Letitia was very busy with the cold mummy, masquerading before her as _homard naturel_. She did not see the look of amusement on Arthur Tamworth's face. I saw it, however, and it was gall and wormwood to me. I hated to believe that he regarded Letitia as a joke. I had no sympathy with jokes, except when I uttered them myself, as the spontaneous bubbles of an exuberant spirit. "Seriously, Mrs. Fairfax," continued my guest, laying aside his fork with a sigh of relief that seemed to say, "well done, thou good and faithful servant"; "it is not only the brainless ladies who talk servant. Why, some of the best people are contemplating a Women's Domestic Guild. There is, for instance, Mrs. Russell Sage--" "Ha! Ha!" laughed Letitia. "Is she the best example you can find, Mr. Tamworth? I have no doubt but that Mrs. Sage, at a pinch, could cook her own dinner. Stew, probably, followed by baked apples. Really, Mr. Tamworth--" "I read an interview with a Mrs. Joseph Healey, the other day," said Mr. Tamworth placidly; "I cut it out. I think I have it with me. Ah, yes"--rescuing a newspaper clipping from his pocket--"hark at this: 'Owing to the incompetency of servant girls, housekeepers, too, are compelled, more and more, to buy cooked food for their tables. The growth of the delicatessen business in recent years has been startling--'" Letitia sat bolt upright, suddenly. The paragraph seemed to sear itself into my brain. "'Many families,'" he went on, "'live almost continuously on ham and potato salad, which is usually kept in an ice-box two or three days until it is absolutely unfit to be eaten. The servant-girl question is, therefore, not only breaking up the American home, but serving to break down the national health.'" I tried to pretend that I was not looking at Letitia. Letitia tried to pretend that she was not looking at me. The dual attempt was a failure. We each knew that we were contemplating the other. "Perhaps it is true," said Letitia airily, "perhaps. At any rate, it reads well in the newspapers, Mr. Tamworth. Sylvia"--to the Zulu--"you can bring in the next course. It is _bifsteck aux pommes de terre_." When it arrived we would have given worlds to have been able to resume our discussion. It was then that we really needed to talk--and it was then that we couldn't! We could simply sit and gaze at the travesty. Conversation, which should be so serviceable as a stop-gap, failed us completely. All we could see was a sort of coal-black chest-protector on a large dish, and some boiled potatoes swimming in water on another. "She didn't _soufflé_ the potatoes," murmured Letitia tremulously. "They are not even _maître d'hôtel_," I suggested feebly. "You see," said Letitia apologetically, as I hacked at the chest-protector furiously, "Anna is in such a hurry to get to her singing class that she is at a disadvantage--" "Singing class!" exclaimed Mr. Tamworth, laughing. "How funny! I must make a note of it. I hope you don't mind, Mrs. Fairfax. You see, I'm really studying--" "I do mind," retorted my wife quite irritably. "I quite see that we have given you material for study. Still, it is disagreeable to reflect that our little--" "My dear Mrs. Fairfax," he cried, genuinely distressed, "please believe that I am not serious. I only want you to feel that I do not share your annoyance. This--why, all this amuses me. It is interesting. It is great. Look at my good friend, Fairfax, wearing an expression that suggests Hamlet in his most melancholy moment. Why? I ask you, why?" "I--I--I'm glad you feel that way about it," said Letitia, with tears in her eyes, "but--but perhaps, you are just pretending--to make me feel comfortable." "It is good of you, old chap," I muttered, feeling as abject as though I had just put out my hand for alms and Arthur had popped a nickel into it. "How absurd!" he laughed. "Why, I'm a great diner-out, and I know all about it, and--shall I read you a bit more about the Women's Domestic Guild?" "I don't think I could stand it," Letitia said tremulously. "Sometime, perhaps, Mr. Tamworth, but not to-night. There are still the ices--_glaces aux fraises_. They can't be burnt. They can't be boiled in water." _They_ were not. _They_ were brought on, in a dingy cardboard box, marked with the name of the purveyor, and the legend: "Ice-cream saloon--Columbus Avenue." _They_ appeared on the edge of Sylvia's finger, balanced by a loop of tape. The cardboard box oozed and perspired. The lid was stuck down. Pink splashes dripped. "Anna says to tell you," giggled the wide-mouthed Sylvia, "that she got American ice-cream. The French is ten cents more, and there ain't no difference." This time Arthur Tamworth laughed without an apology. Probably he had a sense of humor, and thought it funny to see my poor little exquisitely attired wife, sitting at the head of her orchid-laden table, and confronted with a question of "ten cents more." That is exactly what a sense of humor achieves. Again, I protest that it is a curse. Mute sympathy would have been more endurable than loud mirth. Letitia left us while we smoked. She did not go to the drawing-room, but--as I learned afterward--retired to her bedroom to weep. When we joined her later, her eyes were red and swollen. She had lowered the lights, so that this fact should not be too glaringly evident. We sat and talked. I will do Arthur Tamworth the justice to say that he was quite unperturbed and made strenuous efforts to be entertaining. But the tone of our conversation suggested a house of mourning. Absolute failure had benumbed us into a sort of mental paralysis. I kept looking at the clock--longing for my guest to go. Letitia yawned persistently, although she made brave efforts to appear alert. But he stayed until eleven o'clock, and when he did go, remarked, with what I thought ill-timed irony, "I've had a delightful time." "Never--never have I felt so small," Letitia almost sobbed, as soon as we were alone. "And, Archie, I feel so ill, too. That brutal lobster--I _had_ to eat it, and it won't digest. Capped by the terrible beef-steak, it has nearly done for me." "Why did you eat it?" I asked querulously, "I didn't." "If a hostess can't eat her own food, who can?" she demanded furiously. "I would have eaten it, if ptomaine germs had arisen from it, and introduced themselves. I hope I know my duty, and I hope that I am not weak enough to shirk it. Mr. Tamworth ate a lot of it." "He'll die in the night," I suggested cheerfully, "and then good-by to my _Lives of Great Men_. It was not _homard naturel_. It was unnatural. That being the case, you might have refused it, Letitia. It would have been excusable." "We won't argue the matter, Archie," she retorted, "I have my own ideas of what is right. To place food before an inoffensive person--though I consider your partner was a trifle offensive--and then reject it yourself, is not quite etiquette." "Would you eat it again to-morrow, under the same circumstances?" Letitia shuddered. "Yes," she said promptly. Then, "No. Yes, I would. No, I wouldn't. Really, I can't say, Archie. What is the use of suggesting such an impossible case? I think I would eat it. But I don't think I could." "Poor old girl!" I remarked sympathetically. "We'll try and forget it. I don't know how I shall dare to go to the office to-morrow, though. I dare say that Tamworth won't be there. He'll be in bed. I thought he looked rather feverish just before he left, didn't you, Letitia? His gaiety seemed a bit forced, and I noticed once or twice that he gasped as though he were in pain." "The Women's Domestic Guild!" laughed Letitia scornfully. "A nice subject to bring up at a dinner party! I call it indecent--like washing one's soiled linen in public. Of course, there are old frumps who like that kind of topic." "Aunt Julia?" I suggested. "I did not mean Aunt Julia, Archie. She is not an old frump, though I admit that it was from her lips that I first heard servant question. However--I wonder if we have any ginger in the house, Archie? You shall mix me a little. It might ward off an attack. Perhaps a little weak whisky and water will be better." "I'm so sorry, dear," I said. "We have discovered one thing, however. It is the utter incompetency of Anna. Out of the house she goes to-morrow. Once bit, twice shy. What do you say, Letitia?" "Will you tell her, Archie? I'm afraid I shan't feel well enough." "Tell her? Why, of course," I answered, nobly emphatic. "I only wish she were here now, while I have this strenuous mood upon me. Tell her? Well, I guess so." In fact, we both believed that Miss Carter was simply waiting to be told. CHAPTER V "What _can_ have happened, Archie?" cried Letitia excitedly next morning, as she entered the cubby-hole that I called my dressing-room and interrupted my shaving. Her face was pale and her eyes shone. "There is no breakfast laid, and--there is no Anna. I went to her room and found that she had not slept there. Evidently she did not return last night. Something dreadful must have occurred." I put my razors carefully away, with the deliberation that great men note at moments of calamity and distress. Then I followed Letitia to the dining-room, where there was disorderly testimony to the accuracy of her information. Nothing even suggested breakfast. In fact, the remains of last night's parody on dinner confronted us and evidently declined to seek oblivion. Letitia looked aghast at the débris, but as I had just left myself enough time to dally with the matutinal bacon and tea, I could not repress my extreme annoyance. I could not--and I did not. "But, Archie," said Letitia, noting my vexation, "while it is most irritating to find no breakfast, one must not forget that there is a graver problem. Where is Anna? She is a human being, Archie. We must accord her some slight consideration, even though she treated us so badly last night. She must"--Letitia's voice sank to a whisper--"she must have met with foul play." "I doubt it, Letitia"--I felt awfully surly--"she is not the sort." "Nonsense!" exclaimed Letitia angrily. "She was an attractive girl--of her kind. You may not admire her, but colored people would. It isn't only homely girls who meet foul play. The newspapers always insist that every woman who is murdered, or waylaid, is lovely, but that is only to make the story readable. I've often thought, Archie, that the only chance many girls have to be called beautiful is to be murdered. Have you ever heard of a typewriter girl who has come to grief, and who wasn't beautiful? I haven't. Some of them are regular old crows, but as soon as they reach the newspapers they are transfigured. Crime seems to be a great beautifier. Anna may have been made away with. If so, we shall read that she was a dazzlingly charming mulatto." "In the meantime, dear," I said patiently, "what shall we do for breakfast? Everything seems tragic, you know, on an empty stomach." "If I only knew how to make tea!" sighed Letitia reflectively. "I've often seen Aunt Julia make it, but I quite forget if you heat the tea-leaves and pour water over them, or if you boil them in a saucepan. Oh, how foolish I was to neglect these trifles! But I never thought I should ever have to make tea." We were in the kitchen, where the remains of last night's mock-dinner were even more glaringly apparent. It was sickening, in the dewy morn, to see the soiled dishes and the encumbered plates. There was the piece of lobster that Arthur Tamworth left. There was my soup, in a cold, coagulated mass, on the table. There was the _bifsteck aux pommes_, stark before us. Letitia, in a pink _peignoir_ covered with lace, tried to flit around, but there was no room to flit in. I experienced a horrid sense of nausea, and felt willing to abandon breakfast. Fortunately, we were both young, and had not reached that downward grade leading to a placid enjoyment of breakfast. It is only the more than middle-aged who find keen physical satisfaction in the early kipper. To the young in spirit, the morning meal is but a tradition, followed with a certain amount of sycophancy. We found some milk and eggs in unexpected places and, as I was in a hurry, we made a hasty breakfast. Letitia boiled the tea in a saucepan, and in an ecstasy of originality, suggested that we cook the eggs in that receptacle at the same time. It was not what one might call an artistic meal. The tea tasted like ink, and the sweet disposition of the egg was cooked out of all semblance of its own wistful, appealing nature. "You mustn't leave me in this unsettled state, Archie," said Letitia nervously. "I couldn't stand it, dear. I--I feel quite upset. We must look through the papers and see if anything has happened to Anna. And perhaps it would be a good thing to notify the authorities. Who are the authorities, in a case like this, Archie? Not the mayor, I suppose, or the aldermen; not--er--the coroner?" "Police headquarters, I should say"--a little doubtfully. "Of course, she may come in at any moment," Letitia suggested, glancing rather timidly over her left shoulder. "I quite dread it. Perhaps she will return with a battered face, or bleeding profusely from a wound. It would be annoying to notify--er--the--Policeman's Home, did you say?--until we are reasonably sure. There must be some penalty for uttering false alarms. Sit down, Archie, and I'll just run through the papers." I began to realize that Letitia was veritably wrought up, and that it was no use contemplating my routine at the office until some light had been shed upon the seemingly untimely fate of Miss Carter. So I obeyed Letitia and sat down, while she, somewhat feverishly, took up the morning papers and plunged into their labyrinthine recesses. "'Girl decapitated by Trolley Car,'" she read slowly. "Let us see now: 'The sight seemed to infuriate the mob--car struck her in the left leg--beautiful blonde.' That settles it, doesn't it? It couldn't be Anna. The papers will certainly call her singularly beautiful, but no reporter, whatever his political or religious conviction, could describe her as a blonde. Ah, here we are. This certainly seems to fit: 'Woman Drops Dead in L Station--Sitting bolt upright in an elevated railroad station in Brooklyn, a woman whose identity had not been discovered by the police last night'--Archie, put on your things, and go to Brooklyn." "Is there nothing more, Letitia?" I asked, for I loathe Brooklyn. She continued, moistening her lips: "'The surgeons unable to revive her--Coma followed by death--Very handsome, elegantly dressed woman, golden hair--' Well, evidently," said Letitia, and it really seemed to me as though she were disappointed, "it can't be Anna. You had better not go to Brooklyn, after all, Archie. Here's something else. Really the newspapers are full of clues. 'Idiot Girl Found Wandering By River--'" "Read on, Letitia," I cried, "that certainly does sound promising." "'Half-witted girl discovered near the Harlem River, beneath the bridge, at One-Hundred-and-Fifty-fifth Street--singing snatches of song--muttering to herself.' The singing appears to point to Anna, don't you think, dear? Poor girl! Perhaps she was an idiot, after all, and we have been thinking such cruel things of her, just because she couldn't grapple with _crème d'asperges_ and _bifsteck aux pommes_. Let us see: 'She fought desperately with the police officer--burst into fiendish laughter--threw back her veil, revealing dazzling beauty, dark hair, and face of almost appalling pallor--' That can't be Anna. I suppose that colored people feel pallor, but they certainly can't show it, can they? Here's something else: 'Scores Killed and Many Maimed in Wreck Horror.' Here's a long list of the unfortunates, but--the wreck occurred on the Illinois Central Cannon Ball Train, eighty-three miles from New Orleans." "I am afraid, Letitia, that nothing has happened to her," I said hopelessly. "I mean by that, of course, that I am afraid we shan't discover anything in the newspapers." "Isn't it exasperating?" "Isn't what exasperating?" I asked. "You mean it is annoying that Anna wasn't decapitated by the trolley car, maimed in the wreck, or dead in the L station?" "You are unkind, Archie," said Letitia, with tears in her eyes, "and I don't think this is a happy moment for joking. Of course you must be joking when you suggest that I am upset because--Anna hasn't had her head cut off. It isn't nice of you, dear. But I imagine that you are not quite yourself. This sort of thing does unhinge one. I wonder what we had better do? No, you can't and shan't go down-town, and leave me to receive Anna, perhaps dead on a shutter, or wet from the river, with weeds in her hair, like Ophelia; or--" "They wouldn't bring her here, dear," I ventured, and this time I tried to be soothing, for I could see that Letitia was distraught. "They would take her to the morgue." "Ugh!" she shuddered. "The morgue always sounds so creepy and damp. I can't associate it with Anna, who was so alive last night." "And so disagreeable." "Hush, Archie. _De mortuis_--you know the rest--and perhaps she is among the _mortuis_. I think I shall go to my room, remain there in silence for ten minutes, and try to impress Aunt Julia telepathically. She could advise us, and perhaps if she knows of the plight that we are in, she might--" "Aunt Julia!" I cried enthusiastically, "why not talk to her over the telephone? She is at Tarrytown now, and we can reach her. She is a very sensible and level-headed old lady. She is most practical. I dare say she could suggest things that would never occur to us." "Perhaps," assented Letitia coldly. "As you say, she is very sensible. As you imply--I am not. By all means, let us consult Aunt Julia." Poor Letitia was very inclined to be fractious, and everything I said appeared to tell against me. But I had no desire to add to her difficulties, and I explained to her what I meant. Aunt Julia was an old housekeeper and perchance in her long experience she had known this agony of the vanishing cook. If so, she would undoubtedly give us the results of her experience, and this might be of some service to us in our dilemma. It was worth trying at any rate. "You ring her up, Archie," said Letitia, appeased, as we approached the instrument. "A man always sounds more important at the telephone." "Not in a matter of cook, dear," I protested. "Aunt Julia will think I am an awful molly-coddle, if I ring her up in such a cause. No, Letitia, I will stand by you; I will not leave you until the matter is settled. But it is far preferable for you to ring up Aunt Julia. It is a household matter, isn't it, dear? I'll stay here, and--hold your hand, if you like. Now, ask for her number, and--don't be nervous." I held Letitia's hand, which was very cold and moist, and we stood waiting to effect a communication with Mrs. Dinsmore at Tarrytown. It seemed endless, and all the time Letitia appeared to be nervously expecting an interruption--probably in the form of Anna, either dead or alive, preferably the former. "Good morning, Jane," I heard Letitia say at last, tremulously; "will you please ask Mrs. Dinsmore to step to the 'phone? Thank you so much. Yes, I'll hold the wire." Pause. Letitia held the wire, and I held her hand. Then again: "Aunt Julia, this is Letitia--Letitia Fairfax, your niece. Yes. Oh, yes, Aunt Julia, I'm quite well, but something dreadful has happened. No. Archie is very well. It's about Anna Carter, the cook you got for us. Yesterday we gave a little dinner to Archie's partner, Mr. Tamworth. At least, I should say we intended giving a little dinner. We gave something, but I don't know what it was. Anna was very surly, and disagreeable, and to-day she has disappeared. We were not unkind to her; we drove her to nothing at all. We intended discharging her, but she has vanished. We are in a dreadful state, imagining all sorts of awful things. Archie thought I had better call you up, before he went to police headquarters. Archie"--turning to me, with horror in her face--"I believe I hear Aunt Julia laughing." At the telephone again: "Have the East River dragged? No, we never thought of that. Why are you laughing, Aunt Julia? Yes, I heard you laughing. Allow you to have a good time? If you _can_ have a good time, at our expense, you are at liberty to do so. Archie"--turning to me--"she says, 'Don't get huffy.' I don't know what she means. She has just said we are a couple of fools, and ought to be spanked and put to bed. Yes, Aunt Julia, I hear you. Yes. What? Will never come back? They often, in fact, generally, go away like that when they don't like a place? You are joking, Aunt Julia. I don't believe it. Wouldn't she, for the sake of decency, and in the interests of common courtesy, tell us that she was not going to return? Yes, I did look at her room, and I saw no trunk or clothes. Yes. No. What do you say? Archie"--reverting to me--"Aunt Julia says that you must be a nincompoop." "Thank her, Letitia," I murmured, unable to keep back the flush that mounted to my forehead. "Tell her we want advice, and not abuse." Letitia, at the telephone: "Archie says that we want advice and not abuse, Aunt Julia, and I must say that I agree with him. Amusing? I don't think so, at all. I call it tragic. Forget it, and hustle for another cook? If I only thought, Aunt Julia, that the case was as simple as that I should feel extremely relieved. Thank you. No, don't come in--please don't. I am quite capable of hustling, and Archie is here. No. Really, Aunt Julia, I wish you wouldn't call him an ass. You must remember that he is my husband. Even if he is an ass--which I am not admitting--you have no right to tell me so." "You seem to imply, Letitia," I interrupted, much hurt, "that although you don't admit I'm an ass, I really might be one." Letitia did not hear my little protest, but continued: "Yes, I will. Did you say intelligence office? Yes, I hear. Is there one in New York? Oh, thank you, Aunt Julia. It sounds so easy, and even delightful. One goes there and just selects a cook from a whole gathering of them? Aunt Julia, you have saved our lives. You think we are quite justified in believing that Anna has merely left, and has not met with foul play. How _should_ we know? After all, if she had told us, we shouldn't have detained her. We didn't want to detain her. Quite usual? I can't credit that, Aunt Julia. You must be a pessimist. No, don't come into town, dear. If we need you, we'll wire. Yes, otherwise all is well. No, there is no hitch. Good-by." She hung up the receiver, her face wreathed with smiles, and placing her hands on my shoulders, tip-toed and kissed me. "Oh, I'm so glad, Archie," she cried, "that this horrible possibility of crime has been dispersed by Aunt Julia. She says that it is quite the thing in New York for a cook to vanish instantly, almost as though she had been conjured away. It is the etiquette of cooks, Aunt Julia says. And the delightful uncertainty of their return, every time they go out for a stroll, makes life exciting." "I can't see anything to be pleased about, Letitia," I said rumblingly, for after all Aunt Julia had treated me rather badly at the telephone. "I would almost as soon know that Anna had met foul play, as to realize that _we_ have. We certainly have. We have been disgracefully treated by that Zulu. And you seem charmed. At any rate we should have thought better of her, if we knew that she couldn't come back, simply because she had been murdered." "Oh, Archie, I'm shocked," declared Letitia in a pained voice. "Such bloodthirsty sentiments! Positively, dear, I feel as though a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. I didn't tell you what I really feared. I thought that perhaps she was vexed with me for not letting her arrange the flowers yesterday, and that, brooding over this, she might have committed suicide. Yes, I thought of that, Archie, and of what a life of remorse would mean to both of us. That was my dread, and now Aunt Julia has removed it, and I feel so deeply grateful." "Perhaps you are right, old girl," I assented, cheering up, "things might be worse. They are bad enough, though, for if Anna marches off at a moment's notice like that, then they will all probably do the same thing." "But we shan't think that they have met with foul play," Letitia announced triumphantly. "We shall know that they haven't, and we shan't worry. That is what I like about it. Oh, Archie, I'm so glad. You can go down-town, now, and earn your daily bread. And I shall hie me immediately to--er--what did Aunt Julia call it?--an intelligence office and choose a brand-new cook, somebody nice--" "To wear the cap with the olive-green ribbons?" "That later, perhaps," she replied, with a bright smile. "I shan't insist upon it, quite at once, Archie. I never knew about these intelligence offices. What a splendid idea! Fancy being able to go to a sort of convention of cooks, select one that appeals to you, and bring her home. Isn't it clever? Certainly New York is the town for novelty and inventiveness. London and Paris are not in it. How London would open its sleepy old eyes at the notion of an intelligence office! I suppose it has never even heard of such a thing." "I must be off, Letitia. I am dreadfully late, and--" "Good-by, old boy. When you come back to-night, you'll find everything more satisfactory. For we'll have a cook, and a good one, and--the thought of Anna will be just a horrid nightmare and nothing more." CHAPTER VI My prediction was fulfilled. Arthur Tamworth did not appear at the office. Instead, he telephoned from his house, that, owing to a slight indisposition, he would remain at home for the day. The clerks were mystified, as Mr. Tamworth had never been known to absent himself from his business. To me, of course, it was clear as a pikestaff and grimly I declined to discuss the matter with the bookkeeper. I had an odiously guilty feeling, and in the matter of "secrets" it seemed to me that I could give Lady Audley points. The day dragged horribly. I was weighted down by my dreary knowledge, and as I sat at my desk, the various courses of our distinctly coarse and brutal dinner passed before my mind in lugubrious procession. I felt as Mathias must have done in _The Bells_ with the odious souvenir of the lime-kiln on his conscience. However, in exultant optimism, I argued that this little "set-back" already belonged to the past, and I resolved to keep Tamworth's pitiful plight from Letitia, unless he died, victim of my hospitality. By the time I reached our apartment I had driven all these tantalizing thoughts from my mind, and when Letitia met me with a smile of affectionate welcome the past had been pushed back to its proper place. "Sh!" said Letitia mysteriously, with a finger on her lips, as we went to the drawing-room, "I've got her, Archie. She's in the kitchen preparing dinner, and--and--you'll never guess, dear, so I may as well tell you the news. She--she used to be with the Vanderbilts!" My wife was all excitement. There was a flush on her face, and I had never seen her look prettier. She was dressed for dinner, in still another evening gown, all white. There were forget-me-nots in her hair, and at her bosom. Letitia spoke in a whisper, as though she were afraid that a mere voice would startle the latest acquisition. Her enthusiasm, however, was contagious, and as she followed me to my dressing-room, where I quickly exchanged my business clothes for discreet broadcloth, I began to share her gay anticipation. "Yes," she continued eagerly, "I went to the intelligence office and subscribed. At first, Archie, I felt most mortified. A dozen servant girls sat there, like at a minstrel show. They seemed to be quite lacking in old-fashioned respect and were not a bit abashed in the presence of prospective mistresses. They talked and laughed, and I could have sworn that they were criticising _me_. I tried not to hear them, but I know--yes, Archie, I know--that one girl, with a face that I shall never forget, meant me, when she remarked to a friend, 'She's a fool and I'm not taking any, thanks. I hate a fool.' Of course, I pretended not to notice, but--" Letitia reddened and seemed to forget her present satisfaction in the thought of her recent humiliation. She went on: "Fortunately, I was not the only one who needed a cook. At least fifty ladies were there, looking strangely desperate. One of them spoke to me, most impertinently, I thought. She was a stout matron and she said to me, very rudely: 'Is this your first time in hell?' I didn't answer her, and she smiled and passed on. I heard her tell the proprietress of the office that she had a bicycle with a coaster brake, that she was willing, if necessary, to place at the disposal of her cook, but that, personally, she would prefer a cook who played the piano. I also heard her say that she, herself, would do all the work for two hours each morning while cook practised." "Was it a lunatic asylum, or an intelligence office?" I asked, as I knotted my tie. "Oh, it really was an intelligence office," Letitia replied seriously. "I thought that I must have made a mistake at first, and arrived at a wrong address. It was all so odd. The ladies seemed to be cooks and the cooks seemed to be ladies. Really, Archie"--with a laugh--"it was quite like a Gilbert and Sullivan opera, without music. I heard one lady tell Mrs. Jones, the proprietress, that she was quite willing to allow her husband to take cook to the theater once a week, but she stipulated that cook should not ask to go to the Metropolitan Opera House on Wagner nights." "Come, Letitia," I said impatiently, "I dare say you mean to be funny, but I do hope, dear, that you are not going to develop a sense of humor. You know my views on that subject." "But, Archie, this is all true. It is, honest Injun. I am as much mystified as you are. I thought I was dreaming, or at the theater. I couldn't realize that it was genuine. Fortunately for me, Mrs. Jones attended to me immediately. Just after I had heard the conversation about the Metropolitan Opera House on Wagner nights, an old, rather melancholy looking person came in. Mrs. Jones jumped up and said: 'Here's the very thing for you, Mrs. Fairfax.' And before I knew it, I was on my way home with a cook who had been with the Vanderbilts. Her name, Archie, is Mrs. Potzenheimer. She's German." "So I should judge," I murmured. "Potzenheimer! Good gracious, Letitia!" "What does the name matter, you silly boy? That which we call a Potzenheimer, etcetera. Think of our luck, dear. On the way home, I remembered Aunt Julia's suggestion always to ask for references. I had quite forgotten all about it, stupid-like. Mrs. Potzenheimer looked very sad and weary, poor soul. She told me that Mrs. Vanderbilt would be delighted to give her a reference, but that at present she was in England, visiting the Duchess of Marlborough." I'm not a snob, not a bit of one. I'm a democrat to the roots of my hair. Still, as this reflected glory shed itself upon me, I felt a strange sense of elation. "Which of the Vanderbilts was it?" I asked. "How provoking you are, Archie!" exclaimed Letitia impatiently. "Isn't any Vanderbilt good enough for us--to get a cook from? Suppose it were Alfred, or Reginald, or William K. Vanderbilt. What difference does it make? I was so overjoyed that I felt positively pleased to hear that Mrs. Vanderbilt was with the Duchess of Marlborough. If she had been here I should have deemed it my duty to call upon her for a reference, and--you know what these people are--it might have been a bad one. Absolutely, I'd sooner have a bad Vanderbilt cook, than a good ordinary, plain affair." "There is something in what you say, old girl," I was bound to assent. "If _you_ think so, dear, I am quite satisfied," Letitia responded readily. "But there is one thing about Mrs. Potzenheimer--by-the-by, she suggests that we call her Nellie--that troubles me. She says she never wants to go out." "And that troubles you!" I exclaimed, astonished. "I should think you would be rejoiced. We shall feel so much safer in the knowledge that Mrs. Potzen--Nellie--is always in the kitchen." "But it is so sad, Archie," persisted Letitia. "When I asked her what night she would like to go out, she burst out crying. She said she had nowhere to go--that she was old, and that nobody cared for her. She wept for ten minutes, and I think--I'm not sure, Archie--that I joined her. Poor old soul! My first impulse was to ask her to come in and sit with us--" "Letitia!" "I said 'my first impulse,'" she went on firmly. "I never act on first impulses, and I did not do so this time. Just the same, I felt sorry for cook. Perhaps she will get chummy with the servants in other apartments. She seems so respectable and dresses neatly in black. A more striking contrast to Anna Carter could scarcely be imagined. She is extremely quiet, and sits down a good deal. Each time I have seen her she has been 'resting her bones' as she calls it. Isn't it pitiful, Archie, to think of such a woman being forced to earn her living, instead of passing her days in a little cottage with honeysuckle all over it--" "But there are none in New York, dear." "You needn't be so disgustingly literal, Archie," Letitia protested with a pout. "I say that it is a pity she can't pass her days in a little cottage with honeysuckle all over it, and with her grandchildren grouped around her knee." "Is she so fearfully old?" I asked in alarm. "One needn't be disgracefully antique to have grandchildren," my wife declared. "You are so old-fashioned, dear. You revel in pictures of white-haired, toothless, old creatures when you hear of grandmothers. If my grandmother were alive to-day she would be just fifty-three. She married at sixteen." "They always do, nowadays," I retorted cynically. "Sixteen seems to be the age for women to marry at when they intend to become grandmothers." "Hush!" cried Letitia, for at that moment Mrs. Potzenheimer came in to tell us that dinner was served. Most aged and infirm was Mrs. Potzenheimer, and I looked at her in amazement. She was slightly lame and her face was wizened and pinched. Her eyes filled with tears as she told us that dinner was ready. I had felt ravenously hungry, but the sight of the new domestic nipped my pangs. Not being wholly bad, a feeling of compassion took possession of me. A horrid idea that I should be waiting on cook, instead of cook waiting on me, almost overwhelmed me. Our places were laid, but the table had no other decoration than a bottle of Worcestershire sauce on a little mat in the middle. Never have I seen a bottle of Worcestershire look so funereally lonely. Robinson Crusoe on his desert island was a crowd in comparison. We sat down, depressed and gloomy. I felt that like the dove on the mast--in the song--I must "mourn, and mourn, and mourn." "I wonder if this table decoration is a duplicate of Mrs. Vanderbilt's," I murmured, as I unfolded my table-napkin. "It _is_ strange," Letitia agreed, in a whisper. "I can't understand why she has 'starred' the Worcestershire sauce. It is really such an ugly thing, with the brick-red label and the crude stopper." "Perhaps there are some tenement-house Vanderbilts," I suggested moodily. "I told you, Archie," Letitia insisted, "that the Mrs. Vanderbilt who employed Nellie is at present visiting the Duchess of Marlborough at Blenheim Castle, so that settles it. She particularly said Blenheim Castle." Mrs. Potzenheimer brought in a seething dish of mutton stew, that emitted a fragrant odor. She set it down with a heavy sigh. I noticed a tear trickling down her cheek, and so did Letitia, for I saw my wife's face grow serious. It was very good stew, indeed. If we could have called it a _ragoût_, we should have felt more at ease. It was a stew, however, and, with the best of intentions, it was impossible even to think of it as anything else. "She is much older than you implied, Letitia," I said, as cook limped out of the room and we began dinner. "She really seems positively decrepit." Letitia sat looking at her food rather wistfully. "It is the electric light, I think," she whispered--the constant whispering made me nervous--"I admit, Archie, that she looks twenty years older, lighted up. In the daytime I put her down as forty. But you know, dear, I engaged her in such a hurry that I couldn't be quite sure. It does seem cruel to allow such an old woman--" "Well, dear,"--I was growing cheerful in the material comfort of the moment,--"we don't force her to do it. She evidently wanted a position, or you wouldn't have found her at the intelligence office." "She was crying when she brought in the stew." Letitia's lip quivered ominously. "Why should she cry?" I asked with asperity--I carefully turned on the asperity in order to combat Letitia's weakness. "Why should she cry? She naturally expects to cook. It can't be a surprise to her. She must know that she isn't here just as an ornament, or--" "You are so hard, Archie," Letitia faltered. "You can sit there and enjoy a dinner cooked by a poor old soul. Of course, I'm glad you enjoy it. It is better so. But still--I can't touch it. She has unnerved me. She must be thinking of her loved ones." "You said she hadn't any." "I didn't!" cried Letitia indignantly. "I said nothing of the sort. I said she ought to be with her grandchildren, and so she ought. I dare say she has dozens of grandchildren. Germans always have. It is their custom. I suppose they don't want her--the wretches--as she has nowhere to go. And she seems so inoffensive and simple." "Do try and eat, Letitia," I urged. "You make me feel so greedy. Don't be angry, dear, but don't you think it's a bit far-fetched? You engage a cook with your eyes open, and then you won't touch the food she prepares because she is old. She was just as old this morning." "It isn't her age exactly," Letitia explained hesitantly, "but I can't bear to see a human being in tears. Who are we that we should distress a nice old woman so poignantly? What right have we to do it?" I did not answer, for I thought that Letitia was a trifle exaggerated. However, she made a brave effort to dine, and being young and healthy, I was glad to notice that the succulent stew overcame her sentimental regrets. I fancy that she felt a little better after she had partaken of nourishment. Still, it was with great reluctance that she rang the bell, and as Mrs. Potzenheimer ambled in, Letitia was distinctly nervous. We tried to talk lightly during the removal of the dishes, but it was impossible. Mrs. Potzenheimer's eyes were suffused and she sighed stertorously. It was a long time before she emerged from the kitchen with a rice pudding. I observed that one of her thumbs was almost hidden in the pudding and this rather encouraged me, for I thought that it would vex Letitia and stem the tide of her ill-advised sympathy. Letitia, however, was studying Mrs. Potzenheimer's face and not her thumb. It is my opinion that cook's entire hand could have been submerged 'neath the rice and Letitia would never have noticed it. So I called her attention to my unappetizing discovery. "If she did that in Mrs. Vanderbilt's house," I said sternly, "no wonder that lady has fled to the Duchess of Marlborough, and to rice puddings _minus_ thumbs." "I fail to see that there is anything particularly criminal in a thumb," Letitia retorted. "It is not the thumb of an outsider. She made the pudding herself with her own hands and thumbs. Don't be so exasperating, Archie. Oh, yes, I know that it isn't nice, and that it's very bad form. But I shan't tell her about it. I'm not going to add to her burden. Evidently, she feels her position--" "And our rice pudding--" "--very acutely. She seems to me like a woman who has known better days. Probably the Vanderbilts treat their inferiors very badly. There is nothing like the insolence and the superciliousness of people of that class. It shall be my endeavor to show her the difference. I shall go out of my way to be sweet and soothing to her. She feels strange, of course. You can go into the drawing-room and smoke there to-night. I shall go and see that Nellie is comfortable." It was no use arguing. I went to the drawing-room, discontentedly enough, and broke the rules of the house by smoking there. It was with Letitia's permission, to be sure, but I felt uneasy. It was the thin end of the wedge, and I hated to think of the whole wedge. My nerves were on edge and I could settle to nothing. I kept fancying I heard Mrs. Potzenheimer sobbing, and Letitia soothing her, with a "There now!" Even the unsatisfied yearning sensation that had succeeded Anna Carter's delicatessen dinner was better than this. We seemed to have engaged trouble, at big wages, and the thought was maddening. If Letitia Potzenheimered every night after dinner, what would become of me, I selfishly wondered. Of course, I had my _Lives of Great Men_, but just at present mere greatness "riled" me. The very thought of greatness evaporated in reflections upon Mrs. Potzenheimer. The clock struck nine, and still I sat smoking in solitary silence. I picked up Letitia's Cicero, open at _De Senectute_, and it seemed ominous. "Neither gray hairs nor wrinkles," I read, "can suddenly catch respect; but the former part of life, honorably spent, reaps the fruit of authority at the close. For these very observances, which seem light and common--" I shut the book with a bang. In sudden irritation I wondered how Letitia could read such rubbish. Yes, rubbish, I asserted in mental indignation. Thank goodness that my wife didn't hear me, and that nobody heard me. My mood was surely no excuse for an insult hurled at the sacred memory of Cicero, amiably addressing Titus Pomponius Atticus. How could Letitia toboggan from Cicero to Mrs. Potzenheimer? It was just ten o'clock when my wife joined me. She looked very tired and I saw that she had been weeping. This touched me, and the hasty words that my lips had formed remained unsaid. "She is asleep," said Letitia gently. "She literally cried herself to sleep, Archie. I insisted that she should go to bed and let me take her in a little dinner. She managed to eat some stew and some rice pudding. Her appetite was really good. In fact"--with a smile "she ate more than both of us together. But I fancy she did it to please me. She saw that I was genuinely distressed." "You shouldn't have let her see it, Letitia," I protested. "How could I help it?"--reproachfully. "She told me a good deal about herself. She has no grandchildren. Don't interrupt, Archie. She has no grandchildren for the very good reason that she had no children. She was married many years, but never had--anything! Isn't it odd, dear, for a German? She always had to earn her own living. She was a nurse girl at seven. How sad to think of it!" "What did she say about the Vanderbilts?" I repeat that I am not a snob, but one can't help being curious. "She doesn't like to talk about them, Archie. I don't know why. I imagine that they must be very hard to get along with. But she did say that the Duchess of Marlborough was crazy to take her to England. However, she wouldn't go; she was too old, she said, and then she wept bitterly. She asked me a lot of questions about the people in the house--which, of course, I couldn't answer. And although she has only been here a few hours, and has been crying most of the time, she seems to have struck up an acquaintance with Mrs. Archer's cook below. While I was in the kitchen, Mrs. Archer's cook called up the dumb-waiter. I heard her say: 'What cheer?' and Mrs. Potzenheimer replied, in very low tones: 'Rotten.' I suppose she meant that she felt ill." "What a horrid expression!" I exclaimed. "Nellie seemed rather perturbed when she noticed that I had heard her," Letitia went on, "and explained that she had met Mrs. Archer's cook at the intelligence office. She didn't allude to the expression she used. When she was in bed she called for a little whisky, and I gave her some." "Letitia, you shouldn't--" "She hated it, Archie," said Letitia, with a wry face. "She told me that it positively went against her, but that she took it for her heart. She has a weak heart, dear. She drank half a tumblerful, as she says it always puts her on her feet again after one of these little attacks." "I don't like it, Letitia," I remarked suspiciously. "I don't like it at all." Letitia smiled and kissed me. "Of course you don't, you silly old boy," she said lightly, "you've been left alone, and I'm glad you don't like it. I should be vexed if you did. Did-ems leave-ems all alone-ems? But one must do a little good in the world, Archie. Suppose you were ill in a strange place, wouldn't you be grateful to anybody who tried to make you comfortable? Put yourself in Mrs. Potzenheimer's place." "You are a foolish girl, Letitia," I declared, mollified in spite of myself. "But if we are going to start a Home for the Aged--" "Stop it, Archie. Now, stop it. You mustn't be harsh and unreasonable. What happened to-night will probably never happen again. Would you like me if I were hard-hearted, and cold-blooded? Think of Nellie as though she were your own grandmother." "Why should I, Letitia?" I asked impatiently, wound up again. "I've been trying to think of her as my cook. That is all I bargained to do. It is not likely that I should engage my own grandmother--" "Oh, you are so cross--so cross!" sighed Letitia; "I have never seen you so disagreeable. After all, Archie, you are a great big baby. You are vexed because I left you alone for a few moments." "An hour and a half!" "An hour and a half? Was it really so long? It couldn't have been. Well, perhaps it was. Anyway, I'm glad you missed me. It is a consolation. I missed you, dear. It wasn't at all amusing waiting on a lachrymose old woman, plying her with drink and tucking her up in bed. It was really most objectionable, and I'm extremely lacking as a ministering angel. I can't minister for a cent. But I can try, can't I? And--let's be as quiet as we can, Archie, and not disturb the poor thing." CHAPTER VII Dismal, dreary, depressing, are adjectives that scarcely qualify the week that ensued. They do not express the subtile, underlying something that made my home almost unendurable. There was a sense of impending crisis that was horrible. Mrs. Potzenheimer's ailments became more numerous, varied, and pungent. My whisky bills were absolutely menacing. Letitia developed quite a _connoisseur's_ estimate of spirituous liquors, and the various brands of rye and Scotch, as well as of Old Tom and Holland in the gin list, seemed to displace her student's appreciation of Cicero and Ovid as light literature. On three occasions we dined at a restaurant, while Mrs. Potzenheimer went to bed. We generally spoke in whispers, and once, when I whistled _Hiawatha_, Letitia nearly grew hysterical. This was not due to the fact that _Hiawatha_ happened to be extremely hackneyed, but to the circumstance that Nellie was trying to take a nap. How I hated it all! Letitia was pale and looked worn, for she never went out. Mrs. Potzenheimer was too infirm to open the door when the bell rang and Letitia insisted upon doing it herself. The dinners of which we partook at home were invariably composed of stew and rice pudding. They palled. Nellie, when remonstrated with (and not by Letitia), explained that the Duchess of Marlborough had been so partial to stew that she had practically lived upon it, and what was good enough for Her Grace of Marlborough was good enough, she thought--etcetera. At the end of the week the mere thought of stew sickened me. It was a subject that I detested to mention and an object that I loathed to see before me. Mrs. Potzenheimer wept just as frequently. I believe she wept tears of whisky and gin. I could have sworn, once or twice, that I saw Old Tom trickling down her cheeks. Then came the climax. It had been a dark day. The birds were _not_ twittering in the sunshine; the air was _not_ laden with the balmy perfume of a thousand flowers. I had felt a sense of oppression all day while at the office. I had brooded to such an extent that Arthur Tamworth had begged me to take a holiday. Tamworth, by-the-by, had recovered, I am thankful to say, and he never alluded to our little dinner. At first he had seemed gently reproachful but this wore off. He was now quite able to be up and doing. The climax, above mentioned, bore down upon me when I reached my apartment. There was no Letitia to greet me. The dense silence could almost be felt, and through it I groped my way to the drawing-room. My wife was there, in an arm-chair, propped up by cushions, and asleep. Although it was the hour when, according to our code, it was barbaric to be found in any but evening garb, Letitia wore a Mother Hubbard wrapper of red flannelette. There were traces of tears on her face; her eyelashes were wet; it was quite evident that she had just fallen asleep after some exhausting experience. Her tousled and generally dilapidated appearance was extraordinary. As I bent over her, she moved uneasily, and I heard her murmur: "It's Old Tom, Nellie. It's Old Tom." Of course, I understood. Not being like the fools in the foolish plays of to-day, I was quite aware that Old Tom was not a rival, but merely a gin. Consequently there was no dramatic situation in my mind as I mopped my perspiring brow. I was simply aghast at the inexplicable position of my domestic evening. "It isn't Old Tom, dear," I said gently, kissing her awake, "it's old Archie." She looked at me in perplexity for a moment or two before she disturbed the silence. I thought it best to ask no questions, but to let the evil tidings come all by themselves. "The worst has happened, Archie," she said slowly, and she even forgot to kiss me. "I have had the most fearful afternoon. I don't know how I've lived through it, and--and--Nellie's gone!" "Thank Heaven!" I exclaimed fervently. "If that is all, Letitia, if there is nothing more than that to account for red flannelette at six o'clock, I am immensely thankful." She glanced at her undignified Mother Hubbard, but did not smile. "I felt too worn out to dress," she said. "The mere idea of white silk seemed farcical. Archie, the situation is absolutely red flannelette, and--abominable. I feel I've aged. I must have gone white--like the prisoner of Chillon. Oh, I feel a hundred-and-ninety in the shade." "Calm yourself, dear," I suggested soothingly. "Perhaps if you tell me all about it, you will feel better. Remember I know nothing." "Poor Archie!" sighed Letitia; "it is a shame to worry you, but it can't be helped. Let me see how it began. Ah, yes. After luncheon, dear--I had some cold stew and a glass of cold water--Mrs. Potzenheimer complained again of her heart and I was naturally compassionate. I gave her some gin--Holland, I think it was, as the other was all gone. She was most insulting, and insisted upon having Old Tom. When I told her that she had finished it last night, she suggested that I run to the corner and buy some more. For a moment, Archie--" "No, Letitia, no," I cried in horror, "don't tell me--I decline to listen." "I said 'for a moment,' Archie," Letitia went on, "and if you interrupt, I'll say no more. For one moment, I confess, I did think that I ought to humor an invalid. Then I remembered my dignity, and I told her firmly that it was Holland or nothing. I shall never forget it--never. She rose and in a most matter-of-fact voice announced that her week of trial was up, and that she had had enough of us, that she would thank me for her wages, and that she was going. At first I thought she was joking." "You don't mean--" "She seemed perfectly well," Letitia continued. "All her aches and pains had disappeared as if by magic. She said that our house was too dull for her and that she had been used to life and excitement. She couldn't live with people who didn't seem to entertain and who never dined out. I was so amazed that I could scarcely speak, but I murmured something about her health and she burst out laughing. She said that such a dingy couple as we were would make any woman ill. Such ingratitude, such a fiendish reward for my kindness, I could never have contemplated. At first I refused to give her any wages, and she threatened some Protective Women's Association on me, and told me that I hadn't a chance against such an old woman as she was. So I handed out the money." "Very wrongly, Letitia," I asserted. "And if she had asked for double the amount, I should have handed that out, too," Letitia continued, not heeding my interruption. "She made a great point of the legal aspect of the case. I seemed to see a crowded court-room, and you, Archie, being led in as the prisoner. And--and--I almost heard a verdict of guilty. I tell you, dear, I was delighted to escape it all by means of a five-dollar bill. It seemed a ridiculously cheap way out of it. But that isn't all. It isn't nearly all. The worst is yet to come." "No more Vanderbilt servants for me," I muttered bitterly. "Hang the Vanderbilts and their beastly system of housekeeping!" "Archie," said Letitia mysteriously, "I don't believe that Mrs. Potzenheimer ever saw a Vanderbilt. I was furious with her, and told her that I should write at once to the Duchess of Marlborough and inform her of the behavior of her favorite cook. I thought that she might be contemplating returning to the service of the Vanderbilts. Would you believe it, Archie? She simply grinned in my face and mimicked me. I was so anxious for her to leave the house that I could scarcely wait. I don't think that she was more than five minutes getting ready, but it seemed like an eternity. After she had gone I went to my room to dress--don't think, dear, that the red flannelette was premeditated--and it was then I discovered that my diamond ring--the hoop you gave me, Archie--that I had laid on my bureau had vanished." "I'll go at once and get a detective," I exclaimed ferociously. "Hush," she said in a tired voice. "Six silver spoons, monogrammed A. L. F., that Aunt Julia gave me, your gold whisky flask, and my tortoise-shell comb, with the pearls and turquoises are all missing. She was in a great hurry to go, and I was in a greater hurry to see her go--" "And she was such a simple, inoffensive old woman," I muttered savagely, "and you hated to see her work! And you thought she should be with her grandchildren! And the cottage with honeysuckle all over it! And nowhere to go! And a weak heart! And that infernal mutton stew--" I paused in incoherent anger, only to experience a painful remorse, as Letitia began to sob. "That is so like a man!" she cried, turning from me as I uttered fervent apologies and pleas for pardon. "You are a man, after all, Archie, and I never looked upon you as one. I thought you were something better--something nobler. I was mistaken. I find--I find that I have--have married--have married a man after all." I was greatly alarmed. This was the first sign of the demon of disenchantment. Although I don't know why I was so bitterly chagrined at Letitia's discovery that I was a man--I nevertheless was. For the moment it seemed disgusting to be a man. I could have found it in my heart to wish that I were a monkey. "Forgive me, Letitia, forgive me," I urged, severely distressed; "I was wrong. I hope you'll pardon me. Don't--don't, dear--call me a man, again, in that tone. I can't stand it. Oh, curse this Potzenheimer woman who has brought us to this!" "There--there!" exclaimed Letitia, brushing away her tears and kissing me. "You didn't mean it, I know, but after what I've gone through this afternoon, I can't endure very much more. And you appeared to be reproaching me, as though I were upholding that villainous hypocrite of a woman, who seemed--" She paused, as though expecting me to add "so simple and inoffensive." But this time, I had learned my lesson, and I was so thankful for Letitia's forgiveness that I had nothing further to say. And, after all, I had been wrong to taunt her. "You can imagine how I felt," Letitia went on presently, "when I discovered the loss of the valuables. I didn't mind the whisky flask, or the comb, or the spoons, but the ring you gave me, Archie--it almost broke my heart to lose it. Just as I had made up my mind to send for you, there was a peal at the bell, and in stalked a woman, who said she was Mrs. Archer, living in the apartment below us." "How horribly informal!" I exclaimed. "How do we know anything about Mrs. Archer?" "It wasn't an occasion for etiquette, Archie. Mrs. Archer was in a desperate state. It seems that her cook spent most of her time with Mrs. Potzenheimer, when we were dining out at restaurants on account of Mrs. Potzenheimer's health. The irony of it all! Her cook was another antiquity, with an aristocratic record. She had come to Mrs. Archer, without references, but had declared she had lived with the Ogden Goelets." "Go on, Letitia," I said, in a Sherlock Holmes voice. "_And_ Mrs. Ogden Goelet was in Europe, visiting the Duchess of Roxburghe. _And_ the Duchess of Roxburghe had been very much attached to her, and had been crazy to take her to London. _And_ she was too old to go, and wanted to 'rest her bones' in New York. _And_ she was always ailing, and nothing seemed to do her any good but gin and whisky." "I guessed it, Letitia," I cried triumphantly; "I guessed it." "She behaved precisely like Mrs. Potzenheimer. She came from the same intelligence office. She left, at a moment's notice." "Taking with her a diamond ring, six silver spoons, a gold whisky flask, and a comb with pearls and turquoises," I went on glibly, still in those staccato Sherlock Holmes tones. "Or valuables to that effect," corrected Letitia. "Certainly," I assented judicially, "certainly. It is clear, Letitia, that these women must have been in league, and that a carefully planned robbery has been effected." "If you had made that discovery yesterday, Archie, before it had been effected, you might have done some good. Of course, it is quite clear to-day. A child could see that," she added impatiently. "I wish you wouldn't interrupt me with such wonderful deductions, dear. I dare say they _are_ clever, but--" Letitia's irritable tone hurt me. The pain of these incidents had been temporarily deadened by my Sherlock Holmes demeanor. Still, I was bound to confess that, as Letitia pointed out, the case did seem simple. "Mrs. Archer seemed furious with _me_," Letitia said querulously. "The more we discovered that our troubles coincided, the angrier she grew. At one time"--and here Letitia flushed--"she seemed to be positively suspicious. She had noticed the constant communication between the two cooks by means of the dumb-waiter." "The dumb-waiter seems to be a sort of hyphen, connecting devils," I interpolated epigrammatically. "Don't be witty, Archie. Don't even try to be witty, please. As I think of Mrs. Archer's attitude, when she first entered, I feel humiliated. She admitted that she thought Rosie was here. Rosie was the cook. And it was not until I told her of Nellie's departure, and the loss I had sustained, that her manner changed. When I mentioned the fact that I had missed a diamond ring, six silver spoons, a gold whisky flask, and a comb with pearls and turquoises, she really heaved a sigh of relief. She said, 'Oh, I'm so glad, Mrs. Fairfax--' and then she checked herself, and added that she was glad the case was not complicated." "I'll see her husband, and demand a written apology," I declared indignantly. "You are always too late, dear," said Letitia quietly. "Mrs. Archer apologized profusely. She told me that her husband had always been suspicious of people who live in apartments--since Dr. Parkhurst had bungled up New York. She was very nice. She said she could see at once that we were quite respectable." "How insulting!" I cried. "Insulting!" echoed Letitia. "If she had said she could see that we were _not_ quite respectable, then it would have been insulting. Perhaps I am describing the scene badly. At any rate, though it may sound insulting to you, Archie, it didn't to me. She didn't say it in precisely the terms I have used. Mrs. Archer is a very pleasant person. We grew quite chummy. We added up our losses. Rosie had taken three hundred and thirty-seven dollars' worth, and Nellie had gone off with at least seven hundred and fifty dollars' worth. She admitted that I was twice as aggrieved as she was. And I must say, Archie, I couldn't help feeling pleased that I had the best of her." "The best of her, Letitia? You mean the worst of her." "I don't," she insisted. "When a woman confronts you angrily and announces indignantly that she is a victim, it is a satisfaction to turn upon her, with the irrefutable evidence that she is not as much of a victim as you are. I felt a triumphant sense of 'There now!' Just the same, now that she has gone, I could cry all over again as I think of my loss. I put a brave face on the matter, for the sake of appearances. We had tea together, but when she had left, the trouble all came back to me and I think, Archie, that I must have wept myself to sleep." "I suppose I had better report the case," I suggested. "It will be waste of time," said Letitia. "Mrs. Archer told me so. Now that Rosie and Nellie have gone, she remembers reading of two crooks who have been robbing apartment houses lately. Like you, dear, she is a bit late." "I don't know why you speak so slightingly of your husband, Letitia," I interposed haughtily. "I don't mean to slight you at all, Archie. But you see through a case when it is all over, and Mrs. Archer remembers important information when it is no longer important. That is all, dear. Rosie and Nellie have probably left the city, and the state, taking care to cover their tracks." "Still for the sake of other possible victims--" "Never mind them, Archie," said Letitia promptly, "they must take care of themselves as we have had to do. Anyway, now that you are here, and that I have eased myself by telling you all, I feel better. And it is such a relief not to have a patient with a weak heart on one's hands. Positively, dear, I am relieved. It is as though I have shifted a burden. It is almost worth seven hundred and fifty dollars to feel comfortable. You really didn't need the gold whisky flask, and I can get along without the tortoise-shell comb. The diamond ring _is_ a blow, but I intend to forget it. I'll just put on my things and you shall take me out to dinner, and then we'll go to the theater and see something jolly, with rattle in it." "Sothern's playing _Hamlet_," I insinuated, "and Shakespeare always cheers you." "But he wouldn't to-night, Archie. Who shall minister to a mind be-cooked? One must be mentally serene to appreciate _Hamlet_. I want to forget Mrs. Potzenheimer, and although I adore classics, they don't exhilarate on occasions like these. Would you think me quite dreadful and illiterate, if, instead of _Hamlet_, I suggest--" "Mrs. Fiske in _Hedda Gabler_?" "No, dear, just--er--Weber and Fields'. Do you mind?" "Oh, Letitia," I said in a shocked voice, though I could scarcely repress a smile of joy, "I am amazed. I should never have thought it of you. Still, if you insist,--well, let us go to Weber and Fields'. We can leave when we are disgusted." "I shall stay till the end," announced Letitia firmly, "and I hope it lasts until midnight. That is the way I feel to-night." CHAPTER VIII While a well-selected little restaurant dinner undoubtedly loosens the trammels of a too obdurate and persistent domesticity, the restaurant breakfast can scarcely be said to be conducive to an overweening amiability. Those who have tried it will not be inclined to dispute the matter. It is in the early morn that the term restaurant seems singularly inappropriate. The luminous, glittering, chattering resort where, at night, one may throw off one's care and temporarily forget one's home and mother, is, in the forenoon, but--an eating house. One is there, in vulgar materialism--to eat! The boiled-egg moment, that the mere ethics of good taste assign to privacy--with the morning ablutions and the care of the teeth--is a tragedy when translated into publicity. Conviviality, at the boiled-egg moment, is an impossibility. Ordinary courtesy is abstruse and difficult. Silence, the morning papers, the birth of one's daily attitude--the natural cravings of the hour--give way to the gloomy desolation of the public resort. Cheek-by-jowl with other unfortunates, in whom it is hope to discover an interest--for altruism is not born until noon, and mere selfishness monopolizes the morning hours--the meal is a detestable torture, worthy of a place in the catalogue of mediæval horrors. Yet Letitia and I came to it. We came to it next morning. There were no warm slippers for me; there was no loose dressing-gown for Letitia. We dressed; we put on our bonnets and shawls; we sallied forth to boiled egg. We were rather sullen about our sallying, and being devoid of a sense of humor, we saw nothing amusing in the empty glory of our prettily furnished apartment. I am told that the situation would have been saved, for the humorously born, by this mere idea. Yet I am still thankful for my mental inability to rout tragedy by comedy. Letitia looked at me unaffectionately; I was able to regard Letitia without rapture. The maintenance of the honeymoon mood is generally strenuous--which is not meant for cynicism--but the honeymoon in its most effulgent radiance must pale, as Lubin and Dulcinea seek their boiled egg abroad. Alas! "I dare not try it, Letitia," I said, shivering, as a morning waiter, in evening dress, set the terrible thing before me. "I have a horrible presentiment that it is bad. I don't know why, but I can't shake off the idea. Eggs are such a lottery." "I wish you wouldn't set me against my food," she retorted peevishly, slicing the top from the offensive egg and peering timidly into it. Then with a smile: "Perhaps it's like the curate's egg." "Don't, Letitia!" I cried indignantly, "I loathe that alleged joke. It is so silly and so played out. Besides, it was never meant for morning use. There are some things that it is criminal to jest about--eggs, and _Parsifal_, and cooks, and the Passion play," I added desperately. I was determined that I would not taste my egg until I saw how Letitia took to hers. They were probably of the same brand. It was perhaps cowardly of me to let a frail little woman explore the mysteries of an unguessed egg, but I was in a thoroughly perverse mood. I watched her stolidly as she dipped in her spoon, stirred up the contents, and transferred a portion of them to her mouth. Nothing happened. She did not change color and I realized that all was well. For in the case of the restaurant egg: _Ce n'est que le premier pas qui coûte_. The tea tasted like boiled hay. It was called English breakfast tea, probably because the English would never think of drinking it, and if they did, they would never drink it at breakfast time. But it was hot and wet--two qualities that are sufficient for those who have not mastered the sublime art of tea-drinking. Letitia scarcely touched her breakfast. She immersed herself in the advertising columns of the morning newspaper, and was quite hidden behind the sheet. I was in that odious humor when, to be looked at as I ate, was unendurable--something simply not to be borne with equanimity. I was glad that Letitia couldn't see me, for while she wasn't looking I did very nicely, and ate my team of boiled eggs with relish! If Letitia had been looking at me, I should have left them both. One can not always account for the morning mood. And yet I have never been called a "crank." "Archie," she said suddenly (and I quickly hid the egg-shells so that she should not remark upon my strangely-found appetite), "I think I've got it at last. It really looks as though there were a way out of our difficulties. But I do wish, dear boy, that you would try to eat." She glanced at my plate. She saw the egg-shells. The rolls, butter, tea, had all disappeared. I felt a flush mount to my brow. Had I been detected in the commission of a crime, I could not have looked more uncomfortable. "Oh, I see you have managed to do very well," she said in a pleased voice, without a vestige of sarcasm. "In fact"--with a smile--"if you do as well as that, without an appetite, I am quite unable to imagine what you would do with one. You are a healthy boy--healthy but silly." "Well, Letitia," I murmured abjectly, "you were reading, and paying no attention to me--I might have been down at the Battery for all you cared--so I had to do something in self-defense." "Don't apologize," said Letitia, and this time there was an intonation of ill-timed jocularity in her voice. "I am glad you were hungry, and I wish that I had been. I've eaten nothing, and you don't even notice it. You don't urge me to eat. It doesn't matter." "Letitia!" I cried reproachfully. "Please--please--" She laughed. "I'm teasing you, Archie, and I didn't mean to do so. You are such a lovely subject for persecution that I can't resist the temptation. But--bother our appetites. I have forgotten the present and am looking into the future. Here is a little advertisement that will, I think, put an end to our anguish. Listen--" She took a pencil and marked round the following, which she then proceeded to read aloud: "Irish widow lady, with one child, wants position as cook, in small refined family, of Christian principles. Good home preferred to big wages. Call 33 Sixth Avenue. Mrs. McCaffrey. Up one flight." "Archie," said Letitia solemnly, laying down the paper, "I feel intuitively that Mrs. McCaffrey is our fate. I read fifty advertisements while you were trying--I mean while you were eating" (I winced), "and I felt a warm, rushy sensation when I came to the name of Mrs. McCaffrey. I believe it was telepathy, from 33 Sixth Avenue." "Let me look at the advertisement." I took the paper, and read the portentous lines that Letitia had almost intoned. Then I re-read it. "I suppose that she means to bring the child with her," I suggested ruefully. "That is the catch, Letitia. We do want a cook, but we don't want a child--at least hers." "But, Archie, dear," said Letitia seriously, "we have none of our own." "How _could_ we have?" I cried, amazed and indignant. "We won't argue that point," declared my wife, quite unruffled. "The fact is, Archie, that we haven't any children, whatever you may say, and however much you may argue. Under the circumstances, I don't object to a cook with a child. In fact, I quite like the idea. She will be very much steadier and less frivolous, and--Archie, I love children. I like their prattle, and their cunning little ways, and--" "But," I interrupted, catching at a straw with the zest of a drowning man, "you notice that she wants to go into the service of a family with Christian principles. Now, I don't propose to saddle myself with Christian principles for the sake of my cook. I positively decline. What difference on earth it can possibly make to a cook whether she broil a steak for Buddhists, or Mohammedans, or Christian Scientists, or Swedenborgians--or even, for the Salvation Army, I can't imagine. Religion in the kitchen is just a bit far-fetched. I consider that advertisement most insulting, Letitia." "Archie, really, you--" "And I suppose," I went on, wound up, "that we should have to sing hymns with her every night and perhaps go to church with her on Sunday. I won't lend myself to such new-fangled notions. Cook is a question of dinner and not of religious belief. Besides, how could she know what our principles were? We might be atheists, and still inform her that we had Christian principles! I dare say that if we objected to her cooking, she would say we were not Christians, and if we protested at her going out more than eight times a week, she would declare that we were heathens. The child is bad enough, but the Christian principles are worse. I'm sorry, Letitia, but this advertisement is really a mass of palpable loopholes." Tears came to Letitia's eyes. They seemed to be frequently in abeyance there nowadays, and they grieved me. "For a couple who a few weeks ago knew nothing about the servant question, and indignantly scouted the idea that there was such a thing, we are getting on well," she said in a low voice. "You are growing awfully suspicious, Archie. The iron seems to have entered your soul. Because Anna Carter and Mrs. Potzenheimer were failures--quick failures I grant--you are now inclined to put every cook in the same boat. Oh, Archie, I'm ashamed of you. If you are always looking for evil motives you will find them, sure enough." She paused, and the tears welled up again. The sight was so painful to me that--in sheer dread of its continuance--I succumbed. That is to say, I had no further adverse comments to make and the field was Letitia's! Undoubtedly, she knew it. "You see, dear," she said in mollified tones, "you don't understand the probable position of poor Mrs. McCaffrey. Imagine her alone in the world with a child. She is poor. She must earn a living for the two of them. All she knows how to do is to cook. She places herself in the market as a cook. But there is the child! She can not smother it, and she must take it with her. She is therefore anxious that the place to which she takes it shall be respectable and--religious. I don't suppose that she is too fearfully particular. But naturally, she would not like to see the dear little thing in the house of a man who drank and swore, and of a woman who--well, of a woman who behaved in the femininely equivalent. So, just to protect herself, she says Christian principles. I admire her for it, Archie." Silence on my part. Letitia's triumphant logic was of course unanswerable. I made no attempt to answer it, and Letitia was "riled." "Do say something, dear," she urged. "I don't want to vex you, Letitia," I said, "and that is why I am silent. But you surely must know that men with Christian principles do swear and do drink. Our old servant at Oxford had thoroughly Christian principles, but he used to beat his wife regularly every night. The Christian principles were there, but they were not sufficient." Letitia knew that she had won the day and was instantly her own delightful, charming self. "You are splitting straws," she said, "you baby! I have a great mind to tell Mrs. McCaffrey exactly what you said--and don't believe! It would serve you right if I went to 33 Sixth Avenue and said, 'You'll like our home, Mrs. McCaffrey. My husband has Christian principles. He drinks like a fish, swears like a trooper, and beats his wife like a British workingman. But he is _such_ a Christian!' Archie, I believe you're jealous, and that's the trouble with you. You think that if there is a child your nose will be out of joint. Such a foolish husband!" And Letitia rose in her seat and kissed me over the table, although there were two waiters in dangerous proximity, and an enormous married couple, who seemed scandalized, at the very next table. It really did look most unseemly at such an ungodly hour of the morning! "Now confess," she said tauntingly, "confess that you are pleased. Confess it at once, sir, or--or I shall kiss you again, and this time much louder." I tried to be stern, and to recall the various grades of vexation that I had known since the boiled eggs were brought in. But my irritation had vanished. My wife, witch-like, had dissipated the mists that had obscured my good nature. After all, if she were pleased, why need I worry? The affairs of our household were assuredly hers--although, up to the present, I had suffered from their most uncomfortable reflection. I felt better. Perhaps the much-despised breakfast was, in spite of all, partly responsible for the mental metamorphosis. "She certainly will have a good home," said Letitia, pursuing her thoughts aloud, "and it is really nice to meet a woman who wants one. It shows a refined mood. What did Anna Carter care for a good home, except to go away from it every night? And Mrs. Potzenheimer? You are very domesticated for a man, Archie--whatever you may be, you are that--and I feel sure that Mrs. McCaffrey will take to you at once. And, Archie--I shall teach the child to call you uncle, and me auntie. It will be so dear and sweet." "What an absurd girl you are, Letitia," I exclaimed, amused in spite of myself at her ingenuous remarks. "You remind me of Dora, the child-wife, in _David Copperfield_." "I call that most unkind," she declared indignantly. "I always hated that character. Dora was such a fool that I was glad when she died. Please don't compare me to her again, Archie. I don't think I am a fool. Of course, I select a rosy outlook. I hope for the best, and I believe that most things are meant to turn out well. But I think I am most practical, and sensible, and staid, and sophisticated, and--old before my years." I settled my account with the persistently smiling waiter, who appeared to regard us as jokes, and we left the restaurant. Letitia determined to ride down town with me and to set out at once in quest of the Irish McCaffrey. I had some qualms about permitting her to meander around the lower extremities of Sixth Avenue in the seclusion of the one-flight-up resorts. But she overruled my objections in her usual vivid manner. "When you come home this evening," she said gaily, as we sat in the elevated train, and were whizzed south, "you'll find a nice little wife, a nice little cook, and a nice little child." "To say nothing of a nice little dinner," I added materially. "At any rate, Letitia, I do hope you'll insist that the Christian principles are not cooked with the dinner. If there is anything on earth that I detest, it is Christian food. Porridge and griddle cakes for breakfast, cold rubbish for luncheon, and overdone chops, followed by indigestible, chunky pie--that is my conception of Christian food. I can't help thinking that much of the immorality in the world is simply due to Christian food." "Stop it!" cried Letitia, laying a gloved finger on my lips. "You think you are getting clever. You are trying to imitate Grundy, Pinero, and Barrie, and I assure you that it is all lost on me. I want a cook, and not an epigram." "As I said," I continued forcefully and rather loudly, "much of the immorality of the world is simply due to Christian food. Christian food is easy and generally--boiled. The mistaken idea that sound morals are the result of bad digestion is responsible for the inartistic plight of England and America." "Hush, Archie!" exclaimed Letitia, looking around her nervously. "You talk as though you were haranguing a mob. And just the sort of nonsense that a mob loves, too. As for the plight of England and America--you are forgetting France. And look where French gluttony has led the nation! As for lack of morality--" "Bah!" I remarked perversely, "France's lack of morality is a phrase used for advertising purposes, my girl. There is a bigger lack of it in London and New York, but you don't hear so much about it, because it is ugly--like English plum pudding and American baked beans. No people can be really wicked who have invented the Duval restaurants. Compare the light-hearted, cheerful, exhilarating, comfortably-stomached Parisians, sitting outside their _cafés_ and sipping their _eaux sucrées_, with the greedy English, absorbing stodgy buns and dingy lemonade, and with the criminal Americans, assimilating poisonous ice-creams, and destroying their mucous membranes with odious candies." "At the next station I get out and walk," declared Letitia furiously. "I'll leave you, Archie. Your breakfast has gone to your head. What is the matter with you? Really, I begin to think that our domestic troubles have unseated your reason." The train was stopping at the Fifty-third Street station and Letitia rose, prepared to get out. As a matter of fact, I had been enjoying myself immensely. My words had been addressed to Letitia, but they were selfishly designed for my own delectation. I liked to hear myself talk--in which respect, I resembled a good many other people I knew. "Sit down, Letitia," I said, "I've finished. I just wanted to relieve myself of a few thoughts, which seemed relevant to the occasion." "Everybody is looking at you," she asserted in vexation, "and--I'll get out, Archie, if you continue. What must these people think of a young man, excitedly discussing the ethics of food in the Sixth Avenue elevated railroad?" "In a train positively littered with advertisements of food," I added savagely. "All around us are legends of pickles, and biscuits, and sauces, and catsup--and horrid things that are bought cooked, because we live in a country where the art is unknown, and where the cooks talk of Christian principles. You are not logical, Letitia. It seems to me that this is the very place where, if you don't think of food, advertisers lose their money." "Well, think of it," muttered Letitia defiantly, "but don't talk about it." "Following the example of English and Americans in the matter of immorality," I couldn't help saying. Then lightly: "Well, Letitia, you must admit that I am bright. You may not appreciate my clever remarks, but I'm sure they would make a hit in print." "Not with me, dear," retorted my unappreciative wife. "I think they're silly, and old, and book-y, and I like you better in a home mood. I've never seen you as obstreperous as this before, and it has handicapped Mrs. McCaffrey for me, as she was the cause of it. And now, here I am at my station, and--you can ride back to yours. Don't work too hard to-day, Archie, and take a good luncheon--something warm and nourishing. I'm sure that you are not quite well, and I shall call in Dr. De Voursney if you have any more of these alarming symptoms to-night." "One thing, Letitia," I said rather penitently, for it began to dawn upon me that I had made an ass of myself. "Mrs. McCaffrey advertises herself as a widow. Well, I want you to make sure that Mr. McCaffrey is good and dead, and that we don't get a cook-in-law as well as a child." And this time Letitia laughed and dropped a curtsey, as I lifted my hat and left her. CHAPTER IX Smiling, radiant, and in her prettiest evening gown--a felicitous blend of refinement and simplicity that the most abjectly Sarah-Jane mind would scarcely dare to think of as a confection--my brave Letitia met me as I returned from the sordid bread-and-butter struggle to sweet domesticity. And I could see that the dove of peace had temporarily descended upon my miniature household. It was Letitia of the honeymoon; Letitia of Ovid and Cicero; Letitia, the provocative, the mutinous, the delightful! It was no longer the Letitia of tinted Anna Carter, and bleary Mrs. Potzenheimer, and the delicatessen dinner! I heaved a sigh of relief as she kissed me affectionately. "They're here, Archie," she said jubilantly, as I walked into her parlor with elastic step, "and I had no trouble at all. Mrs. McCaffrey received me most respectfully--she was her own best reference--and I made my decision quickly. She has been here about an hour, and took possession of the kitchen as though she were not a bit ashamed of it." "Tell me all, dear," I asked hopefully, as I began to struggle into my evening clothes all laid out on the bed for me by Letitia. "There's nothing to conceal," declared Letitia amiably. "I was sorry you put it into my head to ask about her husband. You remember, dear, you insisted that he must be good and dead. And you see, I am clay in your hands, Archie. Poor woman! She showed me a picture of his tombstone, in an elegant gold frame, and then burst into tears. He was forty-eight, and his name was Michael." "And she spoke of him as Mike?" I interrupted. "How _did_ you guess?" cried Letitia. "Yes, she did. How she cried, poor soul! He was a drunkard, but very kind to her. I suppose there _are_ really good drunkards, Archie, as well as bad ones. We only hear of the bad ones, yet surely some natures must be improved by alcohol. Evidently, Mr. McCaffrey's was. He drank himself to death and, in his last moments of delirium tremens, she heard him say brokenly, 'You can always cook for a living, Birdie.'" "Birdie!" I exclaimed, dropping my collar-button. "Oh, I was very firm, Archie. I was, indeed. I quite realized the indignity, the indelicacy of such a name for a cook. And it was not a pet name used exclusively by her husband. She was christened Birdie, and she showed me dozens of letters, all addressed to Mrs. Birdie McCaffrey. I thought it best to start in a determined way, and I told her that my husband was a dreadful crank." "Letitia!" "I just _said_ it, Archie, as I thought it would carry weight. I insisted that you would never, never call her Birdie, as you were rather old-fashioned. At first she was indignant when I suggested that we call her Mary, and she actually asked me how you would like it if she called you Tom. That was insolent, and I snubbed her quickly. I think I did the novel-heroine's act. I drew myself up to my full height and rustled away from her. She came to her senses and compromised on her second name, which is Miriam--Birdie Miriam McCaffrey. Miriam isn't so bad, is it, Archie? It's a bit Biblical, and has a sort of 'sound the loud timbrel' flavor. But I've come to the conclusion that regular cooks' names are not possible in New York, and Miriam might be worse. It's much better than Hyacinth, or Guinevere, or Ermyntrude. Imagine calling out 'Ermyntrude, bring in the pie.' So you must really stretch a point, Archie, and offer no objections to Miriam." "Am I such a dreadful tyrant, Letitia?" "You silly boy," she exclaimed laughing, "don't you think it for a moment, dear. But with cooks, a tyrannical husband always sounds well. I must confess that I made you out to be most overbearing, arrogant, autocratic, and even insulting at times. You don't mind, dear. I thought it best. A man in the house, nowadays, means nothing. Men are so weak. But a bully--" "I wish you wouldn't, Letitia," I said irritably, "I don't fancy being held up as a bully. Where's the sense? And where's the fun?" "I was not thinking of fun, dear. Please be docile, Archie, and leave household matters to me. You won't regret it. Of course, I know that you are not a bully, but my cooks must think that you are one, until they find out what a meek, good-natured, foolish, old fossil of a silly old husband you are." With which she knotted my tie for me, shook me by my shoulders, and led me into the drawing-room. "The child!" I exclaimed. "You've forgotten the child. Tell me about it." There was no need to do so. Hardly had I spoken when the defunct Michael McCaffrey's legacy to posterity joined us in the drawing-room. It was a mouse-colored little brat, with hair that looked like blankets, watery eyes that seemed to be edged with pink tape, a sticky face and hands, the dirtiness of which would probably be called picturesque in Italy, and in somebody else's drawing-room, and the delightful aspect of those dear little things that play about the gutters of the east side. Its nose was disgusting, and when I say that I do not refer to the shape of the organ. The child ran up immediately to a green velvet ottoman and began affectionately rubbing it the wrong way with the sticky hands. "Ga-ga!" it said. "Ga-ga! Ga-ga!" "Come away!" I cried, scenting the ruin of the ottoman. "Come here, dear," said Letitia gently, but the child paid not the slightest heed. "I hadn't seen it before, Archie, as it was playing in the street when I called on Mrs. McCaffrey. It isn't--it isn't"--in a disappointed tone--"it isn't a bit cute." "Ga-ga! Ga-ga!" shouted the brat. "Mrs. McCaffrey must not allow the child to run wild," I said sternly. "We can't do with it in the drawing-room, Letitia. It must stay with its mother. You must insist upon that. It is certainly not an ornament to a room. A little cold water and some soap--" "I wonder if it is a boy or a girl," mused Letitia, as she pulled the hands of the brat from the green velvet ottoman to which they stuck. "Mrs. McCaffrey didn't tell me. How _can_ I find out?" "Ask Miriam," I said sarcastically. "She ought to know." "You can always tell whether cats are gentlemen or ladies by the shape of the head," Letitia went on irrelevantly, "but children are puzzles. This dirty little thing looks like a boy, Archie. I'm quite sure that it can't be a girl. I forgot to ask, and we really ought to know, don't you think?" At that moment a loud voice was heard calling, "Letitia! Letitia!" And then: "Letitia! Where on earth is Letitia?" For a minute after there was dead silence. Letitia flushed, and an expression of violent anger dawned upon her face. I was too amazed to say anything. After what my wife had told me of Mrs. McCaffrey's bitter antipathy to a change of name, this looked like revenge. She undoubtedly proposed to show Letitia that she had no intention of changing _her_ name. The child ran quickly to its mother, and we were left alone, in a tumult of astonishment. "You must go and veto that, instantly, Letitia," I asserted gravely. "Stop it at once, before--before she calls me Archie. She'll do it. I know she will." "You go," pleaded Letitia in fervent tones. "Do it for me, Archie. I've done so much." "No," I declared relentlessly, "I will not interfere in household matters. You have asked me not to do so. You can tell her again that I am a bully, and a tyrant, and anything you choose. It sounds well, you know. You can put it all down to me, and inform her that if she dares to use your Christian name again she can depart to No. 33 Sixth Avenue, up one flight--or two flights--or any number of flights." Letitia scarcely waited until I had finished my chaste remarks. She flew out of the room as though she had been shot, with the evident intention of striking while the iron was heated. I closed the door because I had no desire to hear. Perhaps it was an act of cowardice on my part, but, after all, Letitia herself absolved me from implicating myself in these matters. She had asked me to leave everything to her, and I had no intention of thwarting her in this instance. She returned presently, looking completely relieved. There was even a smile upon her lips. "How silly we were, Archie!" she said, sinking into a chair, "and how ready we were to think the worst of a poor, hard-working woman. She wasn't calling me at all. She heard the child in the drawing-room, and was calling the child. It _is_ a girl, Archie, and its name is Letitia." "Letitia!" I gasped. "That beastly, sticky, obnoxious little imp is named Letitia?" "Is it such a fearful name?" she asked quickly. "I can't say you are complimentary, Archie. Of course, Mrs. McCaffrey didn't know that the child was going to be 'beastly,' 'sticky,' and 'obnoxious' when she called it Letitia. How should she? I felt quite amused, as it is such a strange name to have selected. And yet, it is not at all an extraordinary name when you come to think of it. I know several Letitias, and I have read of many more." "Do be sensible, my girl," I said, trying to be patient. "Surely you must see that we can't have this woman calling Letitia all over the house, when it happens to be the name of the mistress." "But what's to be done?" she asked. "If you are going to suggest that I ask Mrs. McCaffrey to change her daughter's name to Eliza, or Susan, or Sarah--well, I simply decline. Nothing on earth would induce me to do it. I made her consent to be known as Miriam, instead of Birdie, which was quite an undertaking. No more of it for me, thank you. I've finished juggling with these baptismal arrangements. You are most unreasonable. What difference can it make? As long as I don't mind, I can't see why you object. And--and--if there must be a change of name, I'd sooner change mine. Yes, I would, Archie. You can call me Sarah, or Eliza, or Susan, if you like. But I will _not_ ask Mrs. McCaffrey to forego the pleasure of calling her own child by its own legitimate name." "I certainly shall _never_ call you Eliza, Letitia," I protested indignantly, "I loathe all those names. If you had been called Eliza, or Sarah, or Susan--or even Kate--I wouldn't have married you. I feel very strongly on the subject. Please don't suggest such ridiculous things." "Well," said Letitia, and the tears rose to her eyes, "can't you--can't you--address me as 'dear,' or 'love,' as much as possible? You are awfully fond of calling me 'my girl,' you know. It would simplify matters so much, if you could do this, Archie. Please do. It can't be difficult, as you do it so frequently, and now when you know that it is really necessary--" "It seems such a dreadful shame to give up the name of Letitia, which is charming, just for the sake of this woman's squalid little cub. It's an outrage. I'm surprised at you, my girl." "There! You said 'my girl,'" she cried triumphantly. "Now, wasn't it easy?' "I didn't know I said it," was my stern rejoinder, "and I assure you that I don't intend to make any point of it. I shall do as I choose and, anyway, if that brat is kept out of sight and hearing--and that you must insist upon--we shall not be seriously inconvenienced. The lower classes to-day are simply impossible. They--" "Hush, Archie!" said Letitia earnestly. "You forget that there are no lower classes. You are in the United States, and not in England. Try and remember that Michael McCaffrey's child is just as suited to the name of Letitia, as is the wife of Archibald Fairfax, a gentleman who is still silly enough to tack an 'Esq.' to his name." "Dinner's on table," said a rich, Hibernian voice at the door, and we guiltily stopped short. Mrs. McCaffrey stood there eying me contemplatively, and even from the cursory glance she was able to take, I felt perfectly sure that she instantly realized the fact that Letitia's stories of the bully and tyrant that dominated the household, were undoubted myths. She was a large lady, neatly dressed. Indications seemed to point to her possession of what is popularly known as a "temper." And perhaps the late Mr. Michael McCaffrey was fully aware of what he was doing when he drank himself to death. It was a cozy little dinner of barley soup, very appetizing; a tender chicken, ably accompanied with parsley sauce; vegetables, and a fruit pie. But its enjoyment was effectually marred by the circumstance that Miriam was accompanied to the dining-room by Letitia, who was growing peevish, and whose "Ga-ga!" simply got on my nerves. It was most discouraging. Tugging at cook's apron incessantly, Letitia junior was an irritating obstruction. We could scarcely hear ourselves talk for the perpetual "Ga-ga!" in the kitchen, and out of it. It was all that the cub could say. Mrs. McCaffrey would exclaim indulgently, "Be quiet, Letitia!" And then, for a moment, my wife would look at her in amazement, while I bit my lip in vexation. I was unable to decide as to whether Anna Carter's delicatessen dinner, without "Ga-ga!" was superior or inferior to Mrs. McCaffrey's comfortable meal with it. It was a nice point, and one that called for a deft and finely calculated judgment. "I've got two Letitias now to wait on, I see," said cook pleasantly, as she brought in the pie, while the child looked at it covetously and said "Ga-ga!" "And if you could manage to keep one of them in the kitchen, my good woman," I plucked up courage enough to say, "we should appreciate it." This was a mistake on my part. A few seconds later, doleful sounds proceeded from Mrs. McCaffrey's region. We heard her slapping the child, and alluding to it as a plague, and--that settled Letitia. "Now see what you've done," she said, casting indignant glances at me. "You have positively driven the poor mother to abuse her own child. You are countenancing cruelty. I couldn't stand it for a moment, Archie. The child has done nothing. It has merely followed cook into this room, which was quite natural. It has said nothing." "Pardon me," I interrupted, in vexation, "it has said 'Ga-ga!' It has said 'Ga-ga!' persistently, and while you may consider that enlivening, Letitia, I don't. If I had a child of my own, nothing on earth would induce me to allow it to say 'Ga-ga!' It is most disheartening." "Well, I shall teach it to say something prettier," Letitia declared. "I admit that 'Ga-ga!' isn't cunning, all the time. Once or twice, perhaps, it is not amiss. In the meantime, if Mrs. McCaffrey slaps little Letitia--my namesake, isn't she, Archie?--out of the house she goes. I'd sooner she ill-treated big Letitia. And you are so tender-hearted that I wonder you can sit there so quietly--like a--like a--monster--" Letitia rose and went into the kitchen. I fancied that I heard her kissing Mrs. McCaffrey's cub, but I could not be sure--and preferred _not_ to be sure. It was a point upon which I desired no illumination. It was one of the many things that it is better not to know. Sullenly, I finished my dinner alone, while Letitia talked with cook. It seemed like an endless conversation. These kitchen interludes began to pall upon me. Letitia was either putting a cook to bed or discussing maternity with her. There seemed to be no escape from this preposterous condition of affairs. If I had slapped Letitia, Mrs. McCaffrey would probably have been up in arms about Christian principles. However, it was like the case of my old Oxford servant, before mentioned, who was such a Christian that he used to beat his wife punctually at ten o'clock every night. Not that she minded in the least. My own opinion is that she liked it, as Mrs. McCaffrey's child probably did. In this, as in many other matters, there is no accounting for taste. I went moodily to the drawing-room and smoked viciously. I made "rings," and watched them dissolve in the atmosphere. I contrasted what was, with what should be. The scene lacked the placid picture of Letitia reading Cicero beneath the rosy lamplight. Letitia was haranguing a cook and her husband was temporarily forgotten. No wonder that I felt bitter, and brooded over the unsolved enigma known as the "servant question." When Letitia joined me, she led in the dirty brat by the hand. The juvenile McCaffrey had evidently been washed. There was a line round its neck that showed the limit of the operation. It had a sugar stick in its mouth, which mercifully excluded "Ga-ga!" from utterance. Letitia seemed rather thoughtful, and came up to me gently. "I'm sorry if I spoke harshly," she said, kissing me, "but--but--things do seem to go so wrong, dear, don't they? I told Mrs. McCaffrey never to touch her child again, and I asked her about her Christian principles." "Good!" I exclaimed savagely. "She was rather surprised, and a trifle impertinent, and thought that ladies without children should not offer advice to mothers. From a few remarks that she let drop unconsciously, I couldn't help thinking, Archie, that she has had other children--plenty of them--dozens--" "Let us hope that they are dead," I said, in the quietude of despair. "Anyway, they don't matter, do they, as they are not here? Certainly, Archie, I don't see why she shouldn't have had other children. Letitia doesn't look to me like a first-born. She suggests the end of a long scale--the culmination of a series. I don't know why. It doesn't concern us, though. I have offered to take care of the child this evening as Mrs. McCaffrey is going to see a sister who lives in Tremont. I couldn't well refuse, could I? We are not going out." "Oh, hang it!" I cried. "An evening of 'Ga-ga!' You might have considered _me_. It is all very well to think so much of Mrs. McCaffrey. But, of course, _I_ haven't a sister in Tremont, and _I've_ got to stay in and face the music." "Archie! Archie!" Letitia pleaded, "you are getting to be a regular old, discontented, married man. You are beginning to talk to me as though--as though I irritated you, and you couldn't stand me. Oh, dear! I should never, never have thought that merely on account of a cook--" "Of three cooks!" I insisted. Letitia turned away from me, looking miserable, and my heart smote me. The only thing to do was to make the best of it, after all. I had a particular objection to degenerating into an ogre-husband, and probably I had been exceedingly cross. Yet this situation was not due to Letitia any more than it was to me. It was due to the probably noisome Mr. McCaffrey, now defunct. He was responsible for the abominable child, and had gone peacefully to his rest without a qualm. Even cook, herself, was powerless. Domesticity was not all beer and skittles. So I smiled, and tried to look pleasantly at the brat. It was not an easy task, especially when I heard the front door shut and realized that the cook-parent was on her way to Tremont, and our fate was "Ga-ga!" until bed did us part. The child was eating the sugar sticks avidly, and was refreshingly tranquil and silent. I took up an evening paper, hoping for the best; Letitia made a feint at Ovid with one eye on the juvenile McCaffrey. This did not last long. The brat grew restless and wandered disconsolately around the room, leaving traces of sticky fingers everywhere. Letitia merely pretended to read; I could see that. She followed the child around with one eye, but said nothing, probably unwilling to disturb me. Poor Letitia! The idea that she was frightened of me was appalling. I could never endure that. I tried to lose myself in absorbing stories of fires, and abductions, and murders. The murders seemed particularly lively--almost sporty. Then I made up my mind to be good-natured and was even planning a game of hide-and-seek, or blindman's-buff, or hunt-the-slipper with Letitia and the McCaffrey cub, when my good intentions were shattered. The child began to yell. It put its finger in its mouth and shouted. Great tears rolled down its cheeks. Its face was distorted. It threw itself down on the tiger-head and commenced to kick. The room was filled with this alarming demonstration. Letitia rose, her face white; I stood up suddenly, aghast at the din. "Great goodness!" cried Letitia in consternation. "It is a fit, I think--or a convulsion--or a paralytic stroke. What's to be done, Archie? Suppose--suppose--it dies before Mrs. McCaffrey gets back? Oh, if I were only a mother, I should know what to do. Why--I wonder why I'm not a mother!" We were both kneeling beside the child, who was still shouting blue murders. Letitia lifted it up and held it upon her lap. I don't know what I did. I fancy I stroked a head--but I don't know whether it was Letitia's or the child's. To add to the complexity of the situation the front-door bell rang, and I was obliged, in this cookless emergency, to go to the door. Mrs. Archer had called to know what was the matter, and to ask if she could be of any assistance. She followed me into the drawing-room, and, as well as I could, I explained the case. Letitia, herself, was almost hysterical and was unable to greet the newcomer, or to introduce me formally to her sister victim in the Potzenheimer incident. "There's nothing at all the matter with the child," declared Mrs. Archer authoritatively, after a cursory examination. "It's just fractious, Mrs. Fairfax. See--how all the time, it is pointing to that cabinet with the little Indian ivory ornaments in it. It is merely crying for the ornaments. Just try it. I bet that if you open that cabinet all this agony will cease." For a moment I thought our neighbor was joking. The obstreperous lamentations, the blood-curdling howls, the violent convulsions of distress could only have proceeded from dire physical anguish. Letitia, upon whose forehead the beads of perspiration stood in horrid salience, put the child down, and in a frenzied manner rushed to the little mahogany inlaid cabinet with the glass doors. The key was in the lock and she turned it quickly. The door flew open, revealing a little ivory doll, a wheel-barrow, a pagoda, a horse, a chess-table, a group of animals, three Indian gentlemen in summer garb, and a whole stand of pretty little Indian treasures that an uncle of mine had once bought in Calcutta. The screams of the child suddenly ceased. The flux of tears was instantly stayed. The wild moans no longer rent the atmosphere. It got up on its feet, in the twinkling of a double bedpost, as it were, and with a whoop of joy, scampered to the ivory collection. "Ga-ga!" it cried. "Ga-ga!" "Oh, Mrs. Archer!" almost sobbed Letitia in an ecstasy of gratitude--and to my horror she kissed the stranger on both cheeks (and she had never been introduced)--"you've saved us--you've saved us! Oh, I thought it was dying--that perhaps the candy had poisoned it--and that when cook returned, all we should have to hand her would be a corpse." "A very badly brought up child, Mrs. Fairfax," was Mrs. Archer's solemn comment. "What it really needed was a good spanking." "Oh, no," exclaimed Letitia, "never. Corporal punishment is so detestable, and so uncivilized. And for a mere baby! The mother slapped it while we were at dinner, and I gave her a piece of my mind." "Well, now you are going to give the child several pieces of your collection," Mrs. Archer said airily--she seemed to be a most sensible and worthy woman--"and, of course, if you don't mind, it is all right. Personally, I never believe in spoiling children. But--well I am so glad it is nothing more than temper, dear Mrs. Fairfax, and dear Mr. Fairfax. I fancied that perhaps a murder was being committed, and although Mr. Archer warned me not to implicate myself in such matters--he is a very suspicious man, is Mr. Archer--I felt that common decency necessitated my giving you any assistance that lay in my poor power." Mrs. Archer discreetly withdrew, and I mixed a glass of weak whisky-and-water for Letitia, who was still quite limp from the fray. We were both of us inordinately thankful, for what had seemed like a tragedy was averted. "Only to think," remarked Letitia, haply restored to serenity, "that I know so little about children. I positively don't deserve to have any. This is really an experience, Archie, isn't it? Such a terrible commotion all hushed up by a few ivory trifles." We looked at the cabinet. It had been rifled of its contents. The "few ivory trifles" were all over the floor. The tiny wheel-barrow had been robbed of its wheels; the pagoda was even then in process of smash; the dainty little chess-table had a leg missing. But the McCaffrey cub was joyous and smiling, and as we approached it, called out "Ga-ga!" "Uncle Ben said they were very valuable, Letitia," I remarked rather wearily. "One or two of them, he told me, could never be duplicated. The work is very fine and artistic." "Ga-ga!" cried the brat, as it tore off another leg from the chess-table. "Ga-ga!" "It _is_ rather cute when it's pleased," Letitia declared, smiling in spite of the devastation. "Any way, Uncle Ben's present has been very useful, Archie. Nobody ever really looked into that cabinet, and it is in a dark corner of the room. I can put in a few little oddments from the five-and-ten-cent store, and they will look very well behind glass, and we can always say that Uncle Ben brought them to us from Bombay--or was it Calcutta?" We sat there placidly and watched the ruthless destruction of the Indian treasures, anxious that they should not pall upon the McCaffrey darling. Letitia, I am quite certain, was prepared to break up the piano and give the pieces to the cub to play with, if necessary. But peace seemed more than usually delightful. Only once did another outbreak appear possible. It was when, at eleven o'clock, Letitia suggested that the child be put to bed. A mournful howl was wafted from the cabinet, and we decided to take no risks. Just before midnight, Mrs. McCaffrey was sighted by Letitia at the window, and a delightful sense of security became ours. "I shall tell her," said Letitia, before opening the door, "that we have had a fearful time, and have been beside ourselves, so to speak." And as the amiable Hibernian came in, and we delivered over the child to her, Letitia explained the situation, adding that we had been horribly alarmed and distressed. "Oh, it's nothing," said Mrs. McCaffrey indulgently. "Letitia's often taken like that. She has a bad temper, like her father. Don't pay any attention to her again, Mrs. Fairfax. Just let her howl. She won't mind it." CHAPTER X "Let us take a night off and enjoy ourselves, my girl," I said at breakfast in one of those elaborately, "off-hand" manners that so frequently betoken profound premeditation. "Somehow or other, we seem to be getting into a groove, and--missing things. Don't you agree with me, Letitia? A nice little dinner down town and a theater will cheer us up wonderfully. We owe it to ourselves, I think, and--well, I believe in paying that kind of debt, and not letting the account drag on," I added felicitously. "Oh, yes," Letitia assented rather meditatively, and without enthusiasm, "it would be very nice. Not that I feel the need of a change as much as you do, Archie. However, it will do us good, and I'll tell Miriam that we shall not be home, and that if she likes to ask her sister from Tremont to dinner, she can do so. You see, dear, I fancy she was going out to-night. That is why I hesitated about going to the theater. But she will be just as pleased to entertain Mrs. O'Flaherty here, and if you don't mind--" "Not at all," I said magnanimously, and I really meant it. If cook could have more fun in our "home" than I did, she was welcome to it. Domesticity, under impossible circumstances, was not essentially gay. So set was I upon an evening of forgetfulness, that it seemed a trifle to resign our apartment temporarily to cook and "me sister, Mrs. O'Flaherty, of Tree-mont." "I fancy little Letitia looks rather pale," pursued my wife. "The run of the house for a night will do her good, I am sure--" The run of the house had not been denied little Letitia, though I was determined to keep silent and not argue the matter. Cook's child was not particularly dear to me. We had her for breakfast and dinner. She stood and watched me while I shaved. She had become hatefully affectionate, and abominably fond of me. When I kissed Letitia before I went to the office, the McCaffrey cub insisted upon similar treatment. This might have been touching, but it wasn't. Letitia called me hard-hearted and callous. I believe that she was a bit jealous. Although she devoted herself heart and soul to the brat, it had no use whatsoever for her. But I, who loathed it, was singled out for popularity, and the compliment made no appeal to me. "Well, my dear," I said, as I rose from the table, "I'll take my evening clothes with me in a dress-suitcase, and you can call for me at the office at a quarter to seven. We'll dine until eight o'clock, and then proceed to the theater. I'll get tickets this morning. What would you like to see?" Letitia's lack of exuberance was rather depressing. A month ago she would have hailed the prospect with joy, and an ebullition of girlish delight. At present, she was apathetic. "Oh," she replied in a preoccupied manner, "I have no particular choice." But suddenly she brightened up, and went on: "Yes, I have, Archie. Somebody told me that _Merely Mary Arm_ was absolutely charming. It is the story of a little servant girl, a drudge in a lodging-house, a pathetic figure, that--" "No, dear," I said peremptorily, "we get all the servant girl we need in this cunning little home. I don't see why we should pay four dollars to see Mr. Zangwill's English idea--idealized, of course, for the stage. It would be cheaper to stay at home and weep over the real American thing." "But perhaps," said Letitia thoughtfully, "if we could really feel sorry for Mary Ann, we might be less harshly disposed toward Anna Carter, or Mrs. Potzenheimer, or Mrs. McCaffrey." "No, my dear," I murmured sadly, "it would be waste of time. I decline to see _Merely Mary Arm_. The subject is disgusting to me. We want to get away from ourselves when we go to the theater. We don't want to reopen wounds, and brood." "But in this Zangwill play," she persisted, "Mary Ann inherits five million dollars, and becomes a society girl, in pink chiffon and low-neck." "Which is immoral," I declared. "It is a nasty, low, and revolutionary idea--enough to make all cooks anarchists. Such plays should be prohibited by a censor. Positively to make a heroine of one of these creatures, who break up happy homes and make life unendurable, who seem to be responsible for everything, from race-suicide to--" "Hush, Archie!" cried Letitia indignantly, "I can't discuss these social questions with you. I haven't been married long enough. I still consider them improper. Besides, you can't accuse Mrs. McCaffrey of race-suicide, with little Letitia--" "Oh, they reserve the right to have as many children as they like," I retorted bitterly, "but if _you_ had them, they would soon let you know what they thought of you." "You mustn't talk to me like this, Archie," said Letitia, vexed, "you wouldn't have done so when we were engaged. I consider such conversation rowdy--just fit for the smoking-room. And as we haven't a smoking-room you must restrain yourself, please. However, I am willing to drop _Merely Mary Arm_. The reason I suggested it was that I thought it might make us both kinder and more indulgent." "Imagine old Potzenheimer with five million dollars, and low-neck!" I exclaimed, outraged. "I call it absolutely nauseating." "Not if we _could_ imagine it, dear," she said gently. "Zangwill is an artist, and I hoped that if we saw the subject poetically treated, and really shed tears for Mary Ann, as Aunt Julia wrote me yesterday that she did--" "No, Letitia. I should shed tears only for Mary Ann's employer. It is the employers who are the martyrs. It would be better and less expensive to stay at home and shed tears for ourselves. For example, I feel depressed when I think of that cabinet of Indian _bibelots_ all in rack and ruin--the only present that Uncle Ben ever gave me, and he is dead!" I added lugubriously. "How _can_ you be so petty, Archie? I am surprised at you worrying about that ivory rubbish hidden away in a cabinet." "Please, Letitia," I interrupted with dignity, "please don't call it rubbish. Uncle Ben was not the man to give his favorite nephew rubbish." "Oh, how we argue! How we argue!" she exclaimed desperately. "I am astonished at this acidulation of character. No more of _Merely Mary Arm_. You ask me what I want to see, and then decline to see it. It doesn't matter. I'll select something else. Suppose you get tickets for the Barrie play, _The Admirable Crichton_." "That's more like it, old girl," I responded exultantly. "Barrie is delightful. He wrote _The Little Minister_ and _Quality Street_, didn't he? He is reliable; always good--like tea. I admire his originality." "In _The Admirable Crichton_," said Letitia, rather demurely, I thought, "there is an old nobleman, who believes in equality. His mania takes the form of treating his servants as his equals. He invites them to parties in his own drawing-room, and makes his own daughters, ladies of title, wait upon them, and ply them with cake and lemonade." "Bosh!" I ejaculated furiously. "It must be in the air--this vile theme. It is a germ. It is a microbe. I won't pay to see such depravity on the stage. I simply refuse. I--" "And then," Letitia went on sedately--I couldn't help fancying that she was enjoying herself, and that galled me--"they are all wrecked on a desert island, and the servant becomes the master of the situation, while the old nobleman fetches and carries, and proves that outside of civilization there is no such thing as social superiority." "Ha! ha!" I laughed sarcastically. "Imagine going to a desert island to prove it. He could find proof of that right here in New York--right here in this very apartment." "Archie!" "Certainly he could. Moreover, it is an idea that needs no illumination, to my mind. If that is _The Admirable Crichton_ I don't want to see it. I wouldn't sit it out. Possibly it might be amusing in England. Here, I should consider it insulting. The idea of letting a foreigner treat the servant question for New York. Where is the American playwright? Why don't we foster him? Why are we obliged to swallow the dramatic food made for European stomachs? The only 'servant' play I want to see, is one that places her in her true light--as the bar to marriage, the bar to family life, the bar to domesticity, the bar to digestion, to mental serenity, to--" Letitia rose suddenly, and confronted me. "I can suggest nothing else," she asserted doggedly; "I seem unable to please you. Take tickets for anything you like." "There seems to be a cook in everything," I declared dejectedly, "and I want to escape it. Don't be so angry with me, Letitia. In reality, it is for your sake as much as for my own. I guess I'll take tickets for the opera. It's _Parsifal_ to-night. I never read musical criticisms, as they are so prohibitively prosy, but if you can assure me that there is no cook in _Parsifal_--" "How ignorant you are, Archie! _Parsifal_ is sacred, and deals with the Holy Grail." "Still, they might sneak a cook in," I insisted with irony. "I wouldn't put them past it. Everything is adapted, nowadays, and grand opera artists would lend themselves so easily to the rôles of cooks. However, _Parsifal_ seems safe. There is less risk about it than anything else. To be sure, Wagner is rather stupefying, and you remember, dear, that we had our first quarrel after hearing _Siegfried_. It made us both so cross." "It doesn't need _Siegfried_ to do that, nowadays," she said sadly. "I'm a brute, Letitia. I know I am. Forgive me just this once, dear, and I'll try and be better. I--I'll look on the bright side of things, and--and I won't argue so much. I'll take tickets for _Parsifal_ even though they cost ten dollars apiece. The idea of the Holy Grail appeals to me. It doesn't sound humorous, and Barrie and Zangwill seem to be dying to vent their sense of the ridiculous upon a suffering public. So it is understood, Letitia. _Parsifal_ to-night, preceded by a dainty little dinner." "The opera begins at five," said Letitia, "and I don't think I could leave the house at that hour. It is an uncomfortable hour." "Quite right, dear. Let _Parsifal_ adapt itself to us. It is absurd to make a toil of pleasure. Besides, one never understands anything at the opera, so it doesn't really matter at what time one gets there. We will not alter our plans. I shall wait at the office for you until a quarter to seven. Then dinner, a cab, and _Parsifal_. Say that this pleases you, Letitia." "Oh, I'm glad, dear. I want to see you pleased. I hate to have my poor boy cross and disagreeable, and misanthropic. And I am anxious to hear _Parsifal_, so that I can _say_ I have heard it. You understand, Archie. Perhaps we may not enjoy it while we are there, but I know we shall be delighted when it is over, and we can truthfully say that we have sat through it. There is no glory in sitting through an amusing play. But it _is_ quite a feather in one's cap to go deliberately through a performance of _Parsifal_. It is a good idea, Archie." Letitia put my evening clothes in a dress-suit-case, and, with a heart once more lightened, I departed. The old affection lingered in her parting kiss; she clung to me tenderly, and although the McCaffrey brat hovered around, and Letitia insisted upon my kissing its sticky face, I made no protest. The prospect of a night off made a boy of me again. I felt young, and enthusiastic, and happy. It was not easy to buy _Parsifal_ tickets. Evidently the subject of the Holy Grail, heavy, lugubrious, massive, with an elusive fantasy about it, appealed to the wearied hearts of New York. A long line of women stood making _Parsifal_ investments, anxious doubtless, as we were, to spend a cookless evening. Probably these women would have winced at suggestions of _Merely Mary Ann_ and _The Admirable Crichton_. I couldn't help thinking, as, in return for a twenty-dollar bill, I received a couple of pasteboard bits, that if New York managers had homes of their own, and lived the lives of the public, for which they cater, their views upon the desirability of certain plays would change. Managers are not conspicuously domestic in their habits, and they have no inkling of the real joys and sorrows of their clients. They produce plays written in other lands, for the people of other lands, and reason that human nature is the same everywhere. In which, I ween, they err. They are impatient and restive at their many failures, but--they continue their policy of risk. The day passed slowly. Tamworth seemed sorry for me when I told him that I was going to the opera, and suggested that I take a pillow with me--a rather tactless remark, I thought. He had once suffered, he said, from insomnia, and the doctors had almost despaired of curing him. He grew thin and restless, through lack of sleep. He read the very dullest books he could find, every night--all the romances and historical novels--and even these that had never failed him before as a narcotic, were useless. Then, in an inspired moment, he went to the Metropolitan House and tackled _Der Nibelungenring_. Wagner triumphed over the physicians. Morpheus emerged from his hiding-place, and insomnia was vanquished. Said Tamworth: "Nowadays, if I have a return of my old complaint, I just walk up Broadway and look at the outside of the Metropolitan House. The effect is magical. I go home and sleep the sleep of the virtuous." This was not encouraging, but I did not repine. Better a peaceful nerveless lethargy, induced by the Holy Grail, than the discordant din of horse-laughter set in motion by ill-timed variations, in fantasy form, upon tragic domestic themes. At six o'clock, I was left alone in the office. Tamworth went home; and so did the typists and clerks. It occurred to me that I might utilize a half-hour or so by working upon my _Lives of Great Men_, the thread of which I had lost. I was hopelessly out of tune with lives of great men. Lives of great women--the great women of the kitchen--had lured me astray. Goethe was obscured by Mrs. Potzenheimer; Molière lurked beneath the shade of Birdie Miriam McCaffrey. I found it quite impossible to concentrate my thoughts. They were diffuse, and unresponsive. They wobbled; and I abandoned my task. Instead, I donned my evening clothes, and made myself look as presentable as I could. I was alarmingly hungry, and could not repress a sensation of furtive delight at the thought that we were to dine at a restaurant, where nobody would say "Ga-ga!" and I should not have to call the waiter Miriam. We would begin steadily and industriously with oysters, and plow our way methodically through everything, until we landed safe and sound, at coffee. Man proposes. At a quarter to seven I put on my overcoat, and went to the window to wave to Letitia as soon as I saw her approach. She was generally punctuality itself, and prided herself upon it. As time dragged itself slowly along, however, and the slim little figure I knew so well was not to be detected in the Twenty-third crowd, I began to get nervous and apprehensive. Perhaps there had been an accident on the elevated. I thought up all sorts of catastrophes, and when the clock struck seven I had worked myself into a distressing state of perturbation. Something had assuredly happened, and I made up my mind to wait five minutes longer before telephoning. If Letitia had left the house--as she must have done--it was not much use telephoning. Certainly Birdie--I always thought of her aggressively as Birdie--would know nothing about answering telephone rings. Moreover, she was probably vividly engaged in entertaining "me sister, Mrs. O'Flaherty, of Tree-mont." Seven-twenty, and no Letitia. Even if she came, we should have but forty minutes to devote to dinner. Food, however, was rapidly losing all interest for me. I grew cold as the minutes passed. A sense of powerlessness overcame me. At last I could stand it no longer, and going to the telephone I rang up my own address, and then stood, nervously shivering, until I got it. "This is Archie," I said tremblingly. "It is I--Archie. Who is that at the 'phone?" A moment's pause, then: "Birdie--I mean Miriam. You are Archie?" My worst fears seemed about to be realized. I felt like the pain-racked husband in the little play _At the Telephone_. I scarcely dared to listen. "This is Mr. Fairfax, Mrs. McCaffrey. What has happened? Tell me quickly." "Letitia's awful sick, and the doctor's coming to see what the matter is." The perspiration was trickling down my face. The roots of my hair seemed to tighten. Letitia was too ill to answer the telephone! The familiarity of cook's allusion to my wife passed unnoticed in the wave of apprehension that swept over me. "Telephone at once for the doctor, and I'll come right back," I commanded. "The doctor's telephone doesn't work," was the reply, "and your wife has gone to fetch him. Me sister, Mrs. O'Flaherty, was too tired to go, and I had to stay with Letitia." A ray of light! I laughed--almost hysterically. The sudden removal of the nervous tension nearly made me collapse. It was the McCaffrey brat that was "awful sick," and as I hung up the receiver, I experienced nothing but a sense of utter thankfulness. Our little dinner most assuredly was off, and the Holy Grail was lost. Then a normal sense of vexation set in, and I felt indignant as I thought of Letitia trotting off for De Voursney, while I was left, lamenting. If I had only been strong-minded enough to dine in town alone, and go to the opera in solitary state! Now that I knew Letitia was unharmed, I could easily have done this, and telephoned my determination to her. Unluckily, I was not built for such a course. Such stringency might be effective, but it was beyond me. I could not take my pleasures wifelessly. The only thing to do was to go home, and I should have been impelled to this course, even if I had been expected to sit up all night with cook's brat--and I was not at all sure that Letitia would not suggest this. My mood had changed, and despondency had set in. I put my clothes into the dress-suit-case, locked up the office, and went home as rapidly as I could, after having bestowed the two ten-dollar _Parsifal_ tickets upon the elevator boy, who rather ruefully told me that he had seats for the Third Avenue Theater, where they were playing a pretty little thing called _Too Proud to Beg_. I was not too proud, however, and I begged him to take twenty-dollars' worth of opera, for my sake, which he promised to do. Letitia was very flushed and excited when I reached our apartment. It was she who opened the door, and I noticed that she had her hat and coat on. "Oh, Archie, I'm so sorry," she said lachrymosely, "and I do hope that you are not disappointed. Poor little Letitia is quite ill and feverish. She has been moaning and crying 'Ga-ga!' I had to go for De Voursney, and he is here now. I couldn't send Miriam, or Mrs. O'Flaherty, or the three girls." "The three girls!" "Yes, Archie. Cook has three other daughters, who live with Mrs. O'Flaherty, and they are all here--very nice respectable girls." "She has no right--" "What can I do, Archie? Besides, they live in Tremont, so that really they don't concern us. She might have been frank, and have candidly admitted that little Letitia had sisters. But, perhaps, if you had to earn your living as a cook, dear, you would do the same thing under the same circumstances. We won't argue; I don't feel equal to it. Ah, here _is_ the doctor." Dr. De Voursney entered at that moment, and shook hands most amiably. His presence was generally reassuring, but I must admit that at present I felt no very wild sense of alarm. "Glad to see you, Mr. Fairfax,"' he said, rubbing his hands affably. "The little patient has a febrile disturbance, and I notice a stiffening of the parotid gland in front of the ear. I should say undoubtedly--in fact I can affirm--that it is a case of _cynanche parotidaea_." Letitia grew pale. "How horrible!" she exclaimed in a low voice. "Perhaps you could give it us in English," I suggested ironically. "Mrs. Fairfax is well versed in Latin, but medical phrases, I am afraid--" "Certainly--oh, certainly," he said, in irrepressible good humor. "I generally use Latin in apartment houses and reserve mere English for the tenements. _Cynanche parotidaea_ is very prevalent just at present. It is almost epidemic. Gentle laxatives and warm fomentations are really all that it is necessary to prescribe. In English, we call the malady, mumps." "Mumps!" I murmured. "Mumps!" exclaimed Letitia. "It is not serious, as you may perceive. It is painful and quite ugly to look at. I shall leave some directions with the mother and shall come in to-morrow morning." "Is it catching?" I asked anxiously. "Nothing more so--nothing more so," he replied cheerfully. "It is highly contagious. It spreads through schools, through apartment houses, with the rapidity of lightning." "Then you think that my wife might--" "I should say it was very likely--extremely probable," he declared, beaming upon us; "still it might be worse. Now, you know, scarlet fever, at present, is raging in this neighborhood. I have just come from a house where six little children are attacked, and the seventh has all the symptoms--" We bowed him out in a trail of depression, and stood looking at each other silently. Then Letitia slowly took off her hat and coat and I did the same, deposing my dress-suit-case in my bedroom viciously. Fate was not smiling upon us. Miriam came bustling in, with a grim, set face. She scowled as she saw us, and placed her arms akimbo, in the style made popular by fishwives, and _Madame Angot_. "I've packed off me sister, Mrs. O'Flaherty, and me daughters in a hurry," she said savagely. "Yer doctor says it's catching, and it's just me luck that Muriel, and Rosalind, and Winnifred should have been here. Worse luck to it, say I! Me poor Letitia, a-prattling so cutely as she's laid low by the nasty disease." "It is not at all serious," murmured Letitia sympathetically. "For them as ain't got it--no, it ain't serious," said Birdie Miriam McCaffrey mockingly. "For them as ain't got it--it just tickles, that's all. Curse me for a-comin' here. That's my motto. 'The neighborhood's just alive with it,' says yer doctor. 'It's in the air. It's epileptic. Why,' says he, 'there's hardly a house where they ain't got mumps.' Nice for me, eh? If them's yer Christian principles, luring a hard-working woman, with a child, into a mumpy house, and a-saying no word to put her on her guard--" "You can go whenever you are ready," I said loftily, "and no impertinence, please." "As soon as my Letitia can be moved--if the poor thing ever lives through it--and I have me doubts, as she's that delicate--we'll go. Oh, we'll go, right enough. Don't you worry about that. Not if yez poured gold at me feet, and if I wuz a-perishing for want of a bit o' food, to keep body and soul together, would I stay in a house that's alive with germs. 'Yes,' says yer doctor, 'it's a germ. It's a mikey in the air.' Me poor Mike! 'A mikey in the air,' says he. And I only hope that me Muriel, and Rosalind, and Winnifred will be spared, as it's so catching. Why didn't ye tell me, Mrs. Fairfax? Why didn't ye say, when ye come down to Sixth Avenue, that there was diseases all around? Play fair; that's my motto. I don't believe in no underhand game, I don't. Not for me!" As she flounced out of the room, Letitia sank into a chair and burst into tears. The twittering of Birdie had been horribly effective. It had made me feel nervous and unstrung. Logic was quite unavailing, and for the first time in my life, I realized that those with a sense of humor might have fared better than we did. CHAPTER XI It was undignified, but necessary. Any other course would have been impossible. It was a case of bowing to the inevitable--and it seems to me that the inevitable simply exists for the sake of the curtseys bestowed upon it by unfortunates. One is always bowing and scraping to the inevitable. It is a species of toadyism that is invariably omitted from textbooks on the sublime art of sycophancy. The inevitable, in this particular instance, was Aunt Julia. After the vociferous, verbose, and vortiginous departure of Birdie Miriam and the convalescent brat, dread symptoms of _cynanche parotidaea_ appeared in Letitia, herself; we were alone, helpless, and mump-ridden, and it was Letitia who suggested Aunt Julia. I made few telephonic explanations to Tarrytown. I merely begged my aunt-in-law to put a few things in a valise and come to us at once, as her niece was quite ill. This was true. By the time Aunt Julia arrived, Letitia's fair face had lost its outlines. In the grip of this most prosaic indisposition she was inclined to be irritable--particularly when she looked at herself in the glass, which she did every five minutes. Some patients, it is said, are amused at the facial contortions guaranteed by this ailment. They must be the patients who own a sense of humor. Letitia was awed by her own ugliness, and I must confess that I hated to look at her. She insisted upon wearing a lace mantilla over her head, and fastening it with a diamond brooch beneath her chin. Under other circumstances this might have seemed Spanish, but Letitia was cross, and when I dared to suggest that she was emulating Otero, she was most indignant, and thought my remark uncalled for. Aunt Julia's advent was very welcome. After all, she had fine qualities. There was not a suspicion of the baleful "I told you so" in her manner. She _did_ turn away her head several times, as Letitia narrated the tragic stories of Anna Carter, _La_ Potzenheimer, and Birdie Miriam, but although I had a suspicion that she was exuding mirth, I could not prove it. I could not have sworn that Aunt Julia was laughing, although I followed her face round the corner, so to speak. Mercifully, Letitia was unable to do this, owing to circumstances--to say nothing of swellings--over which she had no control. My poor Letitia! If irritability were a good sign--as old women declare--her convalescence soon set in. She was as "cross as two sticks," as my old nurse used to remark. The worst of it was that I had to absent myself from the office until Aunt Julia arrived. I told Tamworth that my wife had tonsilitis, as I thought it sounded better and would be more evocative of sympathy. People are sorry when you say tonsilitis; they are merely amused when you mention mumps. A heroine with mumps, or even toothache, is a romantic impossibility; but tonsilitis or nervous prostration is less destructive to poetic commiseration. "You have probably arrived at a conclusion often forced upon me," said Aunt Julia, as her keen, beady eyes roved around the room. "The happiest day after that upon which cook arrives is that upon which cook departs." If _I_ had dared to say that, Letitia would have exclaimed ironically, "How clever!" or, "How epigrammatic!" and I should have been instantly snubbed. As it was, she murmured a dutiful "Yes, aunt," and sat with her hands folded in her lap, meekness personified. Aunt Julia, however, was not particularly restful to the nerves overweeningly unstrung. Even while she was listening to our history she was bustling about, arranging things, and--of course!--dusting. She flicked dust from the piano, filched it from the ornaments, dug it from the tiger-head, blew it from the pictures, rubbed it from the chair-backs, fought it from the window-sills. And then--if any had remained--I am perfectly certain that she would have eaten it. Dust was Aunt Julia's weakness, as it is the weakness of many women. If dust had sex, it would assuredly be masculine, as the majority of women are so disgracefully attentive to it. They run after it so rudely. It is only the intellectual, large-minded women, who don't mind a little bit of harmless dust, and can sit still comfortably while it settles and enjoys itself. The others are always pottering around after it, making their own life, and that of their associates, unnecessarily miserable. Personally, dust has always seemed to me to be homelike and cozy, and I hate to see it flagged away and routed. "You see," said Aunt Julia triumphantly, as she lifted the clock from the mantel-piece, and revealed the huge space, surrounded entirely by thick dust, upon which it had stood, "you two children, who are always talking cooks, really need what we call a general. You want somebody who will dust as well as cook. Apparently, you have secured ladies who could do neither." "You engaged Anna Carter for us, aunt," remarked Letitia pointedly, and I could have applauded her gladly, if I had not been in my own house. The opportunities for being impolite are wonderfully curtailed nowadays. Etiquette says that you must be polite in your own house; you must be polite in other people's houses. Apparently, one can be impolite only out of doors. "And I particularly told her," said Aunt Julia emphatically, "that the main thing was to keep the place spick-and-span. I made more of a point of that than I did of the cooking. Healthy young people don't want a lot of messy '_à la_' dishes, but they do want immaculate living rooms." "Oh, Aunt Julia--" Letitia began argumentatively. "Oh, Aunt Julia!" mimicked the old lady. "Wait until you can afford to keep three or four servants before you put on so many airs. 'Oh, Aunt Julia!' Yes, and 'Oh, Aunt Julia' again! With your 'drawing-room' and your 'evening dress' and your menus you want a retinue of domestics. You think that all you have to do is to sit down and live artistically in the most inartistic and impossible city in the world. I say that, and I'm a good American, too. And there's no 'Oh, Aunt Julia!' about it, either." I bit my lips, and impressed upon my mind the fact that I was in my own house. I should have liked to ask Aunt Julia to walk with me to the corner, so that I could say rude things to her. Of course her statements were absolutely grotesque and ridiculous, and both Letitia and I knew it. We exchanged sympathetic glances. I could have laughed in scorn at Aunt Julia. Letitia couldn't, of course, as her face was not in laughing order. "In the meantime, Aunt Julia," I said with an effort--I _had_ thought of addressing her as "Mrs. Dinsmore," but, after all, she was there at my invitation--"you see we have no servant at present. What can we do? Letitia can't leave the house; I am unable to cook a dinner; I _could_ take a basket and sally forth to the delicatessen shops, but--" "I'm here," replied Aunt Julia, spreading her hands whimsically. "Like the poor, I am always with you. And I assure you, you silly helpless things, that the situation is not too many for me. In fact, I am distinctly able to cope with it. My motto in life has been: Don't worry about being rich; don't bother about being poor; but do, for goodness' sake, make up your mind to be independent. That's it--independence. Do you fancy that a mere cook can either make or mar me? And yet, my dear Letitia, and my equally dear Archibald, I flatter myself that I am quite as good, socially, as anybody you are ever likely to meet. I have known the time when I have cooked an entire dinner, from soup to sweets, and sat at the head of my own table, in a low-neck dress and entertained my guests, who probably thought that I had lolled on a sofa all day, and read--er--Ovid!" she added maliciously. This sounded horribly Sandford-and-Merton-y. I was Sandford, and Letitia was Merton, while Aunt Julia appeared to be that detestable consummation of all the virtues, Mr. Barlow. I nearly called her "Uncle Barlow," but haply refrained in time. "I don't like the idea of your slaving, Aunt Julia," began Letitia, adjusting her mantilla. "I don't say that I should select it as a pastime," asserted that lady, in her most formidable manner; "but when it is necessary--and it often is, even in the best regulated families (among which I do not class this household)--I am always on hand. The situation is mine, absolutely. You see my education was unlike yours, Letitia. I am saying nothing against my poor sister, Frances, your dear mother, who had her own views, but I assert that the average American woman is quite helpless and--and--the race suffers." "Don't lecture me, please, Aunt Julia," cried Letitia feebly. "I know I'm helpless, but Archie is quite willing to pay for help, and--I can't be squalid. Excuse me, Aunt Julia." "Certainly," she said amiably, "I'll excuse you. You can't be squalid, but you _can_ be dusty. Personally, I'd sooner be squalid, as you call it, but tastes differ, as the old lady remarked when she kissed her cow. Thank goodness, I've removed a few of the evidences of neglect. I think I'll rest for a few minutes. You sit still, Letitia, and you, Mr. Archie, don't get fidgetty. The trouble to-day is that the average New York woman who gets married doesn't want cooking, or housekeeping, or children, or the comradeship of a man. She wants diamonds for her ears, silks for her back, furs for her shoulders. She'd sooner live in an apartment that has a palatial entrance, and dark, airless cubby-holes for rooms; she'd sooner go and dine at a _table d'hôte_ restaurant than order her own dinner at home; she'd sooner pant in impossible waists and flaunt herself before the world as some odious 'Gibson' freak, than stay at home in something loose, and have healthy children easily." "Aunt Julia!" cried Letitia, aghast. "You really mustn't--before Archie." "Please, Mrs. Dinsmore," I objected, "such things--before Letitia--" "Don't add prudery to your other follies," retorted this terrible old lady, "I hate it. What is, is; and we might as well talk about it. Somebody has said, Letitia (and it wasn't your friend Ovid, the chestnut), that decency is indecency's conspiracy of silence--which is clever. You see, I read occasionally, squalid though I be. It is a true remark. I hope you'll have children, but not until you know what to do with them, and are not as dependent upon a nurse as you are upon a cook. Then you would be treating your own children as badly as you now treat your own stomachs. Your poor stomachs!" Involuntarily I placed my hand on the lower part of my waistcoat. There was certainly a flatness there. Strangely enough, Letitia did the same--omitting of course the waistcoat. We were both so indignant with Aunt Julia, that this silent action probably took the place of insulting words. "Home is a thing that is going out of fashion in this city," Aunt Julia continued bitingly. "It is a place to sleep in, to get your letters at; a spot in which to blazon forth your name, for the compilers of the city directory. American women prefer to dine out, dance out, make merry out. They even like to get married--out. Probably they will have their children out, one of these days. There will be elegant caterers to expectant mothers. No, Letitia, you can't stop me. I intend to have my say. The situation confronts us. Let us face it, manfully or womanfully." "You talk as though we were trying to demolish the home, Aunt Julia," said Letitia, endeavoring to infuse an expression of indignation into her poor congested face. "We are doing our best. We are anxious to live in the house, and not out of it. What are we to do? We are unfortunate." "Stuff and nonsense!" retorted Aunt Julia irritably; "if I were not here at this moment, and if you, Letitia, were not indisposed, the two of you would be trotting out to your meals to-day, ruining your digestions with unhealthy food, and doing it because cook had left. 'Oh, Aunt Julia!' I anticipate that you were about to remark. Bah! I've no patience with you. Now, if instead of reading the ridiculous antiquities you affect, you were to set to work and study the--er--cook-book--" "I shall never advise Letitia, at her age, to stupefy herself with such literature," I asserted stoutly; "I don't believe in it." "What you believe in is of no consequence, Archibald," she declared, rising suddenly, as another dusty spot dawned upon her vision. "You can put on your things, my boy, and go to your office. I take charge. I guarantee you a dinner to-night--no sticky _à la_ affair, but something that will appeal to a healthy appetite. Go down-town, and leave Letitia alone with me. I promise you that I shan't ask her to do anything. She can read the classics, if she likes, as long as she doesn't read 'em aloud to me. The classics in the Harlem end of Columbus Avenue! Ha! Ha! Ha! Now, vanish, Mr. Fairfax. I can't stand a man in the house, in the daytime." "I think you're unjust, Aunt Julia," murmured Letitia; "poor Archie is so domestic. He loves to be around." "Sitting in thick dust," added Mrs. Dinsmore, "and imagining that he's milord Tomnoddy; also encouraging you to live in the clouds. And now, if you'll excuse me, I'll go and introduce myself to the kitchen. No, Letitia, don't trouble to come with me, for I'm perfectly convinced that you don't know the difference between a saucepan and a corkscrew. I can find my way, and I shall amuse myself. I quite enjoy the idea of a regular, old-fashioned set-to. _Au revoir._ Dinner at six, Mr. Fairfax. By-the-by, I forgot to bring a low-neck bodice with me. Do you mind? I'll sit outside in Mrs. Potzenheimer's sanctum, if, by any chance, I should be offensive to your evening eyes." And off she went. Letitia and I sat staring at each other, lacking even the gumption to smile. Upon the silence was borne the tin-ny noise of pots and pans apparently being routed and abused. A second later, and we heard Aunt Julia singing. That settled it. I closed the door. I loathe cheery kitchen music--especially _Bedelia_. "I'll go, Letitia," I sighed; "I'm turned out. I shall advertise at once. We can't trespass upon Aunt Julia's--er--er--kindness." "Yes, do, Archie,"--and Letitia also sighed; "Aunt Julia means well, but she's very old-fashioned. You mustn't mind what she said, dear. I dare say I don't know very much, but if I had been a kitchen-y old _Frau_, you wouldn't have liked me, and we shouldn't have been married. Of course, there _are_ servants. Somebody must have them. We've had a few failures, but we'll try again." I kissed her quite pathetically, and started officeward with a heavy heart. It seemed delightful to get away from the mugginess of home, and I marveled at my sensations. They were so strange. The people in the streets all interested me. There seemed to be such a quantity of women. Women, women, everywhere, but not a cook to greet! A longing to pounce upon some of the nice, comfortable-looking women I saw, and cry: "Come live with me, and be my cook," took possession of me. We wanted so little, Letitia and I; just a domesticated home-body who would ply us with easy dishes, and let us "live our life"--as Ibsen would say. Was there anything exaggerated in these demands? In the train, I sat opposite a most attractive looking colored person; one might have almost called her a party. She eyed me rather furtively, and had perhaps some telepathic inkling of my mood. Oh, if I had owned the courage to throw myself at her feet, and beg her to come cook for us! I lacked the necessary nerve. She looked as though she could contrive dainty Southern dishes, and I was particularly fond of terrapin. But perhaps, I told myself cynically, she couldn't even boil an egg, and I should find myself landed again in the midst of the alarms of delicatessen. At Eighty-first Street, a neat looking young woman got in, and became the object of my culinary speculation. I liked her appearance immensely, and would have engaged her upon the spot, without references, if the opportunity had been there. I felt certain that she would get along admirably with Letitia,--my poor Letitia, who would have been so considerate and indulgent with her cooks if they had only permitted it. Why, she had even hinted at her intention of giving Birdie Miriam her low-neck, white chiffon bodice, in a week or two, when she had no more use for it. Fool that I was! I had argued with Letitia upon the incongruity of presenting Mrs. McCaffrey with a _décolleté_ waist, and had quite vexed myself. I had told Letitia that I couldn't possibly eat stew, if a low-neck cook brought it in. It was so unnecessary, for Birdie Miriam had departed long before the gift was ready for her acceptance. The girl who got in at Eighty-first Street appealed to me. An impulse, quite irresistible, seized me. I felt that both Aunt Julia and Letitia would look upon me as a hero, if suddenly I marched in with a splendid cook that I had fished, unaided, from an elevated train. I say the impulse was irresistible. It was. I edged up to the young woman. I tried to attract her attention by nudging her. I smiled, and was about to speak, when she rose, and in a loud voice, cried: "Say, you're too fresh! Where d'ye think ye are?" In an instant a stout Irishman was on his feet, and I heard him mutter something about "cursed mashers." A disgraceful scene impended, and the horror of being accused of "mashing," when I was merely intent on "cook-ing," overwhelmed me. I apologized abjectly, and though I was now more certain than I had been before that the young woman was a cook, the fact that I was laying myself open to suspicion dawned suddenly upon me. The Irishman sat down glowering, presumably rather vexed at the de-materialization of a fight, and I continued my journey down-town, silently. The young woman left the train at Fifty-third Street, with a malicious, provocative smile in my direction, but I was in no mood to notice it ostentatiously. The car was filled with smiling, radiant women, all evidently free from domestic care. My poor mind ran in the one groove only. Had they cooks? If so, how? Did they dine at restaurants? Had they homes? I listened to their conversation. It was not exhilarating; it was interspersed with "and I says," "and she says," and then, "says she to me," and "says I to her." They were jovially wallowing in a cheery labyrinth of non-refinement and banality, and it occurred to me that perhaps some of this domestic problem's difficulties lay in the fact that the mental difference between cook and her mistress was not marked enough! This was a horrid thought. Don't blame me for it. One thinks horrid things when one is gloomy and oppressed--horrid things that are also unjust. At Twenty-third Street domestic thoughts vanished. The troubles of home evaporated in that atmosphere of stately hotels, and shops, and carriages, and pretty women, and theaters. Just once these memories returned. It was when I passed the Flat-iron Building, and thought, in a bitter vengeful spirit, that I would like to condemn Aunt Julia to flick dust from every window in that most oppressive pile. What a gorgeous revenge it would be! At the office I worked automatically. I read two manuscripts that had been submitted for publication. Both were humorous, and they disgusted me. My mood was not one that the authors of those luckless manuscripts would have liked to see. It augured ill for their work. I frowned at their fantasies and ground my teeth at their airy flights. This was rank injustice, of course, and I felt it my duty to state, in declining these works, that "humor was not our specialty." I thought that rather neat. Of course, in these days of ferocious competition, the authors would feel but little discomfiture. Others would appreciate their labors. Personally, as I have said, I hate humorists. Undoubtedly there are perversities on earth who could turn my cooks to humorous account. They need never apply to me for a lift toward publicity. Humor is assuredly abnormal. I rather dreaded the idea of going home. I had visions of boiled mutton, which I detest, and then there would be, perhaps--the mere idea sickened me--stewed prunes! Aunt Julia, being old-fashioned, would probably deem this menu wholesome, and American. To me it was appalling, deadening. I could see the meal before me--the loathsome prunes set before my eyes, at the same time as the meat, to confront and defy me, as I sat at table. Everything would be spotlessly clean--you could "eat your dinner off the carpet" of course--but spotlessly unappetizing. It was a shock to me to find that Letitia had not "dressed" for dinner. She explained quickly that she was not well enough to don evening dress, but begged me to do so, and not to let Aunt Julia think that I was afraid of her. Afraid of her! Perhaps I was, but I had no intention of admitting it. I went at once to my room, selected the most immaculate shirt I possessed, decorated it with my pearl studs, and then, putting on my Tuxedo coat, I sallied forth to Letitia, who had a turpentine-soaked flannel round her neck. Aunt Julia was in the kitchen, and I could hear her laboring at _Bedelia_, in high spirits, and an undaunted voice. "She went out shortly after you left," said Letitia, "and I haven't seen her since. Of course, it is awfully good of her, Archie. She didn't even consult me as to what she should get. At any rate, dear, it's a case of beggars mustn't be choosers. Please try and be amiable." As the clock struck six, Aunt Julia announced dinner and Letitia and I went to the dining-room. The old lady was as calm and unruffled as though she had been napping all afternoon. Her silk dress was unperturbed; her lace collar knew its place; she was not even flushed. I felt rather guilty. The table looked so nice! There were oysters at the three places; there was no vestige of a stewed prune; the table napkins were daintily folded, with a pallidly baked roll in each. It certainly didn't look a bit old-fashioned--in the abused acceptance of that phrase. "Sit down, cookless ones," said Aunt Julia, with a laugh, "and revel in your squalor. I haven't known what to do with myself all afternoon. The time has positively hung on my hands. I took a doze, Letitia, because there was nothing else to take. Work in an apartment! It's child's play." We ate our oysters in a somewhat embarrassed mood. Aunt Julia was as lively as a kitten. She chatted and criticised, and asked questions, and never waited for the answers, and actually enjoyed herself. Then she skirmished quickly away with the oyster plates, and brought in the silver tureen, filled with strong beef soup. It all seemed to be ready at hand and piping hot, and as I tasted it, the cockles of my heart expanded and I smiled. Letitia's _cynanche_ seemed remarkably better, and I don't know how it was, but the three of us found ourselves engaged in the most enlivening conversation, without having to seek for it in racked brains. Nor was it small talk. So interested were we, that we never noticed how the soup got away. Yet it did, and I suddenly perceived before me an appetizing dish of fried smelts, nestling beside a silver receptacle containing a _sauce tartare_. It was marvelous. It was as though a conjurer had cried, "Presto!"--and behold the metamorphosis! The fish was delicious and Aunt Julia enjoyed it quite as much as we did. "I'm very fond of my own cooking," she said. "I take a scientific interest in it. I like to see what one can do with various foods. I love experiments. I have the same interest in a _sauce tartare_ that--er--Sir Oliver Lodge has in radium. One is born that way, I suppose." I continued to expand. How could I help it? Aunt Julia seemed suddenly transfigured. She was no longer the fussy old meddler, but the Good Samaritan. I liked her silk dress, her lace collar, her antique cameo brooch, and with every glass of sauterne that I took, I liked them better! It was quite wonderful how they grew upon me. Letitia seemed to be equally effervescent. I quite forgot her lack of evening dress, in which she had been so resplendently imperious at Anna Carter's delicatessen spread. This was a meal at which evening dress would have been perfectly appropriate, but this meal, alas! was born of no cook's efforts. It was original. Perhaps we scarcely dared to hope for its repetition. And as this thought occurred to me, I sighed. The chicken was roasted to perfection, and its dressing was almost poetic. An epicure would have delighted in it. Brillat-Savarin, himself, would have commented favorably. Aunt Julia explained that she had not tried to display any particularly "fancy" cooking, but she opined that this was sufficient to remove satisfactorily the edge from the ordinarily unfastidious appetite. How I had wronged her! How different was the reality to the anticipation of boiled mutton and stewed prunes! We finished with a firm and convincing jelly, and some of the best black coffee I have ever tasted outside of Paris. It was the first comfortable meal we had enjoyed at home! It was the first time we had ever sat at our own table, to arise therefrom at peace with the world! "And now," said the old lady solemnly, "you two young people may go into the parlor--oh, I beg your pardon, I mean drawing-room--and your squalid aunt will clear the things away. She will be with you in fifteen minutes, ready to preach, or answer questions, or do anything you like." Home certainly did seem like home. The drawing-room was cozy and inviting. I felt stimulated to mental effort. Letitia had forgotten her ailments, and was lively and amusing. "I must try and learn Aunt Julia's system," she said, "so that I can at any rate, supervise, though, Archie, I'm quite sure that frauds like Anna Carter, or Potzenheimer, or Birdie Miriam would never brook supervision." "There you're right," remarked Aunt Julia, entering suddenly. "These women know little and what they know, they know wrong. Get a clean slate to work upon, secure a girl whom you can teach, and--well, your chances will be better." CHAPTER XII We fell back upon the sublime, the luminous art of newspaper advertisement. Alluring pictures of natty maids in jaunty caps and perfectly fitting dresses, as an answer to the question, "Do you need help?" emerged from our subliminal consciousness, capped by the legend, "If so, advertise in ----" So we advertised in ----. Each newspaper seemed to vie with the other in exquisite promises to be-cook our kitchen. There appeared to be no possible, probable shadow of doubt about the proceeding. It was so easy that the inelegant simile of "rolling off a log" impressed us as being absolutely justifiable. I flatter myself that the advertisements I composed were delightful--gems of succinct thought, though Letitia seemed dubious. "I think you ought to offer some inducement," she said, "in order that our advertisement should stand out from the rest--something to indicate that we really are desperate. I suppose--please don't smile, Archie--that it wouldn't do to hint that we give handsome Christmas presents." "What an immoral suggestion, Letitia!" I exclaimed testily. "It is putting a premium on cupidity and incompetence. I am surprised at you. Moreover, it is so horribly suggestive of the idea of beating a hasty retreat after the receipt of those presents." "Don't be so snappy, Archie," retorted Letitia peevishly. "I am merely trying to throw light upon the situation. We ought to do something. What do you say to mentioning matinée tickets once a week?" "Or souvenirs if she runs for a hundred nights," I suggested gloomily. "Of course," said Letitia resignedly, "if you ridicule everything I say, there is no use my making further remarks. Put in the advertisement as you like--'Cook wanted.' How original! Eighteen hundred people want cooks, and eighteen hundred people won't get them. I merely meant to emphasize our own special need. Do you think"--suddenly--"that if we made it worth while at the newspaper offices, they would print our advertisement in red ink--right in the center of all the others--or--or in gold?" "No, my girl," I replied shortly, pretending to look very sapient, as though I were marvelously familiar with the inner workings of newspaper offices. Then, conciliatingly, "Your idea is good, Letitia, but impracticable. We must take our chance with the vulgar herd." "At any rate," she cried despairingly, "you can surely say that this is a lovely, refined home, with scarcely anything for a cook to do, and--and--paint it up, Archie; paint it up. Moreover, we want a clean slate, as Aunt Julia suggested--something inexperienced for me to teach." To my credit, be it said, I did not smile. The effort to resist was intense, almost painful, but I succeeded in maintaining an owl-like expression, and Letitia's quick glance at me--a glance that seemed to suggest that she expected and dreaded a smile--was wasted. We advertised in five papers, and the sense of elation that came with the deposit of each advertisement was most refreshing. It looked as though failure were impossible. Letitia calculated that seven million people in New York would know of our need, and when I told her that there were not seven million people in the greater city, she airily decided that some of them therefore would know it twice--a piece of logic that needed no squelching. That evening, that cookless evening of waiting, after a restaurant dinner that had been particularly indigestible and saddening, we discussed in low voice the possibilities of the morrow. Five advertisements! Letitia wondered what the neighborhood would think of the crowd of aspiring, eager cooks that must assuredly besiege our door. She even suggested that I notify the nearest police station, and ask for a special squad of police to keep order. Her enthusiasm was contagious. I pictured the battling mob outside--long lines of throbbing, expectant women clamoring for an interview. The moral effect of advertising is quite irresistible. It is not to be gainsaid. Whatever the mere practical results may be, there is no doubt in the world but that advertisement, psychologically, is worth its price. The notion that from all the readers of five important newspapers, entering into all the nooks and crannies of metropolitan life, a huge and varied collection of cooks would fail to materialize was ridiculous. It was not to be entertained for a moment. Letitia even mentioned the possibilities of the poor women waiting outside all night on camp stools; in fact, taking a look into the electric-lighted street, at about eleven o'clock, she announced positively that she saw two women already standing outside the door. "If I were quite sure that they were applicants," said Letitia, "I'd ask them up at once, and listen to them. Perhaps we ought to send out a little soup or hot coffee." I remembered my experience in the elevated train. It recurred to my mind so vividly that I uttered a "Pshaw!" rather brusquely, and then meekly told Letitia that she was probably mistaken. "You see," remarked Letitia thoughtfully, "five advertisements in one day, are rather unusual. There are bound to be results. Think of the colossal population of Greater New York! In fact, Archie, I really feel a bit afraid. We have perhaps reared a Frankenstein. I am not at all sure that I can cope with an immense crowd." My rest that night was fitful. I had nightmare of a most distressing nature, which I will refrain from describing for the reason that daymare seems more popular, as a rule, with readers. Letitia rose at seven o'clock just as I had fallen into refreshing slumber, and went, in her nightgown, into the drawing-room to note the line of cooks from the window. I was unable to sleep again, and lay there awaiting her return, anxious and uncomfortable. She came back, looking like Lady Macbeth, and exclaimed in a voice of dire amazement: "Not a soul, Archie! Positively, there's not a human creature in the street. What can it mean?" "It's early," I suggested feebly. "Oh, nonsense!" cried Letitia. "Out of four million people, there must be a very large percentage that doesn't regard seven o'clock as so frightfully early. Perhaps the police, seeing a mob, ordered it to disperse and reassemble later. At any rate, we had better get ready. How annoying! I forgot all about breakfast, and we can not leave the house. I must prepare some coffee, and with the crackers that Aunt Julia bought, we must make shift." After this meal, that was strangely lacking in solidity and in various other qualities--Letitia's coffee tasting like slate-pencils, only not quite so nice--we stationed ourselves at the window. We saw cable-cars, horse-cars, wagons, cabs, perambulators. We noted tradesmen, and tradeswomen, schoolgirls and schoolboys, business-men and business-women. There was plenty to look at, but there was no cook. Letitia grew restive; I became nervous. Every feminine creature that approached seemed to be a cook--until she went past. We looked at each petticoated passer-by, with the avid expectation of hearing her ring our door-bell and ask to be taken in. "There's one!" cried Letitia excitedly. "I bet you anything that she's going to ring. How shabby her skirt is, poor thing. And just look at her hat! She is reading the numbers on the doors. Yes, she's stopping here. She--she--" Went by. "This time," I exclaimed, "I'll wager anything that--look, Letitia!--the girl opposite is going to apply. She has a newspaper in her hand and she keeps reading it. I'm not often mistaken, Letitia. When I do venture a prophecy, it is generally correct. Ah, I told you so. She is looking up at us. She has crossed the street. She has examined the house. She--she--" Went next door. Mariana, in her moated grange, may have had an unpleasant time of it, as she "glanced athwart the glooming flats." (I should have indignantly called them "blooming" flats, but unfortunately I'm not Tennyson.) Then, in Mariana's case, "old faces glimmer'd thro' the doors," which must have made things cheerful for her. With us, neither old faces nor young ones "glimmer'd" through anything whatsoever. Gladly would we have hailed them, for, in good sooth, we were "aweary, weary." We "drew the casement curtain by"--Letitia begged me to be careful, as it had just been done up--and stood there, stolidly, silently. There were no moldering wainscots, or flitting bats, or rusted nails, or oxen's low. In spite of which I am perfectly convinced that Mariana was less miserable than we were, as at eleven o'clock, the awful certainty was borne in upon us that "she cometh not." "Perhaps," said Letitia dejectedly, "we are the victims of conspiracy. Anna Carter, and Mrs. Potzenheimer, and Birdie Miriam McCaffrey may have banded themselves together to--to ruin us." "Letitia!" "There is some reason for all this, Archie. It is to be accounted for in some way. It is absolutely impossible that five important advertisements in five important newspapers should have produced no fruit whatsoever. I shall write to each paper and say, 'After advertising in your valuable columns, I have come to the conclusion that you are no good.'" "Why antagonize the newspapers?" "I must have the satisfaction of recording our experience," she replied, her face flushed, her eyes bright. "I shall do it, Archie. I intend--" At that moment there was a ring at the front door-bell. Letitia, wrought-up, nervously clutched my arm. For a moment a sort of paralysis seized me. Then, alertly as a young calf, I bounded toward the door, hope aroused, and expectation keen. It was rather dark in the outside hall and I could not quite perceive the nature of our visitor. But I soon gladly realized that it was something feminine, and as I held the door open, a thin, small, soiled wisp of a woman glided in, and smiled at me. "_Talar ni svensk?_" she asked, but I had no idea what she meant. She may have been impertinent, or even rude, or perhaps improper, but she looked as though she might be a domestic, and I led her gently, reverently, to Letitia in the drawing-room. I smiled back at her, in a wild endeavor to be sympathetic. I would have anointed her, or bathed her feet, or plied her with figs and dates, or have done anything that any nationality craves as a welcome. As the front door closed, I heaved a sigh of relief. Here was probably the quintessence of five advertisements. Out of the mountain crept a mouse, and quite a little mouse, too! "_Talar ni svensk?_" proved to be nothing more outrageous than "Do you speak Swedish?" My astute little wife discovered this intuitively. I left them together, my mental excuse being that women understand each other and that a man is unnecessary, under the circumstances. I had some misgivings on the subject of Letitia and _svensk_, but the universal language of femininity is not without its uses. I devoutly hoped that Letitia would be able to come to terms, as the mere idea of a cook who couldn't excoriate us in English was, at that moment, delightful. At the end of a quarter of an hour I strolled back to the drawing-room. Letitia was smiling and the handmaiden sat grim and uninspired. "I've engaged her, Archie," said Letitia. "She knows nothing, as she has told me, in the few words of English that she has picked up, but--you remember what Aunt Julia said about a clean slate." I gazed at the maiden, and reflected that while the term "slate" might be perfectly correct, the adjective seemed a bit over-enthusiastic. She was decidedly soiled, this quintessence of a quintette of advertisements. I said nothing, anxious not to dampen Letitia's very evident elation. "She has no references," continued my wife, "as she has never been out before. She is just a simple little Stockholm girl. I like her face immensely, Archie--immensely. She is willing to begin at once, which shows that she is eager, and consequently likely to suit us. Wait for me, Archie, while I take her to the kitchen. _Kom_, Gerda." Exactly why Letitia couldn't say "Come, Gerda," seemed strange. She probably thought that _Kom_ must be Swedish, and that it sounded well. She certainly invented _Kom_ on the spur of the Scandinavian moment, and I learned afterward that it was correct. My inspired Letitia! Still, in spite of all, my opinion is that "Come, Gerda," would have done just as well. "Isn't it delightful?" cried Letitia, when she joined me later. "I am really enthusiastic at the idea of a Swedish girl. I adore Scandinavia, Archie. It always makes me think of Ibsen. Perhaps Gerda Lyberg--that's her name--will be as interesting as Hedda Gabler, and Mrs. Alving, and Nora, and all those lovely complex Ibsen creatures." "They were Norwegians, dear," I said gently, anxious not to shatter illusions; "the Ibsen plays deal with Christiania, not with Stockholm." "But they are so near," declared Letitia, amiable and seraphic once more. "Somehow or other, I invariably mix up Norway and Sweden and Denmark. I know I shall always look upon Gerda as an Ibsen girl, who has come here to 'live her life,' or 'work out her inheritance.' Perhaps, dear, she has some interesting internal disease, or a maggoty brain. Don't you think, Archie, that the Ibsen inheritances are always most fascinating? A bit morbid, but surely fascinating." "I prefer a healthy cook, Letitia," I said meditatively, "somebody willing to interest herself in our inheritance, rather than in her own." "I don't mind what you say now," she pouted, "I am not to be put down by clamor. We really have a cook at last, and I feel more lenient toward you, Archie. Of course I was only joking when I suggested the Ibsen diseases. Gerda Lyberg may have inherited from her ancestors something quite nice and attractive." "Then you mustn't look upon her as Ibsen, Letitia," I protested. "The Ibsen people never inherit nice things. Their ancestors always bequeath nasty ones. That is where their consistency comes in. They are receptacles for horrors. Personally, if you'll excuse my flippancy, I prefer Norwegian anchovies to Norwegian heroines. It is a mere matter of opinion." "I'm ashamed of you," retorted Letitia defiantly. "You talk like some of the wretchedly frivolous criticisms, so called, that men like Acton Davies, and Alan Dale inflict upon the long-suffering public. They never amuse me. Ibsen may make his heroines the recipients of ugly legacies, but he has never yet cursed them with the odious incubus known as 'a sense of humor.' The people with a sense of humor have something in their brains worse than maggots. We'll drop the subject, Archie. I'm going to learn Swedish. Before Gerda Lyberg has been with us a month, I intend to be able to talk fluently. It will be most useful. Next time we go to Europe, we'll take in Sweden, and I'll do the piloting. I am going to buy some Swedish books, and study. Won't it be jolly? And just think how melancholy we were this morning, you and I, looking out of that window, and trying to materialize cooks. Wasn't it funny, Archie? What amusing experiences we shall be able to chronicle, later on!" Letitia babbled on like half a dozen brooks, and thinking up a gentle parody, in the shape of, "cooks may come, and men may go," I decided to leave my household gods for the bread-earning contest down-town. I could not feel quite as sanguine as Letitia, who seemed to have forgotten the dismal results of the advertisement--just one little puny Swedish result. I should have preferred to make a choice. Letitia was as pleased with Gerda Lyberg as though she had been a selection instead of a that-or-nothing. If somebody had dramatized Gerda Lyberg's initial dinner, it would probably have been considered exceedingly droll. As a serious episode, however, its humor, to my mind, lacked spontaneity. Letitia had asked her to cook us a little Swedish meal, so that we could get some idea of Stockholm life, in which, for some reason or other, we were supposed to be deeply interested. Unfortunately I was extremely hungry, and had carefully avoided luncheon in order to give my appetite a chance. We sat down to a huge bowl of cold greasy soup, in which enormous lumps of meat swam, as though, for their life, awaiting rescue at the prongs of a fork. In addition to this epicurean dish was a teeming plate of water-soaked potatoes, delicately boiled. That was all. Letitia said that it was Swedish, and the most annoying part of the entertainment was that I was alone in my critical disapprobation. Letitia was so engrossed with a little Swedish conversation book that she brought to table that she forgot the mere material question of food--forgot everything but the horrible jargon she was studying, and the soiled, wisp-like maiden, who looked more unlike a clean slate than ever. "What shall I say to her, Archie?" asked Letitia, turning over the pages of her book, as I tried to rescue a block of meat from the cold fat in which it lurked. "Here is a chapter on dinner. 'I am very hungry,' '_Jag är myckel hungrig._' Rather pretty, isn't it? Hark at this: '_Kypare gif mig matsedeln och vinlistan._' That means: 'Waiter, give me the bill of fare, and the list of wines.'" "Don't," I cried; "don't. This woman doesn't know what dining means. Look out a chapter on feeding--or filling up." Letitia was perfectly unruffled. She paid no attention to me whatsoever. She was fascinated with the slovenly girl, who stood around and gaped at her Swedish. "Gerda," said Letitia, with her eyes on the book, "_Gif mir apven senap och nägra potäter_." And then, as Miss Lyberg dived for the drowned potatoes, Letitia exclaimed in an ecstasy of joy, "She understands, Archie, she understands. I feel I am going to be a great success. _Jag tackar_, Gerda. That means 'I thank you.' _Jag tackar._ See if you can say it, Archie. Just try, dear, to oblige me. _Jag tackar._ Now, that's a good boy, _jag tackar_." "I won't," I declared spitefully. "No _jag tackar_-ing for a parody like this, Letitia. You don't seem to realize that I'm hungry. Honestly, I prefer a delicatessen dinner to this." "'Pray, give me a piece of venison,'" read Letitia, absolutely disregarding my mood. "'_Var god och gif mig ett stycke vildt._' It is almost intelligible, isn't it dear? '_Ni äter icke_': you do not eat." "I can't," I asserted mournfully, anxious to gain Letitia's sympathy. It was not forthcoming. Letitia's eyes were fastened on Gerda, and I could not help noting on the woman's face an expression of scorn. I felt certain of it. She appeared to regard my wife as a sort of irresponsible freak, and I was vexed to think that Letitia should make such an exhibition of herself, and countenance the alleged meal that was set before us. "'I have really dined very well'," she continued joyously. "'_Jag har verkligen atit mycket bra._'" "If you are quite sure that she doesn't understand English, Letitia," I said viciously, "I'll say to you that this is a kind of joke I don't appreciate. I won't keep such a woman in the house. Let us put on our things and go out and have dinner. Better late than never." Letitia was turning over the pages of her book, quite lost to her surroundings. As I concluded my remarks she looked up and exclaimed, "How very funny, Archie. Just as you said 'Better late than never,' I came across that very phrase in the list of Swedish proverbs. It must be telepathy, dear. Better late than never,' '_Battre sent än aldrig_.' What were you saying on the subject, dear? Will you repeat it? And do try it in Swedish. Say '_Battre sent än aldrig_'." "Letitia," I shot forth in a fury, "I'm not in the humor for this sort of thing. I think this dinner, and this woman are rotten. See if you can find the word rotten in Swedish." "I am surprised at you," Letitia declared glacially, roused from her book by my heroic though unparliamentary language. "Your expressions are neither English nor Swedish. Please don't use such gutter-words before a servant, to say nothing of your own wife." "But she doesn't understand," I protested, glancing at Miss Lyberg. I could have sworn that I detected a gleam in the woman's eyes and that the sphinx-like attitude of dull incomprehensibility suggested a strenuous effort. "She doesn't understand anything. She doesn't want to understand." "In a week from now," said Letitia, "she will understand everything perfectly, for I shall be able to talk with her. Oh, Archie, do be agreeable. Can't you see that I am having great fun? Don't be such a greedy boy. If you could only enter into the spirit of the thing, you wouldn't be so oppressed by the food question. Oh, dear! How important it does seem to be to men. Gerda, _hur gammal är ni_?" The maiden sullenly left the room, and I felt convinced that Letitia had Swedishly asked her to do so. I was wrong. "_Hur gammal är ni?_" Letitia explained, simply meant, "How old are you?" "She evidently didn't want to tell me," was my wife's comment, as we went to the drawing-room. "I imagine, dear, that she doesn't quite like the idea of my ferreting out Swedish so persistently. But I intend to persevere. The worst of conversation books is that one acquires a language in such a parroty way. Now, in my book, the only answer to the question 'How old are you?' is, 'I was born on the tenth of August, 1852.' For the life of me, I couldn't vary that, and it would be most embarrassing. It would make me fifty-two. If any one asked me in Swedish how old I was, I should _have_ to be fifty-two!" "When I think of my five advertisements," I said lugubriously, as I threw myself into an arm-chair, fatigued at my efforts to discover dinner, "when I remember our expectation, and the pleasant anticipations of to-day, I feel very bitter, Letitia. Just to think that from it all nothing has resulted but that beastly mummy, that atrocious ossified thing." "Archie, Archie!" said my wife warningly; "please be calm. Perhaps I was too engrossed with my studies to note the deficiencies of dinner. But do remember that I pleaded with her for a Swedish meal. The poor thing did what I asked her to do. Our dinner was evidently Swedish. It was not her fault that I asked for it. To-morrow, dear, it shall be different. We had better stick to the American régime. It is more satisfactory to you. At any rate, we have somebody in the house, and if our five advertisements had brought forth five hundred applicants we should only have kept one. So don't torture yourself, Archie. Try and imagine that we _had_ five hundred applicants, and that we selected Gerda Lyberg." "I can't, Letitia," I said sulkily, and I heaved a heavy sigh. "Come," she said soothingly, "come and study Swedish with me. It will be most useful for your _Lives of Great Men_. You can read up the Swedes in the original. I'll entertain you with this book, and you'll forget all about Mrs. Potz--I mean Gerda Lyberg. By-the-by, Archie, she doesn't remind me so much of Hedda Gabler. I don't fancy that she is very subtile." "You, Letitia," I retorted, "remind me of Mrs. Nickleby. You ramble on so." Letitia looked offended. She always declared that Dickens "got on her nerves." She was one of the new-fashioned readers who have learned to despise Dickens. Personally, I regretted only his nauseating sense of humor. Letitia placed a cushion behind my head, smoothed my forehead, kissed me, made her peace, and settled down by my side. Lack of nourishment made me drowsy, and Letitia's babblings sounded vague and muffled. "It is a most inclusive little book," she said, "and if I can succeed in memorizing it all I shall be quite at home with the language. In fact, dear, I think I shall always keep Swedish cooks. Hark at this: 'If the wind be favorable, we shall be at Grothenburg in forty hours.' '_Om vinden är god, sa äro vi pa pyrtio timmar i Goteborg._' I think it is sweetly pretty. 'You are seasick.' 'Steward, bring me a glass of brandy and water.' 'We are now entering the harbor.' 'We are now anchoring.' 'Your passports, gentlemen.'" A comfortable lethargy was stealing o'er me. Letitia took a pencil and paper, and made notes as she plied the book. "A chapter on 'seeing a town' is most interesting, Archie. Of course, it must be a Swedish town. 'Do you know the two private galleries of Mr. Smith, the merchant, and Mr. Muller, the chancellor?' 'To-morrow morning, I wish to see all the public buildings and statues.' '_Statyerna_' is Swedish for statues, Archie. Are you listening, dear? 'We will visit the Church of the Holy Ghost, at two, then we will make an excursion on Lake Mälan and see the fortress of Vaxholm.' It is a charming little book. Don't you think that it is a great improvement on the old Ollendorff system? I don't find nonsensical sentences like 'The hat of my aunt's sister is blue, but the nose of my brother-in-law's sister-in-law is red.'" I rose and stretched myself. Letitia was still plunged in the irritating guide to Sweden, where I vowed I would never go. Nothing on earth should ever induce me to visit Sweden. If it came to a choice between Hoboken and Stockholm, I mentally determined to select the former. As I paced the room, I heard a curious splashing noise in the kitchen. Letitia's studies must have dulled her ears. She was evidently too deeply engrossed. I strolled nonchalantly into the hall, and proceeded deliberately toward the kitchen. The thick carpet deadened my footsteps. The splashing noise grew louder. The kitchen door was closed. I gently opened it. As I did so, a wild scream rent the air. There stood Gerda Lyberg in--in--my pen declines to write it--a simple unsophisticated birthday dress, taking an ingenuous reluctant bath in the "stationary tubs," with the plates, and dishes, and dinner things grouped artistically around her! The instant she saw me, she modestly seized a dish-towel, and shouted at the top of her voice. The kitchen was filled with the steam from the hot water. 'Venus arising' looked nebulous, and mystic. I beat a hasty retreat, aghast at the revelation, and almost fell against Letitia, who, dropping her conversation book, came to see what had happened. "She's bathing!" I gasped, "in the kitchen--among the plates--near the soup--" "Never!" cried Letitia. Then, melodramatically: "Let me pass. Stand aside, Archie. I'll go and see. Perhaps--perhaps--you had better come with me." "Letitia," I gurgled, "I'm shocked! She has nothing on but a dish-towel." Letitia paused irresolutely for a second, and going into the kitchen shut the door. The splashing noise ceased. I heard the sound of voices, or rather of a voice--Letitia's! Evidently she had forgotten Swedish, and such remarks as "If the wind be favorable, we shall be at Gothenburg in forty hours." I listened attentively, and could not even hear her say "We will visit the Church of the Holy Ghost at two." It is strange how the stress of circumstances alters the complexion of a conversation book! All the evening she had studied Swedish, and yet suddenly confronted by a Swedish lady bathing in our kitchen, dish-toweled but unashamed, all she could find to say was "How disgusting!" and "How disgraceful!" in English! "You see," said Letitia, when she emerged, "she is just a simple peasant girl, and only needs to be told. It is very horrid, of course." "And unappetizing!" I chimed in. "Of course--certainly unappetizing. I couldn't think of anything Swedish to say, but I said several things in English. She was dreadfully sorry that you had seen her, and never contemplated such a possibility. After all, Archie, bathing is not a crime." "And we were hunting for a clean slate," I suggested satirically. "Do you think, Letitia, that she also takes a cold bath in the morning, among the bacon and eggs, and things?" "That is enough," said Letitia sternly. "The episode need not serve as an excuse for indelicacy." CHAPTER XIII It was with the advent of Gerda Lyberg that we became absolutely certain, beyond the peradventure of any doubt, that there was such a thing as the servant question. The knowledge had been gradually wafted in upon us, but it was not until the lady from Stockholm had definitively planted herself in our midst, that we admitted to ourselves openly, unhesitatingly, unblushingly, that the problem existed. Gerda blazoned forth the enigma in all its force and defiance. The remarkable thing about our latest acquisition was the singularly blank state of her gastronomic mind. There was nothing that she knew. Most women, and a great many men, intuitively recognize the physical fact that water, at a certain temperature, boils. Miss Lyberg, apparently seeking to earn her living in the kitchen, had no certain views as to when the boiling point was reached. Rumors seemed to have vaguely reached her that things called eggs dropped into water, would, in the course of time--any time, and generally less than a week--become eatable. Letitia bought a little egg-boiler for her--one of those antique arrangements in which the sands of time play to the soft-boiled egg. The maiden promptly boiled it with the eggs, and undoubtedly thought that the hen, in a moment of perturbation, or aberration, had laid it. I say "thought" because it is the only term I can use. It is, perhaps, inappropriate in connection with Gerda. Potatoes, subjected to the action of hot water, grow soft. She was certain of that. Whether she tested them with the poker, or with her hands or feet, we never knew. I inclined to the last suggestion. The situation was quite marvelous. Here was an alleged worker, in a particular field, asking the wages of skilled labor, and densely ignorant of every detail connected with her task. It seemed unique. Carpenters, plumbers, bricklayers, seamstresses, dressmakers, laundresses--all the sowers and reapers in the little garden of our daily needs, were forced by the inexorable law of competition to possess some inkling of the significance of their undertakings. With the cook, it was different. She could step jubilantly into any kitchen without the slightest idea of what she was expected to do there. If she knew that water was wet and that fire was hot, she felt amply primed to demand a salary. Impelled by her craving for Swedish literature, Letitia struggled with Miss Lyberg. Compared with the Swede, my exquisitely ignorant wife was a culinary queen. She was an epicurean caterer. Letitia's slate-pencil coffee was ambrosia for the gods, sweetest nectar, by the side of the dishwater that cook prepared. I began to feel quite proud of her. She grew to be an adept in the art of boiling water. If we could have lived on that fluid, everything would have moved clockworkily. "I've discovered one thing," said Letitia on the evening of the third day. "The girl is just a peasant, probably a worker in the fields. That is why she is so ignorant." I thought this reasoning foolish. "Even peasants eat, my dear," I muttered. "She must have seen somebody cook something. Field-workers have good appetites. If this woman ever ate, what did she eat and why can't we have the same? We have asked her for no luxuries. We have arrived at the stage, my poor girl, when all we need is, prosaically, to 'fill up.' You have given her opportunities to offer us samples of peasant food. The result has been _nil_." "It _is_ odd," Letitia declared, a wrinkle of perplexity appearing in the smooth surface of her forehead. "Of course, she says she doesn't understand me. And yet, Archie, I have talked to her in pure Swedish." "I suppose you said, 'Pray give me a piece of venison,' from the conversation book." "Don't be ridiculous, Archie. I know the Swedish for cauliflower, green peas, spinach, a leg of mutton, mustard, roast meat, soup, and--" "'If the wind be favorable, we shall be at Gothenburg in forty hours'," I interrupted. She was silent, and I went on: "It seems a pity to end your studies in Swedish, Letitia, but fascinating though they be, they do not really necessitate our keeping this barbarian. You can always pursue them, and exercise on me. I don't mind. Even with an American cook, if such a being exist, you could still continue to ask for venison steak in Swedish, and to look forward to arriving at Gothenburg in forty hours." Letitia declined to argue. My mood was that known as cranky. We were in the drawing-room, after what we were compelled to call dinner. It had consisted of steak, burned to cinders, potatoes soaked to a pulp, and a rice pudding that looked like a poultice the morning after, and possibly tasted like one. Letitia had been shopping, and was therefore unable to supervise. Our delicate repast was capped by "black" coffee of an indefinite straw-color, and with globules of grease on the surface. People who can feel elated with the joy of living, after a dinner of this description, are assuredly both mentally and morally lacking. Men and women there are who will say: "Oh, give me anything. I'm not particular--so long as it is plain and wholesome." I've met many of these people. My experience of them is that they are the greatest gluttons on earth, with veritably voracious appetites, and that the best isn't good enough for them. To be sure, at a pinch, they will demolish a score of potatoes, if there be nothing else; but offer them caviare, canvas-back duck, quail, and nesselrode pudding, and they will look askance at food that is plain and wholesome. The "plain and wholesome" liver is a snare and a delusion, like the "bluff and genial" visitor whose geniality veils all sorts of satire and merciless comment. Letitia and I both felt weak and miserable. We had made up our minds not to dine out. We were resolved to keep the home up, even if, in return, the home kept us down. Give in, we wouldn't. Our fighting blood was up. We firmly determined not to degenerate into that clammy American institution, the boarding-house feeder and the restaurant diner. We knew the type; in the feminine, it sits at table with its bonnet on, and a sullen gnawing expression of animal hunger; in the masculine, it puts its own knife in the butter, and uses a toothpick. No cook--no--lack of cook--should drive us to these abysmal depths. Letitia made no feint at Ovid. I simply declined to breathe the breath of _The Lives of Great Men_. She read a sweet little classic called "The Table; How to Buy Food, How to Cook It, and How to Serve It," by Alessandro Filippini--a delightful _table-d'hôte_-y name. I lay back in my chair and frowned, waiting until Letitia chose to break the silence. As she was a most chattily inclined person on all occasions, I reasoned that I should not have to wait long. I was right. "Archie," said she, "according to this book, there is no place in the civilized world that contains so large a number of so-called high-livers, as New York City, which was educated by the famous Delmonico and his able lieutenants." "Great Heaven!" I exclaimed with a groan, "why rub it in, Letitia? I should also say that no city in the world contained so large a number of low-livers." "'Westward the course of Empire sways,'" she read, "'and the great glory of the past has departed from those centers where the culinary art at one time defied all rivals. The scepter of supremacy has passed into the hands of the metropolis of the New World'." "What sickening cant!" I cried. "What fiendishly exaggerated restaurant talk! There are perhaps fifty fine restaurants in New York. In Paris, there are five hundred finer. Here we have places to eat in; there, they have artistic resorts to dine in. One can dine anywhere in Paris. In New York, save for those fifty fine restaurants, one feeds. Don't read any more of your cook-book to me, my girl. It is written to catch the American trade, with the subtile pen of flattery." "Try and be patriotic, dear," she said soothingly. "Of course, I know you wouldn't allow a Frenchman to say all that, and that you are just talking cussedly with your own wife." A ring at the bell caused a diversion. We hailed it. We were in the humor to hail anything. The domestic hearth _was_ most trying. We were bored to death. I sprang up and ran to the door, a little pastime to which I was growing accustomed. Three tittering young women, each wearing a hat in which roses, violets, poppies, cornflowers, forget-me-nots, feathers and ribbons ran riot, confronted me. "Miss Gerda Lyberg?" said the foremost, who wore a bright red gown, and from whose hat six spiteful poppies lurched forward and almost hit me in the face. For a moment, dazed from the cook-book, I was nonplussed. All I could say was "No," meaning that I wasn't Miss Gerda Lyberg. I felt so sure that I wasn't, that I was about to close the door. "She lives here, I believe," asserted the damsel, again shooting forth the poppies. I came to myself with an effort. "She is the--the cook," I muttered weakly. "We are her friends," quoth the damsel, an indignant inflection in her voice. "Kindly let us in. We've come to the Thursday sociable." The three bedizened ladies entered without further parley and went toward the kitchen, instinctively recognizing its direction. I was amazed. I heard a noisy greeting, a peal of laughter, a confusion of tongues, and then--I groped my way back to Letitia. "They've come to the Thursday sociable!" I cried, and sank into a chair. "Who?" she asked in astonishment, and I imparted to her the full extent of my knowledge. Letitia took it very nicely. She had always heard, she said, in fact Mrs. Archer had told her, that Thursday nights were festival occasions with the Swedes. She thought it rather a pleasant and convivial notion. Servants must enjoy themselves, after all. Better a happy gathering of girls than a rowdy collection of men. Letitia thought the idea felicitous. She had no objections to giving privileges to a cook. Nor had I, for the matter of that. I ventured to remark, however, that Gerda didn't seem to be a cook. "Then let us call her a 'girl'," said Letitia, irritated at last. "Gerda is a girl, only because she isn't a boy," I remarked tauntingly. "If by 'girl' you even mean servant, then Gerda isn't a girl. Goodness knows what she is. Hello! Another ring!" This time, Miss Lyberg herself went to the door, and we listened. More arrivals for the sociable; four Swedish guests, all equally gaily attired in flower hats. Some of them wore bangles, the noise of which, in the hall, sounded like an infuriation of sleigh-bells. They were Christina and Sophie and Sadie and Alexandra--as we soon learned. It was wonderful how welcome Gerda made them, and how quickly they were "at home." They rustled through the halls, chatting and laughing and humming. Such merry girls! Such light-hearted little charmers! Letitia stood looking at them through the crack of the drawing-room door. Perhaps it was just as well that somebody should have a good time in our house. "Just the same, Letitia," I observed, galled, "I think I should say to-morrow that this invasion is most impertinent--most uncalled for." "Yes, Archie," said Letitia demurely, "you think you should say it. But please don't think _I_ shall, for I assure you that I shan't. I suppose that we must discharge her. She can't do anything and she doesn't want to learn. I don't blame her. She can always get the wages she asks, by doing nothing. You would pursue a similar policy, Archie, if it were possible. Everybody would. But all other laborers must know how to labor." I was glad to hear Letitia echoing my sentiments. She was quite unconsciously plagiarizing. Once again, she took up the cook-book. The sound of merrymaking in the kitchen drifted in upon us. From what we could gather, Gerda seemed to be "dressing up" for the delectation of her guests. Shrieks of laughter and clapping of hands made us wince. My nerves were on edge. Had any one at that moment dared to suggest that there was even a suspicion of humor in these proceedings, I should have slain him without compunction. Letitia was less irate and tried to comfort me. "You've no idea what hundreds of ways there are of cooking eggs, Archie," she said. "Do listen to me, dear. I'm trying so hard to be domesticated, and I do so want to please you. Don't let cook come between us. Here's a recipe for eggs _à la reine_ that reads most charmingly. Are you listening, Archie?" Letitia came over to me, and kissed me, and smoothed my hair, and apologized, and asked me to help her with her cook-book--and I was pacified. At another time, I should not have allowed her to apologize. But as there were eight obstreperous women in our kitchen and Letitia didn't object--well, I thought the apology was not out of place. "How to make eggs _à la reine_," read Letitia lightly. "You prepare twelve eggs as for the above." "What's 'as for the above'?" I asked. "Let me see. Ah, yes. 'As for the above' means as for eggs _à la Meyerbeer_. To make eggs _à la reine_, you prepare twelve eggs as though for eggs '_à la Meyerbeer_.' It's simple." "But we don't know how to make eggs '_à la Meyerbeer_'," I protested, thinking of the _pons asinorum_ in Euclid that had caused me bitter anguish. "To make eggs '_à la Meyerbeer_'," read Letitia, "you butter a silver dish, and break into it twelve fresh eggs--" "Twelve!" I cried. "My dear, we should be ill. We should die of biliousness. Six eggs apiece!" "Twelve _fresh_ eggs, Archie. I'm giving you Filippini's recipe. You break the eggs into a silver dish, and cook them on the stove for two minutes. Then cut six mutton kidneys in halves--" "Six kidneys and twelve eggs!" I exclaimed. "Surely this is a recipe for--for--horses." "We are not obliged to eat it all at once, silly! After cutting the mutton kidneys in halves, you broil or stew them according to taste, then add them to the eggs and serve with half a pint of hot _Perigueux sauce_, thrown over." "What's _Perigueux sauce_?" "See No. 191," continued Letitia, in a somewhat stupefied tone. "How confusing! No. 191. Here it is. _Perigueux sauce_: Chop up very fine two truffles. Place them in a sautoire with a glass of Madeira wine. Reduce on the hot stove for five minutes. Add half a pint of _Espagnole sauce_. For _Espagnole sauce_, see No. 151." "What a labyrinth!" I said, feeling quite muddled; "it's like following a maze. We may as well see the thing through. What does No. 151 say?" "No. 151. _Sauce Espagnole_. Mix one pint of raw, strong, mirepoix--" "Raw, strong what?" "Raw, strong mirepoix--oh, Archie, see No. 138. In one minute I shall forget what we really wanted to make. Isn't it positively bewildering? See No. 138. Stew in a saucepan two ounces of fat, two carrots, one onion, one sprig of thyme, one bay leaf, six whole peppers, three cloves, and, if handy, a hambone cut into pieces. Add two sprigs of celery, and half a bunch of parsley roots, cook for fifteen minutes." "And then--what do you get?" I asked putting my hands to my fevered brow. "That's for the mirepoix," she replied; "and the mirepoix is for the _Espagnole sauce_. You mix one pint of raw strong mirepoix with five ounces of good fat (chicken's fat is preferable). Mix with the compound four ounces of flour, and moisten with one gallon of white broth. See No. 99." "Heavens! Can't they bring it to a head? The twelve eggs and the six kidneys are waiting, Letitia." "It _is_ most exasperating, but we won't be worsted, Archie. See No. 99. White broth. There's half a page about it. I--I really don't believe that this flat is large enough to hold all the ingredients for this dish. You place in a large stock-urn, on a moderate fire, a good heavy knuckle of fine white veal with all the _débris_, or scraps of meat, cover fully with water, add salt, carrots, turnips, onions, parsley, leeks, celery. Boil six hours--" "What--what are we trying to make?" I asked helplessly. Letitia was equally dismayed. "I declare I almost forget. Let me see: The white broth was to be mixed with the mirepoix; the mirepoix was for the _sauce Espagnole_; the _sauce Espagnole_ was for the _Perigueux sauce_; the _Perigueux sauce_ was for the eggs _à la Meyerbeer_. We know that, don't we? Well, for eggs _à la reine_. At present we know how to make eggs _à la Meyerbeer_. To cook eggs _à la reine_, you proceed as for eggs _à la Meyerbeer_, and then--" "I don't think we'll have any, Letitia," I ventured. "Really, I believe I can do without them. Anyway, they would be rather indigestible." "Well, I _will_ know the end," she declared pluckily. "I hate to be beaten. We know how to make eggs _à la Meyerbeer_. We know that, don't we? Well, for the eggs _à la reine_, you make a garnishing of one ounce of cooked chicken breast, one finely-shred, medium-sized truffle, and six minced mushrooms. You moisten with half a pint of good _Allemande sauce_, see No. 210. No, I won't see No. 210. You're right, Archie. We'll do without the eggs _à la reine_. This recipe is like the House That Jack Built, only much worse, for, you have to 'see' things all the time. We'll have just plain, soft-boiled eggs." "You might learn how to cook those, dear," I suggested timidly. "No, Letitia, don't be vexed. There must be an art in it. We've had four cooks, all unable to boil eggs. There must be a knack." Letitia sighed, and shut up the cook-book. Eggs _à la reine_ seemed as difficult as trigonometry, or conic sections, or differential calculus--and much more expensive. Certainly, the eight giggling cooks in the kitchen, now at the very height of their exhilaration, worried themselves little about such concoctions. My nerves again began to play pranks. The devilish pandemonium infuriated me. Letitia was tired and wanted to go to bed. I was tired and hungry and disillusioned. It was close upon midnight and the Swedish Thursday was about over. I thought it unwise to allow them even an initial minute of Friday. When the clock struck twelve, I marched majestically to the kitchen, threw open the door, revealed the octette in the enjoyment of a mound of ice-cream and a mountain of cake--that in my famished condition made my mouth water--and announced in a severe, jet subdued tone, that the revel must cease. "You must go at once," I said, "I am going to shut up the house." Then I withdrew and waited. There was a delay, during which a Babel of tongues was let loose, and then Miss Lyberg's seven guests were heard noisily leaving the house. Two minutes later, there was a knock at our door and Miss Lyberg appeared, her eyes blazing, her face flushed and the expression of the hunted antelope defiantly asserting that it would never be brought to bay, on her perspiring features. "You've insulted my guests!" she cried, in English as good as my own. "I've had to turn them out of the house, and I've had about enough of this place." Letitia's face was a psychological study. Amazement, consternation, humiliation--all seemed determined to possess her. Here was the obtuse Swede, for whose dear sake she had dallied with the intricacies of the language of Stockholm, furiously familiar with admirable English! The dense, dumb Scandinavian--the lady of the "me no understand" rejoinder--apparently had the "gift of tongues." Letitia trembled. Rarely have I seen her so thoroughly perturbed. Yet seemingly she was unwilling to credit the testimony of her own ears, for with sudden energy, she confronted Miss Lyberg, and exclaimed imperiously, in Swedish that was either pure or impure: "_Tig. Ga din väg!_" "Ah, come off!" cried the handmaiden insolently. "I understand English. I haven't been in this country fifteen years for nothing. It's just on account of folks like you that poor hard-working girls, who ain't allowed to take no baths or entertain no lady friends, have to protect themselves. Pretend not to understand them, says I. I've found it worked before this. If they think you don't understand 'em, they'll let you alone and stop worriting. It's like your impidence to turn my lady-friends out of this flat. It's like your impidence. I'll--" Letitia's crestfallen look, following upon her perturbation, completely upset me. A wave of indignation swamped me. I advanced, and in another minute Miss Gerda Lyberg would have found herself in the hall, impelled there by a persuasive hand upon her shoulder. However, it was not to be. "You just lay a hand on me," she said with cold deliberation, and a smile, "and I'll have you arrested for assault. Oh, I know the law. I haven't been in this country fifteen years for nothing. The law looks after poor weak, Swedish girls. Just push me out. It's all I ask. Just you push me out." She edged up to me defiantly. My blood boiled. I would have mortgaged the prospects of my _Lives of Great Men_ (not that they were worth mortgaging) for the exquisite satisfaction of confounding this abominable woman. Then I saw the peril of the situation. I thought of horrid headlines in the papers: "Author charged with abusing servant girl," or, "Arrest of Archibald Fairfax on serious charge," and my mood changed. "I understood you all the time," continued Miss Lyberg insultingly. "I listened to you. I knew what you thought of me. Now I'm telling you what I think of you. The idea of turning out my lady-friends, on a Thursday night, too! And me a-slaving for them, and a-bathing for them, and a-treating them to ice-cream and cake, and in me own kitchen. You ain't no lady. As for you"--I seemed to be her particular pet--"when I sees a man around the house all the time, a-molly-coddling and a-fussing, I says to myself, he ain't much good if he can't trust the women folk alone." We stood there like dummies, listening to the tirade. What could we do? To be sure, there were two of us, and we were in our own house. The antagonist, however, was a servant, not in her own house. The situation, for reasons that it is impossible to define, was hers. She knew it, too. We allowed her full sway, because we couldn't help it. The sympathy of the public, in case of violent measures, would not have been on our side. The poor domestic, oppressed and enslaved, would have appealed to any jury of married men, living luxuriously in cheap boarding-houses! When she left us, as she did when she was completely ready to do so, Letitia began to cry. The sight of her tears unnerved me, and I checked a most unfeeling remark that I intended to make to the effect that, "if the wind be favorable, we shall be at Gothenburg in forty hours." "It's not that I mind her insolence," she sobbed, "we were going to send her off anyway, weren't we? But it's so humiliating to be 'done.' We've been 'done.' Here have I been working hard at Swedish--writing exercises, learning verbs, studying proverbs--just to talk to a woman who speaks English as well as I do. It's--it's--so--so--mor--mortifying." "Never mind, dear," I said, drying her eyes for her; "the Swedish will come in handy some day." "No," she declared vehemently, "don't say that you'll take me to Sweden. I wouldn't go to the hateful country. It's a hideous language, anyway, isn't it, Archie? It is a nasty, laconic, ugly tongue. You heard me say _Tig_ to her just now. _Tig_ means 'be silent.' Could anything sound more repulsive? _Tig! Tig! Ugh!_" Letitia stamped her foot. She was exceeding wroth. "Aunt Julia, and her clean slate!" she went on. "If this was a sample of a clean slate, give me one that has been scribbled all over. The annoying thing is that we have to stand still and listen to all this abuse. These women seem to hate one so! They are always on the defensive, when there is nothing to defend. They won't let you treat them nicely. Honestly, Archie, I think that they are all anarchists and that they hate us because we have a few dollars more than they have." It was rather a grave assertion but I was not prepared to combat it. Could it be the fault of our "system"--admitting, for the sake of argument, that we have a system? Why did peasants, from the purlieus of foreign countries, undergo a "sea change" the instant they landed? Why did ladies who would have clamored to black your shoes in their own country, insist that you should black theirs when they came to yours? Why was it? What did it mean? Surely it was a problem, as knotty as that of the cooking of eggs _à la reine_. Still, undoubtedly, there are chefs who have succeeded in elaborating the eggs _à la reine_. Were there any people in this broad land, who, by dint of a life's persistence, had managed to understand their cook? Letitia declined to talk any more. I could have harangued a mob. I could have stood on a wagon, without flags, and have incited the populace to deeds of violence. I should have loved to do it; I ached for the mere chance, and--and-- Well, I merely switched off the light. CHAPTER XIV Those who have followed me thus far through this sad, eventful history must have perceived that the little refinements of home life with which we had started to adorn our domestic hearth were being gradually starved to death. Yes, I know that many people will contemptuously allude to these "little refinements" as "little affectations." It all depends upon the point of view. I have been in towns where a man bold enough to wear a clean collar and a whole suit was disdainfully voted a dude; I have flitted through communities that would have derisively hooted at a silk hat. In western villages I have seen a gloved hand impertinently stared at, and have heard it discussed as a triumph of effeminacy--the sort of thing that might have caused the downfall of the Roman Empire. It all depends, assuredly, upon the point of view. Our troubles were, of course, largely due to our bringing-up. We believed in the home, not as a mere place to sleep in, or a city-directory address for the reception of letters, but as the main feature of our life. We wanted to live there, entertain our friends there, and later on, perhaps, die there. The "bluff and genial" men will, of course, assert that I was a milksop, because I declined to sit around in shirt-sleeves, in the presence of my wife, and commune unaffectedly with the usual hand-painted cuspidor. The "bluff and genial" women will vote my poor Letitia airy because she didn't polish kitchen stoves, or hang out the very intimacies of her underwear on pulley lines. You see, we had always been lucky enough to find women willing to do these odd jobs for us. In business, a broker isn't considered a dude because he declines to be his own office-boy. He obtains the luxury of "help." His office-boy is perhaps an anarchist, but his wings are clipped and he receives no encouragement. Why is it that Letitia, perfectly willing to pay somebody to remove the rough edges from domestic existence, should be dubbed airy? Certainly every well-regulated person with a home must rebel at the notion of opening the front door every time the bell rings. Surely each self-respecting man or women covets the privilege of being "out" to unwelcome visitors. The mere idea of being always "in" to every Tom, Dick and Harry, is loathsome. Yet that was our plight. If our bitterest enemy called, he would see us. The sweetest lie in the world is that told by the neat-handed Phyllis, when she pertly remarks "Not at home" to the unloved caller. That sweetest lie was an impossibility for poor Letitia and her husband. And so it was on the evening of the second day after the departure of the _svensk_ atrocity, Letitia came to me in the dining-room, as I smoked the pipe of alleged peace, in a most mysterious manner. She had a card in her hand, and her mood was--if I may say so--hectic. "We shall have to see her, Archie," she said. "You see, I couldn't say I was out. She was very persistent, and pushed her way in. I was obliged to ask her into the drawing-room. She is"--reading the card--"Miss Priscilla Perfoozle." "A cook!" I exclaimed joyously. "Oh, Letitia, I'm so glad!" "No, Archie. She is Miss Priscilla Perfoozle, representing"--again reading the card--"the Society for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Cooks of New York City." I thought Letitia was joking--that, perchance, a horrible sense of humor was sprouting. We had dined out, most pleasantly, and were temporarily lulled into an agreeable lethargy of endurance. If this were a jest, it was certainly a very sorry one. I sprang up and looked at the card. There was no deception. It was, as Letitia said, the pasteboard of "Miss Priscilla Perfoozle, representing the Society for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Cooks of New York City." "What--impertinence!" I exclaimed, and the little dash between the two words signifies a profane expression that never before, during our short married life, had I been tempted to use. Letitia flushed. "Don't, dear," she said. "We must see her. It can't do any harm, for we have nothing to do. And, Archie, _please_ don't be rude, or impolite. Remember, I beg of you, that you are in your own house." I always was when my system simply pined for a bit of impoliteness. Whenever I ached to be rude, I was reminded that I was at home. It was most exasperating. However, I promised Letitia that there should be no outbreak; that I would be as suave as I could, and that Miss Priscilla Perfoozle should escape with all her bones intact--and the sooner the better. We found her seated by the tiger-head, over which I firmly believed and hoped that she had tripped, for she was rubbing her shin. She was a large, gaunt, yellow spinster, with a loose, flappy mouth, that looked as though it should have been buttoned up when she was not using it. She wore black silk, like the ruined ladies in melodrama, and a neat bonnet, fastened under her chin by velvet strings. She rose, as we entered, and unchained a smile. It was one of those smiles that some Christians call loving. Her unbuttoned mouth--even a hook-and-eye on each lip would have been most serviceable--revealed a picturesque of the falsest sort of false teeth (this style ten dollars), but she was not a bit abashed. I felt perfectly convinced that she was determined to love us--that, even if we threw a vase at her, she would still consider us ineffably dear. She extended her hand to each of us--a hand in a black _glacé_ kid glove that was too long for her fingers. "Be seated," said Letitia, with much unnecessary dignity. "I dare say you have heard of the Society for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Cooks in New York City," she began chastely; "you must have read of the good work it is doing in the interests of those poor, downtrodden girls who seek only to earn a living in the houses of the rich and prosperous. The good work the society is doing, Mrs. Fairfax--by-the-by, I obtained your name at Mrs. Greaseheaver's intelligence office--is beyond all question. I am merely a missionary, aiming by means of heart-to-heart talks to awaken an interest, a human interest, in the sad lives of domestic servants, so that a few rays of sunlight may ultimately permeate their dull and wretched days." Letitia looked pleadingly at me, as I moved uneasily. She laid her hand, as though unconsciously, upon an Indian paper-cutter in my vicinity. The edges were very sharp. "My heart aches for them," continued Miss Perfoozle feelingly, "I might almost say that it bleeds. I listen to their stories day by day, in tears--positively tears, Mrs. Fairfax. It is perhaps silly of me to give way--I know I am a foolish little thing--but I can not help it. I am very, very susceptible. I am devoting my life to the glorious task of improving their state. By the distribution of tracts, we reach the poor girls themselves. They come to us; we board and bed them, and we endeavor to place them with ladies whose antecedents we have diligently investigated." "You have an intelligence office, then?" asked Letitia naïvely. "Ah, do not say it," implored Miss Perfoozle, with ten black _glacé_ fingers outstretched like claws. "The term has passed into such disrepute, dear Mrs. Fairfax. Naturally our society has to be supported, though most of the ladies comprising its members would gladly give their little all to the beautiful cause. My little all, I frequently contribute." "Then your society depends upon these little alls?" I asked, peacefully resolved to probe the Perfoozle as a pastime. "It could not be," she replied piously. "We charge the girls we place a percentage of their first salary--merely a nominal percentage, dear Mrs. Fairfax. We seek to place them with reputable, God-fearing people--Christians preferred, though we have no rooted objections to Jews. Our society has decided that the question of domestic help _is_ a question merely because most employers are cruel and abusive. Treat the employers and not the girls. That, dear Mr. and Mrs. Fairfax, is the motto of the Society for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Cooks in New York City." Letitia withdrew her hand from the Indian paper-knife, after pushing it in my direction. I gleaned from that trifling fact that Letitia was quite willing to let me do my worst. Her face flushed as she listened to the dulcet utterances of the sweetly insolent Perfoozle. "If I mistake not," continued the spinster, "you employed a worker calling herself Mrs. McCaffrey?" Letitia started. I winced. Horrible memories surged within us. Old wounds re-ached. We did not answer. "A most worthy person," resumed the Perfoozle serenely, "a beautiful character. A Christian. She came to us, Mrs. Fairfax, crushed. Her little girl--one of the sweetest little things I have met--contracted mumps, she tells me, owing to the unsanitary conditions of the house. I am not here to scold. I have no right to do so. But, frankly, I must admit that my warm sympathies were extended toward Mrs. McCaffrey. Do not be angry with me, Mrs. Fairfax. We are all human creatures, working in a common cause. You look good and kind, both of you, yet in the case of poor Birdie, will you let me say that I can not give you right? I dare not. Ah, my dear young people, why--why should you torture human souls? Think--think that you may meet your cooks in the after-life." This was a horrid aspect of immortality that I had never contemplated. Letitia was smiling, almost as though she possessed a sense of humor. My wife's mood inspired me. We might probably dally with Priscilla Perfoozle for a half-hour or so. "We hope to go to Heaven, Miss Perfoozle," I ventured, with a sacred intonation. "I hope so, too, dear young people," she bleated. "In that case, we shall not meet our cooks," I continued. "All those we have had will most assuredly go to hell, as incompetent, abusive, mercenary, home-destroying, ignorant obstructions. You have no branches in--er--hell, Miss Perfoozle?" I had mentally suggested dallying toyfully with Priscilla, for a half-hour or so. The gentle query anent Hades showed me instantly, however, that while Priscilla was a good many things, she was not a fool. Her eyes snapped at my remark, and one of them, that looked a trifle squinty, turned deliberately inward, and gave her a most sinister aspect. Piety was certainly hers, in a Pecksniffian sense, but the commercial instinct leavened the loaf. That she intended to be-cook us from her own larder, was manifest; that she wished to "investigate" us so that she could be certain of one month for her cook and its happy percentage for herself, was clear. There was method in the Perfoozle madness, and I resolved calmly, and unangrily, to "see it through." "You are profane, Mr. Fairfax," she said with a sickly smile, "but I expect it. The laborers in humanity's vineyard have much to contend with. But we persevere. We are smitten on one cheek, but we cheerfully turn the other. Moreover, you do not mean to offend. I know it. I bear no malice. We will say no more about the poor widow, Mrs. McCaffrey, whom, by-the-by, I have placed on Fifth Avenue, at a salary of forty dollars per month." "I'm sorry for your percentage, Miss Perfoozle," remarked Letitia with glorious acidity. "You can see it, perhaps. I can't." "You think--" began the spinster nervously, moved by the pecuniary insinuation. "No," retorted Letitia. "I am sure." Miss Perfoozle was silent for a moment, plunged in thought. Perhaps, like Mr. James Russell of variety renown, she thought she saw two dollars. However, although by no means naked, she was unashamed. She righted herself speedily. Piety was reinstated and she beamed upon us beatifically. "Your troubles," she went on, "and I am right in assuming that you have them?--are not serious, my dear young people. They are the result of the ugly American habit of flouting inferiors. This is a democracy, yet the classes are too bitterly outlined. Some time ago, I visited a young couple in a walk of life more humble than yours. They had been unable to keep help. They were desperate. They talked of breaking up their home. I carefully investigated their case, and discovered that the evil was due to the fact that they had been taught to regard a cook as an inferior. I undertook to send them a young country girl, who was very anxious to study New York. My condition was that they treat her as an equal. At first they rebelled, but--they were desperate. They agreed. I sent them the girl--a sweet young woman, named Sybil Montmorency. They took to her at once. She sat at table with them; she went out with them; in the evenings, she read with them. They showed her the sights of New York--the Statue of Liberty, the Aquarium, the new Bridge. Sybil was delighted. She told me that she felt that she was merely a boarder--and was actually paid to board. She liked it immensely. She was as happy as a lark, until--" "I suppose she needed a change of scene?" I suggested. "Not at all," viciously asserted the Perfoozle. "They broke their agreement--deliberately. It appears that they were very musical. They had subscribed for the series of Philharmonic concerts. Actually--would you believe it, Mrs. Fairfax?--they declined to live up to their word. They refused to take little Sybil, who was just as musical as they--precisely as musical. Naturally the poor child was incensed. There she was, compelled to sit at home, alone, while they were out enjoying themselves! Now, this is a democratic country--I am an American to the roots of my hair--and I admit that I was furious. I have blacklisted this couple. Never another girl shall they have from my establishment. I have Sybil on my hands. She is hard to place, for she is so pure and good." "I suppose she is an excellent cook?" I asked demurely. "I never permitted myself to ask her such a question," replied Miss Perfoozle. "In the case of some women, of course, such questions may be necessary. It would have been an impertinence in the instance of Miss Montmorency. Such a girl was an ornament to any home. I suppose she could cook. Anybody can. It is a detail. Of course, the case I have just mentioned is extreme. I do not insist upon terms of equality. The haughtiness of American women render equality impossible, just at present. Later on, perhaps, when the glorious spirit of democracy--the democracy of Jefferson--has really instilled itself into our institutions. But, I beg of you, Mrs. Fairfax, as you hope for domestic happiness, to try and avoid the use of that most pernicious word, servant. Ah, my blood boils at the word." "You prefer help?" asked Letitia. "It is a nice point. Help has also become equally obnoxious. I call my girls house-mates, or domestic companions, or house-aids. Poor downtrodden women! They love to be called companions. Their hearts expand at the notion of companionship. Let me ask you one thing, Mrs. Fairfax." (She deliberately snubbed me.) "Have you ever sought to analyze the sensations of one of our dear sisters, when she goes out for the first time, to cook for strange people in a strange house, far away from her loved ones?" "Well," said Letitia quite amiably, "I suppose that her sensations, if she doesn't know what cooking means, must be uncomfortable. She must feel, or should feel, that she is obtaining money under false pretenses. If she _can_ cook, she is probably pleased at the notion of earning her own living." "Ah, you are hard, hard!" groaned Perfoozle, wringing her _glacé_ kids. "You are relentless. I am sorry I told you the story of Sybil Montmorency. But do not believe"--her commercial instinct apparently sat up and snorted--"that all my girls are similar. This case was unique, though I trust that in the years to come it will be quite ordinary, and everyday. What I am particularly anxious to tell you, for you are bound to be impressed by the fact, is that the authority of Pope Pius IX is exquisitely permeated through our scheme." "Hasn't the Pope a cook?" I asked, wondering how he would like Mrs. Potzenheimer as an ornament to the Vatican--or gentle Gerda Lyberg. "Ah, I beseech you, Mr. Fairfax!" cried Priscilla, her lips flapping. "The Pope has laid down certain rules to govern the Christian democracy. Thanks to a Paulist Father--who has one of our girls at thirty-two dollars a month (and she has already been there four days!)--I have been able to see those rules. The Holy Father says that it is an obligation for the rich and for those that own property, to succor the poor and the indigent, according to the precepts of the Gospel. They must not injure their savings by violence or fraud, nor expose them to corruption or danger of scandal, nor alienate them from the spirit of family life, nor impose on them labor beyond their strength or unsuitable to their age or sex--" "Pardon me," I interrupted, "but what do you suppose the Pope would say if he found his cook taking a bath in the kitchen, among the dinner things?" "You shock me!" cried Miss Perfoozle, with a little shriek. "You shock me, but--again I say--I do not mind. We missionaries must expect it. The Pope, dear brother Fairfax, would, I trust, never enter his kitchen. Therefore he could not perceive the eccentric case you suggest. If perchance, he did perceive it, he would say that cleanliness was next to godliness and godliness superior to dinner things. In addition to the Pope's words, which I learned by heart, I have the utterances of a famous diocesan director of charitable institutions. I have not memorized them, as, famous though the director be, he is not the Pope. I will read you what he says." She drew from her pocket a soiled tract, and read: "'Anything that will tend to do away with the friction that is to be found so often to-day between the employer and the employed, is to be commended and assisted.' It is short, but pithy. Note that he says, 'anything'. You will also have observed that the word servant is never used." "Do you remember a certain quotation from Bacon, Miss Perfoozle?" I queried, "that which says: 'Men in great place are thrice servants--servants of the sovereign, or state--servants of fame, and servants of business.' Must we alter all this? If so, we should also re-edit the Bible. Can your cooks bear to read the Bible? Can they condescend to consider themselves as servants, even of the Almighty?" Miss Perfoozle looked frightened. She blanched--if such an expression can be used in connection with her yellow face. However, she rose to the occasion. "You affect to misunderstand me," she said resignedly, "but I know that you are impressed in spite of yourself. It is difficult to plant the seed, but I feel that it is planted. 'As ye sow, so shall ye reap.' I shall expect to reap, dear young people. Ah, what a pretty home you have. This cunning little parlor is a veritable curiosity shop. It is full of pretty gew-gaws." (She looked rather spitefully at the tiger-head.) "Such a tasteful little home! May I--may I, dear Mrs. Fairfax, take a peep at the room you give to the dear sister who is so willing and anxious to wait on you?" Letitia was about to make an indignant remark. I saw it coming. Fortunately, Miss Perfoozle didn't appeal to me quite seriously. "Leave her to me, Letitia," I whispered to my wife, as Priscilla's bonneted head was momentarily averted. Then to Miss Perfoozle: "Certainly, my dear mademoiselle," I said, "come this way, and be lenient with us. We try to do the best we can for our dear sisters." I led her to our bedroom. It was a pretty room, small but natty. The brass bedstead was elaborate with onyx trimmings. There was a handsome, pale-blue satin eiderdown upon it. A large cheval-glass stood in the corner, beveled and glistening. The bureau was littered with dainty bits of silver--puff-boxes, manicure articles, hair-curlers, brushes, combs, jars, bottles, cases. There were two windows, from each of which trailed expensive curtains of Renaissance lace. "This is cook's room," I said, biting my lips, while Letitia stuffed a small lace handkerchief into her mouth. "Of course, it is very small but--" "It is charming," cried Miss Perfoozle ingenuously. "Positively, my dear Mrs. Fairfax, I shouldn't mind it in the least for myself. I believe--nay, I am sure--that I could put up with it." "Oh, Miss Perfoozle!" I exclaimed deprecatingly, "how can you say such a thing? It is kind of you. You are trying to put us at our ease." "Was this Mrs. McCaffrey's room?" she asked, a tinge of suspicion in her tone. "Certainly," I cheerfully lied, "Birdie and her dear little child both slept here. My wife was so sorry that there wasn't a night-nursery for the little one. Yes, Miss Perfoozle, they both slept here, until the child contracted that horrid case of mumps." "Ah, there is running water in the room," exclaimed Perfoozle, spotting the marble basin. "It is always unhealthy. I look upon it as distinctly unsanitary. Probably it accounts for the child's illness. There are exhalations of a miasmatic nature from these running water arrangements. Otherwise, Mrs. Fairfax, I have no fault to find with the room. It is appointed far better than is the custom." "It is appointed far better than our own room, Miss Perfoozle," I declared, with assumed indignation. "Let me show you our apartment. It is plain, but--it does for us." I impelled her gently toward the sanctum that Birdie and Potzenheimer and the others had veritably occupied. It had an ingrain carpet, and a bed, and a wash-stand. Miss Perfoozle surveyed it critically. "Ah," she said, "you believe in keeping your own bedroom free from encumbrances. You are right. This is healthy. This is airy. I presume you realized the fact that cooks love ornaments and articles of virtue" (sic). "Unfortunately, they do. As they advance in education, this will not be the case. In the years to come, Mrs. Fairfax, a properly self-respecting cook will prefer a cool, unadorned sleeping apartment, like this, to the vulgarity and ostentation of what you now offer her. At present, however, my dear young people, I am bound to admit that you treat your cook as she expects to be treated. I am delighted. I shall not fail to express this sentiment to Mrs. McCaffrey when next I see her." Letitia's shoulders were heaving. I nudged her, and whispered, "Don't, for goodness' sake." Miss Perfoozle used a lorgnette as she made her inspection, and peered into everything. "This is the dining-room," I said, throwing open the door. "It is, as usual, small, but fairly large for the average apartment. There is room for cook, and five friends. We always dine out, you know. We dote on restaurants. My wife simply can't keep away from them. So we give over the dining-room to cook. We breakfast here, of course--just an egg, or so. There is electric light, which, though rather trying to the eyes, is convenient." "It is a shame," said Miss Perfoozle magnanimously, "to find you without help. Honestly, it is a shame. You are young people, as I said before, and I believe, in spite of Mr. Fairfax's flippancy (perhaps he _has_ had occasion to feel flippant) that you are inclined to do the fair thing to your house-mates. I know a girl who will suit you, I am perfectly sure." "Miss Montmorency?" I ventured. "No, not Sybil. Sybil demands absolute equality, and I can quite see that in your case, Mr. and Mrs. Fairfax, it would be impossible and perhaps"--indulgently--"unnecessary. But there is no reason why you should not be suited at once." "I ought to say," I interrupted in a downcast voice, "that there is no accommodation for bicycles, while as for automobiles--" "I do not countenance either," snapped Miss Perfoozle. "The former, which, I am thankful to say, have outlived their usefulness, were unfeminine. The latter, nasty, smelly things, always exploding and running over people, can be dispensed with. I can guarantee you a girl who will stay with you for a long time." "A whole month?" I queried gaspingly. Miss Perfoozle turned upon me suddenly. I had felt that she didn't quite appreciate me at my just worth. Something in my last gasp appealed to her unpleasantly. "I trust you are not jesting," she remarked in a lemon tone. "No," I said shortly, moving toward the front door, "I never jest. But you have come too late, Miss Perfoozle. We are breaking up housekeeping to-morrow and sail for Europe next day, to be gone for five years and three months. You might take our names for a cook in five years and three months from to-morrow. We shall visit London, Paris, Rome, Vienna, Berlin, Dresden, Jersey City, Poughkeepsie, Schenectady--" "You allowed me to waste my precious time here?" she asked in genuine, unadulterated anger. "You permitted me to devote an evening to the revelation of my plans and hopes, when you knew--you were sure--you--" "We had nothing better to do, I assure you, dear Miss Perfoozle," I said blithely. "You have amused us immensely. You must be going? Yet it is early. You _will_ go? My dear madam, of course, we may not detain you. Will you take our best wishes to Birdie, and the child, and--" Miss Perfoozle's face was horrid to look at. Letitia turned from her in dismay and whispered a husky "Don't!" in my ear. The black _glacé_ hands looked like claws. The representative of the Society for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Cooks in New York City resembled a Fury, baffled. We opened the door and clicked her out. For the first time in many days we burst into a peal of laughter. We simply shook. We howled. Such a good time had, a few hours ago, seemed impossible. "I believe you have a sense of humor, after all, Archie," said Letitia, drying the tears from her eyes and sinking into a chair. "Not yet, Letitia, not yet," I demurred, weak from mirth, "but if this thing keeps up I'm awfully afraid that the dreadful curse will be visited on us both." CHAPTER XV And it came to pass, that behold! we broke bread, and ate, and for a few soft, silly weeks, lived, in what I might call a fool's paradise. As any paradise, however, is better than none at all, and too much purgatory is apt to lose the mulligatawniness of its flavor, this little breathing spell gave us a chance to recuperate, and, as the French put it, to recoil, in order to leap better. It was like this. A lady friend of a cousin of an aunt of our laundress, knew somebody that was acquainted with a person, who had heard of a Finnish maiden anxious for a position. It was a bit roundabout, but not worse than the simple recipes in Alessandro Filippini's cook-book. Moreover, a Finnish maiden--or any maiden--was less of a luxury and more of a necessity than eggs _à la reine_. We therefore negotiated, with the felicitous result that one bright morning Letitia received a notification that the anxious Olga would wait upon her. We both of us read up Finland in the encyclopædia, it being one of those obscure European countries with which we were not familiar. Letitia thought it belonged to Scandinavia; I mixed it up with Lapland. We were able to settle the point to our mutual satisfaction before Olga arrived. "I have a dreadful presentiment," observed Letitia, "that you will say 'I see her Finnish'! If you do, I could never endure her. I warn you, Archie." "As though I should perpetrate such a knock-kneed pun!" I exclaimed indignantly. "Our experiences may have weakened me physically, but my intellect is still unimpaired." Olga arrived in the early morn whilst I was shaving. Letitia interviewed her in the drawing-room, and I fondly hoped that my services would not be needed. These cook-dialogues told upon my peace of mind, and I was beginning to yearn for a chance to give myself, heart and soul, to my affairs. I had finished shaving, and was admiring the velvety skin that I had coaxed into prominence, when Letitia came bustling in, very serious and important. "Before I quite settle with Olga," she said, "I should so like you just to take a look at her, Archie. Would you mind? At first sight I thought her repulsive, but after looking at her fixedly, for a long time, I discovered that she really had a kind face." "I'll come in"--I sighed mournfully--"and investigate. Of course, dear, good looks are not essential. She will not have to pose in the drawing-room. In fact, we really are not obliged to look at her at all. Personally, I think it would be soothing not to do so." However, Letitia's views were not far-fetched. The Finnish lady was repellent enough to gaze upon. She wore a cape and a loose, dingy linsey-woolsey dress, and was so squat that her head looked like a knob, to be taken on and off. In fact, the head seemed out of place and unnecessary--almost as though she had borrowed somebody else's. She sat by the window, with her hands folded upon her lap, and appeared to be "taking solid comfort," as the saying is. For one moment a strange idea--but no, I banished it immediately as preposterous. Irrelevant though it may seem, perhaps this is the place in which the reader might advantageously learn our ages. I have tried to conceal them, hitherto, but youth--like murder--must out. I was twenty-five; Letitia nineteen. These little details need not be mentioned again. Their somewhat brusque interpolation at this late stage seems necessary for a proper comprehension of what is to follow. "You don't think she is too frightful?" whispered Letitia, as my eyes were riveted upon the figureless figure. "Do, please, look at her face." The face was rosy and amiable. It was not necessary to look very fixedly at her to discover that. It was a vast improvement upon the acidulated countenance of the late Miss Lyberg. I wondered if the strange idea that I had banished so promptly could, by any chance, have occurred to Letitia. I made a mental vow--a resolute inward swear--not to ask her. "In this case, her face is her fortune," I said, taking Letitia aside; "it is--quite a face. A smile, occasionally, will help us along, Letitia. This girl certainly looks as though she didn't hate us, just at present. It will be quite a treat not to be hated. I should engage her if I were you, and trust to luck. It is a good sign that we are not instantly attracted toward her. Perhaps it is a happy augury." Olga Allallami--for such was her title--was thereupon secured. She seemed pleased, even grateful, which impressed me as being so drolly unusual, that I was almost suspicious. Cooks would make a cynic of the Angel Gabriel,--though I have no intention of comparing myself to that seraph. "These Finnish girls," explained Letitia (I had asked for no explanation), "are brought up out of doors. They live a very active life in their own country in the fields. They are lithe and agile. When they come here, poor things, and undertake sedentary pursuits, the change is bound to tell upon them. Their sinuous figures disappear; they grow squat and stumpy; instead of the lissome, flexible girl, they develop into the heavy, inactive matron. That's it, of course." Letitia appeared to be pursuing her thoughts aloud--for her own benefit, and perhaps for mine. It seemed to be a reasonable way of looking at Miss Allallami. In any case, a beautiful cook was unnecessary. Nor did it seem possible to find one. All the beautiful cooks were on the stage--in the chorus, where the remuneration was larger, if less certain, and the life more glittering, if less healthy. The beautiful cooks were all singing "tra la la" in comic opera, and were not worrying themselves about "refined Christian homes" in upper New York. Miss Allallami came to her kitchen with dazzling punctuality next day, and almost before we knew it, the riot of our life was quelled, and an almost ominous tranquillity settled upon us. For once, we seemed to have done the right thing, in the right way, at the right time. Our Olga proved to be most affable. She spoke English fairly well and delighted to understand us. Her cooking, while not precisely Lucullian, was the best we had known, so far. She thoroughly understood the art of boiling water, and upon that ground-work built up a satisfactory culinary knack. She was prompt and willing; she was desirous of pleasing. In a neat white apron, she looked far less objectionable. In fact, within a few days after her arrival, we neither of us noticed her physical uncomeliness. Either we grew accustomed to it, or we had magnified it in the first instance. Letitia, always enthusiastically inclined, declared that she thought Olga perfectly sweet, which seemed a bit exaggerated to my less exuberant moods. Yet I was bound to admit that she had a nice face, a comfortable way of looking at one, and a comforting manner. There was no suggestion of anarchy in anything that she did. She never went out. The height of her enjoyment appeared to be reached when she sat down. She loved to sit down. When her day's work was done, she sat and sewed, which seemed so respectable! Our other handmaidens--so Letitia told me--never sewed. They pinned things on. As long as they could get pins they paid no attention to needles. "She makes such cute, needlework-y things!" said Letitia gushingly, one day, "dear little dresses and caps. I fancy, Archie, that she must be working for a store. It really does seem, dear, as though we had a treasure, at last. And just to think how doubtful we were about her. You were right; it was a good sign that we were not instantly attracted." Miss Allallami fitted into the household scheme admirably. She was always ready to efface herself, and in fact seemed to prefer it. Gradually, Letitia and I grew quite light-hearted. We began to go about and see people. We called, and emerged from our husk, so to speak. Meals were always ready for us, and the hot dishes were not cold nor the cold dishes hot. System was introduced into our midst, and Olga--well, I would have doubled her wages gladly. Several weeks passed, and the bolt had not fallen from the blue. We went to Tarrytown, and visited Aunt Julia, who rejoiced with us in our find. The old lady was elated at our happiness, but knew that things would right themselves eventually. She said something about a long lane that had no turning. I fancied that I had heard it before. When we returned, Letitia plunged into the classics once again, and good old Ovid was trotted out, refreshed after his vacation. I set to work, and added chapters to my _Lives of Great Men_. At the office, I labored with renewed vigor, and Tamworth asserted that I must have taken a new lease of life. He was very complimentary, was Tamworth, and it was the invitation I tendered him to dine with us--which he promptly accepted--that ousted me from the sweet security in which I seemed to have been lulled. He came to dinner--and a very good dinner we had. It was neatly served by Olga, who, with her face all smiles, appeared almost to coax us to eat. I laughingly asked Tamworth if he recalled a former dinner with us, for at present I felt far superior to that uncanny day. Yes, he remembered it, and was quite amused. I noticed, that he watched Olga very closely--with almost embarrassing attention, but I ascribed this to his interest in her truly respectable dinner, a dinner, by-the-by, that had no premonitory menu cards. We had grown out of that sort of thing, and out of others. Letitia no longer appeared _décolleté_, although I still wore evening clothes. After dinner, when Letitia had left us to our cigars, Tamworth struck a match, and, pausing before he lighted his weed, looked at me with a puzzled manner. "I'm surprised at you, Fairfax," he said. "Of course she is a good cook. There is no doubt about that. But do you think it quite nice, or--advisable?" "What--what do you mean?" "Well," he said nervously, "it seems a pity that the woman shouldn't stay at home with her husband, or--if she is a widow, with her people." "My dear Tamworth," I remarked laughing, "you are a humorist. Why, she has never even told us that she is married. I'm quite sure she isn't." "Oh, I hope she is," he cried, "I hope for Mrs. Fairfax's sake that she is. Say, old man, you certainly don't want this sort of thing. I am sure it is very charitable of you--and all that. It is very sweet and womanly of Mrs. Fairfax. But the other people in the house must talk." At first I thought the man had gone stark, staring mad. He had taken very little wine at dinner, so it couldn't possibly be that. I looked at him in amazement. "You don't mean to tell me," he went on, "that you're blind?" Then he said some things, in a low tone, that I--I really can't write. They were horrible. They sent the blood rushing to my face. They impelled me back to the day we engaged Olga, when a strange idea had occurred to me, that I had banished instantly. So thoroughly had I banished it, that it had never occurred again, and came to me now as a sheer and odious novelty. Tamworth could have no object in making these suggestions to me. He was undoubtedly in earnest. Yet it seemed so ridiculous and so lacking in--er--etiquette. Olga was such a pleasant, good-natured person. Still, I was bound to admit that even pleasant, good-natured persons-- I rose, and began to walk up and down, mentally cursing my guest. In return for bread, he had made me uncomfortable. It was quite a ticklish position in which I found myself. The question must be discussed with Letitia, and--Quixotic, or some other "otic," though it may sound--the notion of such a discussion was most distasteful to me. Aunt Julia would have called me an idiot; perhaps I _was_ an idiot; still, because a pretty girl happens to be a man's wife, it does seem distressing that he should moot topics with her, that, if she were somebody else's wife, would remain unmooted. Tamworth said no more on the subject; he evidently considered that he had done his duty, and had no further mission to fulfil. When we joined Letitia in the drawing-room, Tamworth and my wife monopolized the conversation. I could not take part in it; I felt too oppressed by the sudden apparition of the serpent that had appeared in our Eden. Letitia tried to include me in the small-talk, but she did not succeed. I sat, plunged in thought, dreading to think of Tamworth's departure, when I felt that I should be forced to disconcert Letitia. And she had been so happy for a few weeks, poor girl! Possibly, Tamworth was what they call an "alarmist." I could guarantee him no more dinners in my house. At last he went, and we were alone. I made up my mind, while he was putting on his bonnet and shawl outside, that I would defer my discussion with Letitia until the morning. It would come better at the boiled-egg moment, when we were quite calm and dispassionate. Moreover, I could brood over it all night, and wisdom might come to me in that way. "How quiet you were, Archie," said Letitia, "and what a time you and Mr. Tamworth were over your cigars! What _were_ you talking about?" I made a bold stroke. "Tamworth," I replied in solemn, funereal tones, "was talking about Olga." "The dinner certainly was excellent," said Letitia proudly, "and I'm glad we invited him. So he talked about Olga? I noticed, Archie, that he was staring at her, in really a rude way, while we were dining. I couldn't help thinking that perhaps Mr. Tamworth is a--flirt!" What a tonic a laugh is! Letitia's little suggestion appealed to me as so inordinately funny--despite my absence of a sense of humor--that I fell back in my chair, convulsed. I laughed until the tears rolled down my cheeks. I had not made so merry since the visit of Miss Priscilla Perfoozle. I couldn't help picturing Tamworth's face, on learning that my wife had suggested the idea of his flirting with the winsome Miss Allallami. It did me good. I felt better immediately. The sinister aspect of things seemed less alarming. "I don't see the joke," said Letitia. "If you are amused because you look upon Olga as too plain to be flirted with--well, all I can say is that every eye formeth its own beauty. Mr. Tamworth is seemingly very sedate, but still waters run deep. Really, Archie,"--as I continued to shake,--"I think you are very rude. Nothing annoys me more than to be laughed at." The psychological moment had apparently arrived. There was no need to wait for the breakfast hour. After having laughed myself strong, I felt primed for the unpleasant task. Poor little ingenuous Letitia! I dubbed myself a mean, sneaking sort of a Satan! "Letitia," I began, "I have something to say to you." This sounded suspiciously like Mr. William Collier, at Weber and Fields', and I realized it as soon as I had spoken. It was a bad beginning. Letitia anticipated a jest, for she followed up my remark with "Don't tell me that you are--going--away--from--here?" "My dear," I said lugubriously, "Arthur Tamworth says that Olga must be married." Letitia looked surprised and a bit scornful. "And yet they say that women are gossips, and that men are superior!" she observed sententiously. "If that isn't a confession of utter weakness! Two men, after dinner, with cigars and _liqueurs_, can find nothing better to talk about than the love affairs of the cook! It is my turn to laugh now. Excuse me." I gladly allowed her to laugh, as I thought it would do her good. It had been so beneficial to me that I should have felt selfish if I had checked her mirth. However, Letitia was not as convulsively entertained as I had been. "Now, dear," I said, when she had finished, "I want you to listen to me. I--I--really do hate to tell you. I--I--can scarcely bring myself to it. But--but--Tamworth insists--" I withdrew to the back of her chair, where I could not see her face. In low tones, I imparted the gist of Arthur Tamworth's suspicions. It was most distressing; it was painful. "The wretch!" cried Letitia, springing to her feet. "To think that we have harbored such a man in our house! Really, Archie, your friends are beneath contempt. Although I am your wife, I don't feel myself called upon to associate with such creatures. How dare you tell me the subject of your indelicate smoking-room orgies? I have always heard that men were disgraceful after dinner. Aunt Julia told me so. She said that coffee after dinner was a signal for all respectable women to withdraw. I did not believe her. Now I do. And to think that my own husband--you--Archie!" Letitia turned upon me with cheeks aflame. Her indignation was cyclonic. Suddenly, as she gazed upon my helplessness--for she was a girl of moods--her fury seemed to disperse itself. Gradually a reflective look appeared in her eyes. She grew singularly calm. Presently, as I said nothing, she simply stood still, and looked at me, musingly. "You can easily ask her," I said weakly and huskily, "if--if--she is married." "Ask her?" cried Letitia, aghast. "Not for the world would I do so. How terribly angry with myself I should feel, if she were married, and how horribly angry with her if she were not! Don't you see that it is impossible? It is too awful to contemplate. Perhaps--perhaps--_you_ wouldn't mind asking her." "Letitia!" I exclaimed, shocked. "Oh," Letitia gurgled, in tears. "It is quite too wicked to think about! Why--why--did we have that horrid man up to dinner? Poor Olga! She is a good, kind woman. Yesterday, when I had a splitting headache, she bathed my forehead with _eau de cologne_. Aunt Julia herself couldn't have been kinder. I can't believe--" "But, my girl," I said sympathetically, "if she has a husband, she has surely committed no crime. What Tamworth suggests is--er--pardonable, under those circumstances. We merely want to know. Don't you see--" "Oh, I see," she cried pettishly, "of course I see. Seeing does not help me at all. You want me to catechize the woman because you are afraid to do so. Men are such cowards. Perhaps she will sue me for libel, if I ask her such questions. I shouldn't complain. I deserve to be sued for libel. I feel like suing myself. And--and--you are quite safe, because you can always say that it isn't the thing for you to interfere in such matters." "We really ought to have guessed--" "_You_ really ought to have guessed," she declared unreasonably. "You are six years older than I am. You are a man of the world. Anyway"--triumphantly--"it may not be true. And if I ever find that it isn't, I'll go right down to Mr. Tamworth and tell him what I think of him, in his own office, before all his clerks and typewriters--and yours. He must be a horrible ninny. Really, I wouldn't dare to have such a man around if--if--" There was nothing more to be said. Letitia was in a mood that made argument uncomfortable, and the topic was not refreshing. I felt relieved that we had threshed the matter out, but a trifle uneasy as to future developments. These weeks had been very pleasant--the only unperturbed period we had spent in our home. Could it be that our brief happiness was for ever over? At breakfast, next morning, serenity reasserted itself. We were almost inclined to dismiss all thoughts of the previous evening's discomfiture. It all seemed so groundless. We ate our boiled eggs quite placidly. Miss Allallami brought in the coffee and smiled reassuringly at us. Letitia blushed guiltily as she saw her, and I felt quite unworthy and ashamed. "I do like her face so much," said Letitia quietly, as I looked over the papers. "I don't know when I have liked it so well. Not for the world would I vex her. I am trying, Archie, to put myself in her place." "My dear!" "I feel like a sister toward her," continued Letitia. "I have rarely been so attached to anybody. I'll tell you what we'll do, Archie--if you agree to it. You know that Aunt Julia has invited us to stay with her over Sunday at Tarrytown. We'll just let things go on as they are for the present. And on Thursday, when we go to Tarrytown, I'll submit the case to Aunt Julia. If she thinks I ought to speak to Olga--I agree to do so. Whatever she advises shall be done. That is fair, isn't it? Tell me, dear, that you are satisfied." I was satisfied--eminently so. Postponing evils is always a gratifying occupation, and the few remaining days of pleasant domesticity that this arrangement left us seemed delightful. We would eat, drink and be merry, while we could. We would avoid the dreadful subject until Thursday. The fool's paradise bewitched us as surely as before. Tamworth faded into the distance and the old order reëstablished itself. We enjoyed ourselves in our happy little home. When Thursday came, Letitia took quite an affectionate farewell of Miss Allallami, and off we went to Tarrytown. Had I not reminded Letitia of her agreement, I veritably believe that she would have forgotten it. It seemed a pity to reopen the wound, but I felt that it was cruel to be kind. Aunt Julia was very much perturbed, and I am bound to say, most disagreeable. She was indignant at Letitia's qualms, and she told me that I was not only weak but unmanly. She insinuated that we were both candidates for the nursery and unfitted to cope with the problems of married life. She seemed to have no doubts as to the truth of Tamworth's abominable innuendo, and, to cap it all, she opined that it was a good thing we had at least one friend who seemed to be sensible and dignified. Letitia was almost in tears. I felt that I positively hated Aunt Julia. There is no use prolonging the story. The bolt from the blue fell. The blue had seemed so emphatically blue, and the bolt had been so invisible! It made matters worse. "I shall have to speak to Olga," said poor Letitia, in the train on the way home; "I see that there is no other course to pursue. It seems ten thousand pities to nip the poor girl's affection for us. I dare say she is at the window, awaiting our arrival. And I must greet her with an odious catechism." There was nobody at the window, however. The blinds in the drawing-room were down, and the aspect of the house was _morne_--which is the best adjective, though French, that I can think of. We rang the bell, and, after a pause, the door was opened, and we went up stairs. At the door of our apartment, instead of Miss Allallami, we encountered a strange woman in a white apron. For a moment we stood, direly perplexed. "Mr. and Mrs. Fairfax?" asked the strange woman, with a pleasant smile. It was extraordinary. To be asked at one's own door if one were oneself! We entered without replying. Letitia kept well in the background. I imagined that we should find our apartment looted. Perhaps the strange woman was--looting! The drawing-room was untouched. Everything was in its proper place, not an ornament missing; not a gewgaw disturbed. The woman was still smiling. "I congratulate you, Mr. and Mrs. Fairfax," she said with a Finnish intonation. "You will be glad, I know. It occurred yesterday, and it was too late to telegraph. Olga--" "What about Olga?" cried Letitia. "Go on," I commanded imperiously. The strange woman simpered, and looked down. "Olga," she murmured, "Olga has twins--two of the sweetest little babies, a boy and a girl. One she is going to call Archie, and the other Letitia. Oh, she is as well as can be expected. She--" I looked round quickly, the extent of the calamity breaking in on my dense brain. I turned to Letitia. She had fainted--on the tiger-head. CHAPTER XVI I should like to drop this episode, without further comment, where I left it at the close of the last chapter. Personally, I hate dotting i's and crossing t's. An interrogation mark always seems to me most satisfactory--as delightful as the after-theater supper for which somebody else pays. Still, I realize that I am in the minority; that the majority cries for the comfortable adjustment of odds and ends, without any strain upon the imagination. I must therefore, put the finishing touches to the "incident" of Olga Allallami. The odd thing about Letitia's behavior was that her affection for Miss Allallami evaporated so quickly that it made me wonder if my wife could possibly be fickle. It was, however, the twins that settled Letitia. I feel convinced that had cook been guilty of one mere child, Letitia's sweet womanly nature would have remained sympathetic. The dual blow infuriated her. She thought twins vulgar and most unrefined, and could not bear to discuss them. Perhaps it was just as well. Had Letitia continued to "feel as a sister" toward our recalcitrant cook, things would have been very disagreeable, and the indications were that Olga, with one child, would have been allowed full scope. As it was, we simply abandoned our apartment. We inflicted ourselves upon the long-suffering Aunt Julia, in Tarrytown, and left cook and her brace of children in our home until such time as they could leave it. We learned that Miss Allallami's husband--for she was, indeed, a wife--had been employed in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and had returned to Finland to make a home for his little Olga. She, anxious to earn a few pennies--honest or otherwise--had remained behind, until she felt competent to join him. "It's a mercy she's married," I said as I heard this, but Letitia's joyous assent was lacking. "Oh, I don't know," she remarked immorally; "it wouldn't really matter. If she had been respectable enough to have had one little son, or one little daughter, I should have asked no questions." Miss Allallami's kindly and amiable nature had helped her cause. There had been method in her affability. She had "used" us, so to speak, and Letitia felt quite embittered about it. She declared that she was losing all faith in human nature. It would henceforth be impossible for her to attach herself to anybody. It was enough to sour a seraph, she said. She had given real affection to Miss Allallami, and her reward had been--screaming twins. It was maddening. So irate was Letitia, that I nearly pleaded poor Olga's cause. "The poor woman herself did not anticipate twins," I said weakly. "Nonsense!" declared Letitia scornfully, "I'm convinced that she _knew_. These Finnish women are so crafty. No, don't argue with me about it, Archie. I'm quite ashamed of the episode. It makes me feel degraded, and I shall never like our apartment again--never. And yet I was so certain of Olga's loyalty!" "You--you can't say, dear, that she isn't loyal. She is merely--" "That is enough, Archie," said Letitia, doing like the heroines in the novels, and "drawing herself up to her full height." "That is quite enough. You are singularly lacking in fine sentiment. I dare say that you and your charming Mr. Tamworth--never let me meet him again--will have a high old time chuckling over my misfortune. Yes, I call it _my_ misfortune! Let us for ever drop the abominable subject." And we did. Of course, it had to be threshed out before final abandonment, with Aunt Julia, in whose house we stayed until cook's departure. Mrs. Dinsmore, I grieve to say, was not sympathetic. Some people seem to find tragedy amusing, and Aunt Julia was one of them. She said that she should never be able to take us seriously, and asked us to excuse her mirth, _after_ she had indulged in it. As we were literally sponging upon her, we were obliged to be indulgent. It was not a pleasant time that we spent in Tarrytown. Aunt Julia offered to return to New York and help Letitia in her housekeeping, until such time as we were "suited"--an offer that Letitia courteously but spiritedly refused. We found that Miss Allallami's gratitude had taken the form of a photograph of the twins, neatly framed, and hung in the drawing-room. It was a little delicate attention that we failed to appreciate. Letitia tore down the picture and threw it from the window. It was the last allusion to Olga. We seldom mentioned her case again. We were at home once more, as unsettled as though we were just beginning our domestic struggles, and we were determined to face the situation boldly. "I've been thinking, dear," I said one evening, as we sat dining in the least objectionable restaurant that I could find, "that perhaps if we offered fabulous wages, we could secure a fine cook. Suppose we try it. You know, Letitia, I always put a little money aside for a rainy day, and it seems to me that if I refrain from saving and invest it all in cook, we should be more comfortable. It can never rain worse than it is now doing." Letitia looked radiant. I felt I had made a hit. "You are really a sensible man, after all, Archie," she declared (I could have dispensed with the "after all"). "If you don't mind paying the same wages to cook that she would get with Fifth Avenue millionaires, naturally we can not fail. Moreover, she will have an easier time with us than with them, as we don't give dinner parties or sit down thirty or forty to a meal. It's really a lovely idea. And--and--don't you think, dear, that saving is awfully provincial and petty, and--and--Brooklyn?" I hadn't looked upon it in that light. Tamworth had advised me to put something aside, as he said that married men were bound to provide for emergencies. I had done this systematically. In the meantime, we were literally "pigging" it. Surely this was the rainy day. "Why should a young, brainy man like you," continued Letitia, beaming fondly upon me, "worry himself about what _might_ happen in the distant future? It seems so--so--little, doesn't it, dear? It is so like the little Brooklyn clerks whom you see trundling baby-carriages and rushing away to savings banks with a five-dollar bill. It is really unworthy of the author of _Lives of Great Men_. The thrifty always seem to me so namby-pamby." "You are overthrowing the doctrines of domestic economy, Letitia," I said with a smile. "Well, let's do it, Archie. If we can be comfortable, we might as well overthrow things. Oh, I suppose thrift is all right. 'A penny saved'--and all that sort of thing! Let's have a culinary student in the kitchen, and pay her a handsome salary. We shall be happy, and when we are happy, we prosper. That is surely so. We send forth radiant thoughts, and they all work for us. I believe in that. Oh, won't it be fun, Archie?" There seemed to be logic in this idea. What's the use of saving and being uncomfortable to-day, when we may die to-morrow? We might better invest our money in the certainty of a blissful present, than hoard it in the uncertainty of the future. So we carefully knocked down the elaborate maxims of the "institutions for savings," and felt relieved. "It is absurd," said Letitia, as she dipped the tips of her fingers into a rosy finger-bowl, "all this business of economy. Suppose you _were_ incapacitated, Archie, do you imagine that I am quite helpless? I could teach Latin, and there must be hundreds of girls just crazy to read Ovid in the original. Or, I could learn typewriting, or bookkeeping, or other ugly but profitable accomplishments. We should never starve. I could even go on the stage, if _everything_ else failed." "Only if everything else failed, my dear," I suggested. "Oh, of course; as the very last thing. So many girls do it. If they are too silly to teach, or too unsympathetic to get married, or too lazy to learn anything, they go on the stage, and get lovely salaries. I shouldn't select the life of an actress, but if--" "We won't discuss such possibilities," I said firmly. "It is unnecessary to do so. My _Lives of Great Men_ is nearly finished. It is the sort of book that every home will be obliged to store. There are seventy million people in the United States. Let us put down seven million homes, at a low estimate, and there you are with seven million books yielding us a royalty--not including the sales in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia. The prospect is really alluring." "So it is, Archie," she assented jubilantly, "and here we are, discussing saving, like Sarah Jane and her young man. It is very narrow of us. I forgot your book. And yet literature is most profitable, and such a necessity! The other day, down-town, I saw the complete works of Shakespeare--plays and poems--bound in leather for fifty cents." "My book will cost five dollars," I said rather hesitantly. "Well, dear, it's so much _newer_ than Shakespeare," she asserted triumphantly. "I don't suppose that it will last quite as long--I could not say that, Archie--but while it is selling, it may as well sell for five dollars. Nobody ever thinks of competing with Shakespeare. I'm very proud of your _Lives of Great Men_ though you have never read any of it to me." "Perhaps that's why," I suggested, temporarily moody, as most genius is said to be. "You're a silly boy, and I'm not going to flatter you by telling you how much more interested I am in Archibald Fairfax than in William Shakespeare. You shall read me your _Lives of Great Men_ as soon as we have our cook. In the meantime, I'm so glad you have decided not to save. Let us eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die. It is hard to do those three things, at a seventy-five-cent _table-d'hôte_." "And the 'to-morrow we die' doesn't seem so hard?" "No, it doesn't, really, Archie. The way we are living now is enough to drive anybody to pessimism. It is unnatural; it is wrong; we will spend our money, and be happy." There is one certain thing about New York. You can get anything you want in that "tuberosity of civilized life" if you have the wherewithal, or, in other words, "the price." It is what Europeans call the middle classes that suffer the most in the American metropolis, whereas in other capitals, it is they that are the happiest. The extremely indigent and the inflatedly wealthy never complain of New York City. It is the neither-rich-nor-poor who find life difficult and are unable to gratify the innate need for refinement and comfort; who discover that graceful life is a knotty problem, and that the art of "keeping up appearances" with moderate means is well-nigh impossible. New York is the Mecca of the rich and the poor; it is the Hades of the unhappy medium. Those who are just "comfortable" in London, are "just uncomfortable" in New York. So we set about the discovery of an expensive cook. We pored over the advertisements in the daily papers, in a determined hunt for something eminently first-class. Letitia rather fancied an "Alsatian chef" who had been with the "finest families in Europe and America," and modestly asked one hundred dollars per month, but I felt suspicious. "You remember, dear," I said warningly, "that Mrs. Potzenheimer came or did not come from the Vanderbilts. At any rate, she said she did. You probably recall the fact that the Duchess of Marlborough fancied her cooking." "Let bygones be bygones," remarked Letitia solemnly. "Archie, don't be mean." The "Alsatian chef," according to his plaintive call in the newspaper, announced that he was "first-class in every respect," but I couldn't bear the idea of a man hanging around all day in our cramped and modern apartment. It would probably be most embarrassing. "You know, dear," I said, "you were very fond of asking the others to do odd jobs, and you couldn't possibly request an Alsatian chef to wash out a few handkerchiefs." "I hope I understand the etiquette of the arrangement as well as you do," she retorted, quite vexed. "I am perfectly well aware that a chef wouldn't do anything of the sort. I believe, Archie Fairfax, that I am quite able to cope with these matters." We learned, after incessant study of the advertising columns, that the expensive cooks emphasized "desserts, soups, jellies" in their list of attractions, and that the others never mentioned them. Jellies seemed to be the great distinguishing mark--the boundary line, as it were--between the expensive and the non-expensive. This was invariable. No sooner did a cook say "jelly" than she demanded treble wages. It seemed as though, to be luxurious, one must dote on jelly. "And yet," said Letitia ruefully, "I really don't care very much about it. I'd much sooner engage a woman who understood eggs _à la reine_. Jelly seems to me so insipid. I don't suppose that we should want it once in a blue moon. All these women harp so on jellies, don't they, Archie? There must be some reason for it. I was never brought up to consider jellies as a great accomplishment." "I suppose they really mean 'jellies' to cover all sorts of sweets," I suggested. "You see, dear, pie sounds rather vulgar. In this city, nobody thinks anything of pie. Undoubtedly, however, the woman who announces her accomplishment in jellies intends to imply pastries of all kinds." "It may be so, of course. But as we are not quite sure, that question must be asked. It would be dreadful if we engaged a cook, at prohibitive wages, and then found that we had to live on nasty, wobbly jelly. Besides, it sounds so invalid-y to me. I'm so accustomed to taking jelly to anybody who has a cold, or who happens to be out of sorts, that I really dislike it. Why, only yesterday, Archie, I sent some jelly to Mrs. Archer, who has a stiff neck." "Here's one," I said, bringing my index finger to a sudden standstill in its chute down the advertising columns; "'elegant pastries; table decorations a specialty; French dishes, jellies.' You see, she ends at jellies, but does not begin with them. She has been 'with the finest families in the Faubourg St. Germain, Paris.' She is 'reliable'--and odiously expensive." "That doesn't matter, we have decided," chirped Letitia. "We may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. I rather fancy that advertisement, dear. Let me see: 'Address, Madame Hyacinthe de Lyrolle." "We could call her Cynthie," I ventured in a light mood. "Please don't jest. We can be frivolous, later on--when we are not hungry. The advertisement reads very well, and in a case like this, even if she can't do all that she announces, it won't matter at all. For instance, we may find that 'table decorations a specialty' is just a pure ghost story. I shouldn't care a bit; should you? As long as the table is neatly set, with a pretty plant, a table-center, and delicately folded serviettes, the other decorations wouldn't matter in the least." "There you are right, Letitia," I assented. "I don't suppose that she would place a bottle of Worcestershire sauce in the middle of the table as a decoration, like--" "You are always dragging up those detestable women whom we are trying to forget," asserted Letitia petulantly. "Do, for goodness' sake, forget the past. We are going to place things on a different footing. We are going to engage the best and be satisfied with the merely--better. I think I shall go and see Madame Hyacinthe de Lyrolle. The 'elegant pastries' capture me. I'm so sick of bread pudding and baked apples. Her name, too, is reassuring. Of course, you know--or should know--that a French cook is the most economical person on earth. It is a science with her. What other people throw away, she makes into _ragoût_, or _croquettes_, or _blanquette_, and other delightful things all ending in 'ette'." "I believe they call it hash, here," I interrupted. "What they call hash here," said Letitia spitefully, "is just a horrid resurrection, not fit for plow-boys. The French housewife cooks very differently. Why, even the _pot au feu_ is delicious, and what could be cheaper? She serves an exquisite soup, and she offers the meat with which it was made in an appetizing way. We shall certainly save money in one direction, Archie, even if we spend it in another." "You seem thoroughly to understand the art of cooking, Letitia," I said admiringly. "I wonder that you never went in for it." "I understand it theoretically," she said sedately. "It is, of course, a science, and if I had to begin life again, I would go to Paris and study. Girls go there to cultivate the voice; I'd go to cultivate the stomach. But it is too late now. I admire the French knack and system. They produce masterpieces of gastronomic skill at a moderate cost. Here they throw away the delicate parts of meat and fish because they don't know what to do with them; there, they use them artistically and economically." "If you really think that Madame de Lyrolle can do all this--" "I'm sure she can, Archie. I feel it intuitively. Of course, she asks a fearful remuneration, but as long as she thinks she can get it, you can't blame her for asking. At home, she might probably be an ordinary cook, getting nothing a month, with privileges; here, she would probably be a wonder, and is entitled to high wages. Please--please let us have her, Archie." "And the Alsatian chef?" "You provoking boy! You know he didn't appeal to you and that you brought me round to your way of thinking"--oh, Letitia!--"and I gave in, as I always give in, because you are such a hopelessly spoiled person. You know you thought the Alsatian chef wouldn't wash my handkerchiefs. Well, though I shall never ask her to do so, I'm sure that Madame Hyacinthe de Lyrolle would gladly help me. Anyway, I want her. May I--may I--go and see about it?" Letitia spoke wheedlingly, with the old charm that I had never been able to resist. It was as potent as ever. "One thing, Letitia," I said, "what _could_ we call the woman? It would be so embarrassing to address her as Madame Hyacinthe de Lyrolle. Imagine calling out, 'Please come here, Madame Hyacinthe de Lyrolle, I want to speak to you.' You must arrange to address her as Mary, or--or Sarah." "Don't be silly, Archie. You are straining at trifles. We can call her Madame. It sounds French-y, and impressive. That is the least of our difficulties, and not worth considering. To-morrow morning, I shall go and interview her, and--you noble boy--I know that you will never regret the expense. You like to see me happy, don't you?" "Oh, Letitia, have I ever--" "Of course. I know you do. I've never doubted it for one moment, even with our darkest cook. And I _am_ happy at the mere idea of Madame Hyacinthe de Lyrolle. Say you consent; say it as though you meant it; say 'Letitia, please, like a dear, go and engage Madame Hyacinthe de Lyrolle, for I want her!' Say that, please." I said it. There was even a tinge of emphatic yearning in my voice. The outsider, could he have heard me, might have believed that life, without Madame Hyacinthe de Lyrolle, would be a blank. Strangest thing of all--I quite believed that I wanted her. Letitia's influence was hypnotic. CHAPTER XVIII There were evidently difficulties in the way of the immediate annexation of Madame Hyacinthe de Lyrolle. When I reached home next evening I found Letitia in cookless solitude, a dinnerless dining-room, and the indications of another restaurant repast. My wife looked somewhat excited, as though she had much to tell me, and I felt that, perchance, the course of French cook did not run smooth. I had arrived at the stage when nothing connected with the domestic life could surprise me; I was persistently prepared for the worst, and quite disposed to regard the best as a luxury. Possibly in time I should even grow philosophic--not that I owned the temperament of the confirmed philosopher. When we were seated at table, in our selected restaurant, and I had chosen the lesser of two evils--or of two soups--Letitia's pent-up excitement burst forth, and--well, conversation did not flag. "It is going to be so very much more expensive than I thought, Archie," she said. "I called upon Madame Hyacinthe de Lyrolle to-day, and found her exceedingly distinguished--I might almost say haughty. She spoke English as well as I do, and I could scarcely realize that she was French. Her aptitude for languages, she told me, was quite remarkable. Everything seemed satisfactory, until--until she asked about--about the butler. Had we a reliable butler? She considered a docile, reliable butler almost indispensable. I know I turned scarlet, for I felt quite humiliated as I had to inform her that we didn't keep a butler." The soup had made its appearance, but Letitia was too engrossed to touch it. I was not. "She smiled rather provokingly," continued Letitia, "but told me not to be discouraged. She has a nephew, a respectable young man, born here, whom she has been coaching in the duties of a butler. She suggested that he would be of great value and comfort to us, as, being her relative, she could work with him in perfect harmony." "But you know, my girl," I interrupted rather testily, "that we couldn't put up a butler. There isn't space in this apartment, unless--unless he roomed with his aunt." "I warn you, Archie, that if you begin to be funny--" "I can't think of any other way in which we could accommodate a butler. A nice Japanese screen in his aunt's room--" Letitia was a lovely subject to tease. She took everything to heart so promptly! It seems an undignified confession to make, but my little wife never amused me more than when she was in rebellion at what she called my levity. After all, a man must have a little fun in the dreary drabness of his cookless home. I continued heartlessly: "If you don't like that idea, I have another. Rather than deprive Madame Hyacinthe de Lyrolle of the services of her dear nephew, we could arrange things this way: you could room with Madame and I with the butler. You must admit, dear, that there would be no glaring impropriety in that." This time Letitia smiled and was saved. She made strenuous efforts to remain vexed, as I could see, but in spite of herself she was moved to a suspicion of mirth, and it did her good. "Don't be a silly boy," she said, "and reserve your ingenuity. We need it in serious and not frivolous matters. I told Madame de Lyrolle that we occupied an apartment, which was not particularly spacious, and that much as we should like to employ her nephew, we could not possibly see our way to do so. She was disappointed. She then asked me about first maids, and second maids, and--and oh, Archie, I felt disgraced. I made up my mind to abandon Madame de Lyrolle." Letitia paused, and remembered her soup. She toyed with it nonchalantly. "She spoke quite kindly," resumed Letitia. "Of course, she said, we must understand that she never left her kitchen. As for doing anything else but cooking and decorating the table in case of dinner parties--that would be impossible. She insisted that she was an artist; that she had real temperament; that she was occasionally inspired, and then again depressed." "That means a depressed dinner from time to time," I muttered gloomily. "No," said Letitia firmly, "not if surrounding conditions are auspicious. I quite understood her sentiments, Archie. They were not at all unreasonable. The artistic temperament does not lurk merely with third-rate actors or fourth-rate novelists. A French cook may assuredly possess it. She told me that in moments of mental exaltation she has given to the world dishes of wonderful import. For instance, on one occasion when her mood was dreamy and mystic, she made a _salmi_ of black game that the editor of the Paris _Figaro_ said was worthy of being dramatized. Oh, she talked a good deal, and in a high-falutin' strain, and I liked her, but--" "Did you engage her?" "I am coming to that question. Finally, she told me that as we hadn't a maid, and as she positively refused to appear in the dining-room herself, she could merely suggest that if I engaged her, I also engage a bright young girl, now living with her, a niece--" "She seems to have quite a family!" "I saw the girl, who was named Leonie. She was as pretty as a picture. One could imagine her as the French maid in comedy--one of those dainty little things that wear fluffy white aprons, and occasionally do a dance. You know, Archie. The girl seemed quite willing to join her aunt, but she asked a large salary--more than we paid any of our cooks. So, you see, I didn't like to engage Madame de Lyrolle without first consulting you. It will be much more expensive than we thought. In addition to Madame's exorbitant salary, there will be Leonie, and--and--do you think we could afford it?" It is horrid for a young husband to admit to a young wife that there is anything in the world he can't afford. At least I felt that way. Letitia waited almost piteously for my reply, and I detested the idea of doing the poor. She looked unusually pretty, with her flushed face and her red, emotional lips. Moreover, the dinner was hateful, the cooking immoral, and the surroundings impossible. I was tempted, and--I fell. "We might try it, Letitia," I said. "You know my book is nearly finished, and in a home that _is_ a home, I fancy I can do so much more." "Oh, thank you, Archie, thank you. You are a good, brave, noble boy. I am convinced that you won't regret it, and we shall be so cozy and happy. I think you are right. We might as well enjoy life while we are young. I dare say that when we are old we shan't mind bread pudding, and baked apples, and mutton stew, and--and--hash." "I shall always loathe hash," I asserted vehemently. Our dinner ended delightfully. We could not eat the food, but the meal was intellectual rather than material. We chatted affably, and no outsider could possibly have imagined that we were married. Our manner was that of the newly engaged. "Of course, Madame de Lyrolle is Americanized," said Letitia. "I could see that. In Paris, cooks, chambermaids and nurses receive just about half the wages they get here. Servants in France are quite oppressed. They don't know the meaning of a 'Sunday out.' They are dependent upon the caprices of Monsieur and Madame. And I dare say you know, Archie, that even in the most luxurious French households the most rigid economies are practised. Somewhere I read that the refuse that leaves a French kitchen would starve a small family of rats; which is perhaps the reason why there are so few rats in Paris." "It seems almost a pity that she _is_ Americanized, don't you think, dear?" "Oh, she could never _quite_ lose her French training, Archie. Perhaps she is Americanized only in the matters of salary and privileges." "At any rate," I said, "she won't bathe in the kitchen--or anywhere else. French people rarely do." "They have been brought up to dislike water," remarked Letitia reflectively. "In Paris, even little children are taught that it is impure and are coaxed to drink claret. Probably by dint of harping on the impurity of water, they come to the conclusion that it is rather silly to wash in it. Don't you think so, Archie? It seems to be a trait of the national character. Yet they are a cleanly race. They don't advertise their ablutions as we do. In England and America we talk so much about cold tubs, and the latest improvements in bathroom apparatus! It is quite indelicate when you come to think of it." So Letitia went down next morning to secure the Gallic prize with its Gallic appendage. Madame de Lyrolle had laughed at the idea of references. She had lived with a Wall Street broker, she told Letitia, with an air of such importance that it was clear she regarded him in about the same class as the president of the French Republic. She had cooked for the French embassy in Washington, and for various people who had honored places in "Who's Who?"--to say nothing of "What's What." Most of her references were traveling in Europe. They summered in England; autumned in France; wintered in Egypt; and sprung--I mean springed--in Germany. They were Americans, but there never seemed to be any part of the year that they dedicated to their own country. They had European resorts for the four seasons of the year. Had there been a fifth, they might possibly have deigned to spend it in America, but in default of a supplementary season, they could not be reached in the land of the free and the home of the brave. The arrival of Madame de Lyrolle in our modest homestead seemed to be somewhat revolutionary. At any rate, immediate joy was lacking. The first view I obtained of Letitia, after the advent of the lady from France, convinced me that something had crushed her. Her feathers were ruffled, so to speak. She was sitting pensively in the drawing-room, in an evening gown, and although her heart's desire, and her heart's desire's niece, were in the kitchen, there was no exultant satisfaction visible upon Letitia's mobile features. "My girl!" I cried, astonished. "I certainly expected to find you in the seventh heaven!" "It's nothing, Archie," she said, with an evident effort, as I sat down beside her; "I am just depressed. I spent the afternoon in the kitchen with Madame de Lyrolle, at her request, and--and--I feel about an inch high. I feel cheap, common, and--if you don't mind my being colloquial--like thirty cents." She really looked the part. My little wife seemed to have shrunk most positively. "Madame de Lyrolle and Leonie," she began, "are both so impressive that they awed me. The former begged me courteously to explain things to her in the kitchen before she assumed the reins of management, as she called it. Naturally I complied with her request, although it seemed to me a bit unnecessary. The first thing we did was to go through the table appointments, and--and--you can't imagine how--how humiliating it was." "Humiliating!" I exclaimed indignantly. "And why, pray?" "Well, Archie, Madame de Lyrolle appeared to think them inadequate. There are so many things that we lack. One of her first demands was for the asparagus tongs, and--and--when I told her that we had never used any, I saw her smile and--glance at Leonie. And Leonie smiled, too, and--and then they both smiled together. She asked me if we had individual asparagus holders, and--and--then there were more smiles." Letitia's face was burning, and she was apparently re-sampling her humiliation. "After that," she continued, "she asked me where we kept the grape-scissors, and again I had to admit that we had none. 'Oh,' she remarked quite scornfully, 'and how do you separate grapes? You don't pull them apart?' Of course we do, Archie, but I dreaded to say so. I think I stammered, and once more I saw her exchange glances with Leonie. I could have burst into tears when she asked for the orange cups. It was absolutely galling. Honestly, I thought they would have left the house immediately when I confessed to the absence of orange cups. I might have committed a crime, Madame de Lyrolle looked black, and Leonie pursed her lips. Madame said that never--never during her artistic career (those were her words) had she affiliated (her word) with people who failed in the matter of orange cups." "I wouldn't use them," I interrupted angrily. "Thank goodness, while I have my health and strength, I can peel an orange with my good old fingers and a knife." "Hush, dear. After the orange-cup episode, she seemed to regard me with a sort of tender pity. I'm sure she considered me a Goth, and--and--nobody has ever done that before. To be pitied by one's cook! Oh, it was horrible. When it came to the silver, which as you know, dear, is mostly quadruple plate--silver in name only--I was reduced to a sort of pulp. She and Leonie examined it critically, positively looking for marks on it, and I should have hated to hear their comments in my absence. 'I have never served food in anything but sterling silver before,' said Madame. 'Just imagine my _salmi_ of black game, in an _entrée_ dish of quadruple plate! Why, the delicacy of the flavor would be ruined. I'm afraid I shall not be able to achieve a _salmi_." I began to experience a slight symptom of Letitia's humiliation, as I realized that while I might one day be a successful author, I could never--never--be a Wall Street broker! "I told her," Letitia resumed, bitterly mortified, "that we would try to do without the _salmi_. We would endeavor to drag on a wretched existence without black game. I meant this for sarcasm, but it didn't take. Her lip curled. 'As Madame wishes,' she said contemptuously. Of course, some of our silver is not quadruple plate--the salt-cellars and the cruets. I longed for her to reach them. Would you believe it, Archie, she was not interested? Artists, she said, did not sanction the appearance on table of salt-cellars or cruets. Food should be properly seasoned before it left the kitchen. Salt-cellars and cruets belonged to the barbarous table notions of uneducated English and Americans." "Really, Letitia, I don't think we can--" "Don't, please. It is all right now. I'm just telling you what _did_ happen, so that you can sympathize with me. I've been through it all--alone. She then told me that while salt-cellars on a dinner table were unnecessary, _bonbonnières_ filled with dainty candy were rigidly called for. When she saw our _bonbonnières_, she and Leonie turned quietly aside. You remember, Archie, they were theater souvenirs that Aunt Julia gave us. One celebrated the one hundredth performance of _The Masqueraders_, the other the fiftieth performance of _The Girl With the Green Eyes_. I really felt quite abject. I--I--positively longed for--for Mrs. Potzenheimer." Poor Letitia! It was cruel. Gladly would I have spared her such chagrin. "I don't think she meant to cause me pain," she went on. "She is merely swell, and she seemed to wonder why we, who lacked these luxuries, had engaged so expensive a culinary artist. Perhaps it was natural, but--I really couldn't put myself in her place, though it must have been much more comfortable than _mine_! I was glad when the silver inspection was over. It wouldn't have been so bad if I had been alone with Madame, but Leonie was there, like a hateful echo, and that made it so fearfully trying. Next, I had to introduce her to the glass. Oh!" I dreaded to hear about the glass. What would she think of my tumblers, at ninety-six cents a dozen, bought to replace the wedding present that Potzenheimer and Birdie had smashed between them! "She asked to see the cut-glass," said Letitia, and this time there was a wan smile on her lips. "I felt that she would indeed be extraordinarily clever--in fact, _clairvoyante_--if she _could_ see the cut-glass, for I couldn't. There was the decanter, that was cut-glass only as to the stopper, and there was the salad-bowl, that is merely near-cut-glass. When she saw the tumblers"--I winced--"I really thought that she would throw them out of the window. 'Even _vin ordinaire_ would be tasteless in them,' she said. 'I should like to see the best tumblers, those that you use for dinner parties, and on state occasions.'" Letitia came to a standstill, as though she had at last reached the meeting of the waters and was pausing before tackling the conflict. "Just then, Archie, it occurred to me," she said slowly, "that nothing--nothing could save us but a good, big, carefully conceived, well-directed, artistic, whopping lie!" "That's right!" I cried viciously. "I forgive you beforehand." "Why should we be intimidated by a cook?" she asked oratorically. "I asked myself that, and I could find no answer. Here we were about to ruin ourselves to give this woman employment, being cross-examined by her, as though we were prisoners at the bar. Moreover, it was a case of two to one--she and Leonie against me! So I remained quiet for a few moments, as I came to the conclusion that nobody could cope with all this but a really beautiful, unabashed liar!" "I can't bear to hear you talk like that, Letitia," I said, my viciousness vanishing, as I realized the full force of Letitia's irreligious resolution. "I suddenly turned upon her," said Letitia, not heeding my plaintiveness, "in a well-assumed fury. It was a condition that I found no difficulty in simulating. 'I have listened to your impertinent catechism for a long time, Madame,' I said, 'and now it's my turn. No doubt you are surprised to find our appointments so meager. The fact is, that as we don't know you, and as your references are all at the antipodes, we have sent all our valuables to my aunt's country seat in Tarrytown. The gold dinner set, that we use every day; the antique silver table ornaments, the priceless salad-bowl, punch-bowl, and tumblers; the wonderful knives, and the marvelous forks--all have gone to Tarrytown, because we don't know you, there to stay until we do! You see, we have been victimized by cooks, and though an artist, you are yet a cook.'" "Good!" I exclaimed triumphantly. "Bravo! You're a genius, Letitia. It was a masterpiece." "I must confess that after my brave words, I felt terribly frightened. I experienced a sort of reaction that made me quite weak. I thought that this would end all the roseate allurements of Madame de Lyrolle, and that she would instantly quit. I felt positively harrowed, as it occurred to me that we should have to begin over again, and that all our efforts had gone for nothing. Would you believe it, Archie? She was as meek as Moses, while Leonie absolutely fawned!" "You clever girl!" "As for instantly quitting, she seemed to fear that I should request her to do so. 'I meant no impertinence,' she said quite humbly, 'and I think you were right about the gold dishes. One can't be too careful.' The gold dishes caught her, Archie. I felt almost sorry that I hadn't studded them with a few diamonds. But one can't think of everything! Aunt Julia's country seat, in Tarrytown, also made a hit. It seemed to shed a reflected luster upon us. She asked several questions--oh, very deferentially--about it, and I could see that we had gone up in her estimation. As I am really anxious to keep her, Archie, and to be comfortable for a little while, I thought it advisable to be vulgarly ostentatious on the subject of Aunt Julia. I told her that my aunt was fabulously wealthy, and hated the idea of our living so unpretentiously in New York, in a small apartment. I put it all down to you, dear. I cooked up a story of a _mésalliance_. I had married you against Aunt Julia's wishes. You were poor and of rather common parentage, but I loved you, I said." "You needn't have lied _quite_ so artistically, Letitia," I said, rather hurt. "Isn't it quite true that I love you?" she asked lightly. "What an ungrateful boy! So long as we have a good cook, what matters anything? I began quite to enjoy my own romance. I felt like the Lady of Lyons, and nearly told her about the horrid home to which you took me. I said that the idea of a French cook was all mine. You had literally starved me, because you have been brought up to think corned-beef and cabbage the truest luxury." "I think it _most_ unnecessary, Letitia," I said emphatically, "to make me out a boor--to paint me in such colors to a cook. I should never have believed--" "I _had_ to put finishing touches," she declared. "Don't you see, Archie, that it was important to follow up the gold plates with something dramatic? What does it matter to you how she regards you? As long as she is a good cook and behaves herself, surely you don't care what she thinks of you. Moreover, though she _may_ look upon you as low, she considers _me_ as a sort of Lady Clara Vere de Vere, most aristocratic and well worth working for. Isn't that enough, Archie? Oh, dear, I _wish_ I could induce you to be awfully coarse and disgusting, before her! It would be such a help." I rose, and walked away, thoroughly put out. "You are carrying the joke too far!" I said sullenly. "Oh, what a silly, sensitive boy it is!" she sighed. "And oh, how it cares what even its cook thinks of it! I did all this for your sake, Archie. You can imagine that I shouldn't select a low husband from choice. I merely thought that it made the whole story hang together. That's all. Of course, you can be yourself if you prefer it. Madame de Lyrolle can always think that I am refining you, and that you are gradually acquiring decency." "I won't have it, Letitia," I interrupted furiously; "I don't see the fun. I positively refuse to be belittled in my own house." "Archie, you're almost too silly to kiss," she said, kissing me, "and I don't think you deserve to be kissed, either. Here have I been cudgeling my brains all day to devise means to retain a cook that will please you! I have been bullied, and humiliated, and forced to lie, and falsify, and perjure my soul. And, after I have been through it all, and emerged safely on the other side, weak, but victorious, you sulk, because--because--you don't see the fun! There _is_ no fun to see. Nobody knows that better than I do. Come, sir, apologize at once, to your lawful wife, or I shall immediately go and tell Madame that you are of noble birth, and that I've been guying her--that you are really quite obstreperously decent. Come, Archie, your apology, please." I was slightly mollified, but--"Remember, Letitia," I insisted, "I decline to be low." She laughed tantalizingly. "You needn't be _too_ low," she said, "just a little bit 'off' will do. Even if you only promise to tuck your table-napkin under your chin and look greedy, I shall be satisfied. Apologize to me, or off I trot to Madame--" and she rose to go. "Come back, Letitia," I cried. "You are really intolerable. I apologize. I apologize. You're a martyr, and I--I--" "You're a respectable coal-heaver, dear," she said with malice and a kiss. CHAPTER XVIII "And they lived happily ever after!" If the advent of Madame de Lyrolle had only been the cue for that sweet, old-fashioned culmination--that dulcet, though generally inartistic surcease from trouble! But, of course, it was not. My readers will probably say that sheer dramatic justice cries out for our speedy chastisement. Alas! Sheer dramatic justice did not have to cry long. It pursued us relentlessly, raveningly. We were innocent as Pompeii confidingly couched beside the dread Vesuvius. This is not the place to say that we deserved it. Surely, if Letitia and I have made one solitary friend during the progress of this "sad, eventful history," he, or she, will refrain from the luxurious "I told you so!" I am not comparing Madame de Lyrolle to Vesuvius. No. I have never been vicious, and I should scorn to do so rank an injustice to--Vesuvius! There are methods of confounding, more subtile than that of a swift and merciful eruption, methods that--er--"get there just the same." Alas! Also, _misericordia_! Thanks to Letitia's iridescent mendacity, our household effects were no longer bones of contention. Madame gracefully condescended to live with us and be our cook, and Leonie, equally gracefully, deigned to support the culinary star. They both persisted in regarding Letitia as a darling of fortune, marred. And I was the marrer. Leonie, who waited upon us, paid me but scant attention and looked upon me as of no consequence. If I addressed her, she replied as to one of her own kind; in fact, it occurred to me that I was considered as a wickedly lucky mortal, who, by some freak of fate, had been plucked from a butler's life to desecrate that of the husband of an American heiress. Madame asked for half her salary in advance. "We do not know you," Letitia had said to her. The inference was that she, on the other hand, did not know Letitia. She was not taking any risks. Although our gold dishes were at Tarrytown, Madame cautiously decided to assure herself that some of the metal of which the dishes were made remained in New York. "Leonie is to do the marketing for Madame," said Letitia, on the morning of the first day; "and I think that arrangement very satisfactory. I have supplied her with money--more than she could possibly need, for I did not want to seem 'close'--and at the end of the week we can go over the accounts. It all seems delightful, doesn't it, dear?" It did, indeed, and our first dinner confirmed our sensation of pleasure. There was no deception. We began with a _purée mongole_, and proceeded with frogs _à la poulette_. Dainty little lamb chops, _à la maintenon_, roast grass plovers, a salad that was nearly poetic, and a delicious sweet, known as cream _renversée_, made us feel almost too nice to be at home. As for the after-dinner coffee, it was--sepia ecstasy. Perhaps we _were_ fastidious; undoubtedly the dear folks who say that they revel in plain food delicately prepared in pure water, will sniff at this program. Still, I should not like to set it before them with any hopes of finding remnants. Those dear folks who love plain food! The grapes are so sour! Leonie almost threw the food at me, but she served Letitia most obsequiously. I was glad to see my little wife so well taken care of, but I must admit that I made frantic efforts to redeem myself in the handmaiden's sight. I tried to indicate, unostentatiously, education and refinement. Weak I may be, but I hated to be regarded as a vulgarian. The maid was a great restraint upon us. There she stood at the back of Letitia's chair like a Nemesis. We had to restrict our conversation to glittering generalities. She drank in our words, unbudgingly. Her eyes were riveted on Letitia's plate, and my wife was plied with food unceasingly. I am sorry to say that _I_ had to ask for some more of the cream _renversée_. In fact, I had to ask twice, before I got it, and then it was pushed rather rudely before me. "It is like a dream," said Letitia purringly, when we were alone in the drawing-room. "You see, nothing was over-stated in the advertisement. It was all quite true." "I only wish we had a theater on, or a party to go to, or something to do," I said longingly. "It seems wicked to sit still and read, after a dinner like that. We ought to move--stir--walk." "Of course it _would_ be nicer," acquiesced Letitia. "That will come later. I dare say that Madame will spur us to sociability." We sat, and read, and digested. Letitia seemed drowsy; I felt heavy, and disinclined for exertion. The richness of our repast was undeniable. Letitia's remark that it was like a dream was not irrelevant, but the dream was a nightmare. A more awe-inspiring night I have never spent. I dreamed that Gerda Lyberg was holding me down and throttling me, while Mrs. Potzenheimer and Birdie Miriam McCaffrey did a cachucha apiece on my body. I awoke, dripping with perspiration, to find Letitia agitatedly pacing up and down the bedroom. "Nothing--nothing would induce me to go to sleep again, Archie," she said excitedly. "Don't ask me to. I shall sit up for the rest of the night. I dreamed that I went in the kitchen and found Madame de Lyrolle boiling Olga Allallami's twins!" Breakfast was so elaborate that it made me late for the office. There were eggs, _à la bonne femme_, and porgies, _à la Horly_. Madame had also prepared pigs' feet with _sauce Robert_, which we were obliged to refuse. In fact, most of the breakfast was left. There was enough for at least ten people, each with a healthy appetite. But, as Letitia said, nothing would be wasted. These French cooks understood the science of economy. It was one of their finest points. The second dinner was an artistic continuation of the first. It consisted of broiled trout, sweetbreads, and ptarmigan. Madame had made pathetic inquiries about the wine-cellar, and Letitia, in humiliation, had been forced to tell her that the wine-cellar was under the bed in the spare-room. There we kept a few bottles of claret and a case of champagne. We were not collectors. We knew very little about wines, and did not belong to the class that discusses a vintage as though it were a religion. Madame's artistic nature needed a stimulant, and Letitia told her to take what she required. Owing to the location of the wine-cellar, it called for no key. Our appetite was not as keen on this second occasion, though we did fair justice to the bill of fare. It was most ridiculously generous. "It is a pity that we don't _know_ anybody," said Letitia discontentedly; "it seems so greedy for us to sit down alone to such a dinner. We should appreciate it so much more if we had company. Don't you agree with me, dear? Positively, I feel gluttonous. I should enjoy people sharing this with us. We might ask Aunt Julia, or Mrs. Archer, or--" "Tamworth?" "Tamworth!" cried Letitia angrily. "No, Archie, that man shall never enter this house again. If he came to dinner, Madame would surely have triplets--or something horrible. Tamworth is unlucky. I look upon him as responsible for Olga Allallami's--" "Letitia!" "You know what I mean. I associate him with our first knowledge of that disaster, and--I shall hate him for ever. So don't suggest Tamworth. No," she said querulously to Leonie, who was hovering over her with cabinet pudding, _à la Sadi-Carnot_. "I can't really eat any sweets to-night. I am sorry, because the pudding looks so nice. Perhaps it will do for to-morrow." "Madame is joking," Leonie murmured deferentially. "The pudding would be impossible to-morrow." Rather than sit still and read again, we went to a music-hall and walked there! It was not the music-hall that we wanted, but the exertion of getting to it. Anything rather than another series of nightmares. "Madame is certainly a wonder," said Letitia, as we listened to a blatant comedian holding up the stage. "It is marvelous how these French women can make a little money go a long way. Just think of the perpetual surprises she offers us, and of her knowledge of the market. While her wages are quite ridiculously high--I wouldn't dare to discuss the matter with Aunt Julia--you will find that in the long run we shall not be out of pocket, owing to the French system of economy." "The table is certainly most liberal," I remarked, "though nothing ever seems to return. I noticed, dear, that at each meal we have something new." "That is her art," said Letitia delightedly. "Constant surprise--that is the maxim of the French cook. I forgot to say, dear, that I gave her twenty-five dollars for kitchen utensils. She wanted _sautoires_ and _casseroles_, and dozens of things we have never had. Of course, this expense can never occur again. She laughed at our old tins, and declared that they would ruin anything." The week passed uneventfully--unless we may consider our meals as events. We lived on the "fat of the land" in bounteous doses, and accepted it as our merited portion. Madame seemed to awaken from her artistic lethargy, and once or twice her temperament surprised us. She and Leonie waxed so lively in the kitchen that we were startled. Then again, they seemed to quarrel rather vociferously. Letitia asserted that she heard Madame exclaim on one occasion: "_Mon Dieu!_" but I could have sworn that it was "Hully Jee!" It seemed absurd to mistake one for the other. Probably I was wrong, though as Letitia was expecting French she would be likely to imagine that she heard it. Why, however, should Madame de Lyrolle of the Faubourg St. Germain, cry "Hully Jee"? Then we realized that corks popped noisily and uncannily, and the inference seemed unmistakable that either Leonie, or Madame, or both, had been groping under the bed-wine-cellar. However, we did not mind that. The artistic temperament yearns for an occasional vinous coaxing. Letitia talked persistently of the joy of surprise. That surprise is, nevertheless, not inevitably joyous, was a fact rather rudely borne in upon us. The day of reckoning came, and the "fat of the land" stared us starkly in the face. The evening that I usually dedicate to the signing of the tradesmen's checks arrived. We had dined particularly well, the main feature of the dinner having been squabs. We ate two apiece, and four were removed intact--mute testimony to the French system of economy. "I can't think _how_ she does it!" Letitia had said, in ecstatic appreciation. "We might really be millionaires." We might be, but we were not. Yet, I had no premonition of evil as I nonchalantly took up the butcher's bill. When I saw it, I uttered an exclamation, and Letitia came running to my side. We looked at it, and rubbed our eyes. We looked again, and rubbed them some more. "It must be a mistake," Letitia said, paling. The figures were fat and solid. The amount set forth would have maintained an ordinary family of seven or eight, in comfort, for a month. A horrid sensation of bankruptcy overwhelmed me. Then I looked at the grocer's bill. It was four pages long, and the "demnition total" quite appalling. I could scarcely believe the testimony of my own eyes. The gentleman who supplied the fish appeared to be equally rapacious. Was it all a hateful conspiracy, a fell plot to effect my ruin, or--or was it French economy? "We have eaten ourselves to the poorhouse, Letitia," I said, with a sinking heart. "I--I can't pay these bills." "Oh, they must be somebody else's bills," murmured Letitia, "they--they can't be ours." "They can't be anybody else's," I protested, in the calmness born of despair. "Nobody could stand them. Rockefeller doesn't live in this neighborhood. Carnegie is miles away. They _might_ be Carnegie's, if he were a neighbor. As it is, my girl, I'm afraid they are ours. Yet how _can_ they be?" "Of course we have lived well," said Letitia reflectively, "we have lived _very_ well. We can't even put it down to waste, because French people never waste." "And yet"--I tried to fathom the mystery--"there has always been three times as much as we could eat. The other night, we had six ptarmigans before us, and we ate one apiece. The inference is, Letitia, either that Madame and Leonie have appetites like cart-horses, or that they throw the things away." "A French cook throws nothing away," persisted Letitia almost defiantly. "That I know." "You had better ask Madame about it," I said doggedly. "Perhaps she can explain." "That is surely your privilege, Archie. You pay the bills; I don't." "Since you have told her that I am just a poor hanger-on, and that you are the money end of the concern, the affair this time, my dear Letitia, is yours." At present, I flattered myself I had scored one. Letitia had painted her position so luminously, and had etched me in in such somber tints, that I felt master of the situation. Perhaps it was cowardly, but as I had the name I might as well have the game. Although I had said little about the contemptuous treatment I had received from Leonie during the past week, I had felt it acutely. Like the Spartan boy, I had suffered in silence. Being American, and not even a little bit Spartan, this had been difficult. Letitia was weeping silently, and I felt like a double-distilled brute. "I hate to talk to an artist in that way," she said sorrowfully. "Her temperament will be shocked. You can well imagine, Archie, that such a woman will simply despise us." "But where's the French system of economy?" I asked wildly. "Where's the _pot au feu_ with the delicious soup, and the daintily served meat? You said that rats would starve on the refuse from a French kitchen. Why, according to these bills, the refuse from ours would have fattened the entire menagerie at Central Park and the Bronx, including the elephants, tigers and bears." "Now you're exaggerating," asserted Letitia plaintively; "you're making things out worse than they are. You're--" I could not afford to argue. Facts stared me in the face. I had a small balance at the bank, which I should over-draw if I made out checks for these bills. The savings I had accumulated were drawing interest in the growing but by no means adult publishing house of Tamworth and Fairfax. I could borrow from Tamworth, of course, this week, but next week loomed up hideously as a sheer impossibility. Something must be done at once. I rang the bell. "We must talk it over with Madame," I said desperately. The kitchen, some distance away from the drawing-room, seemed strangely close. We could hear Madame and Leonie laughing weirdly, and though we both of us liked merry moods, this particular brand of mirth grated. There was a pause after my ring. Then Leonie appeared, wiping her mouth, and I told her that I wished to see her aunt. "I--I think--she's gone to bed," the maid remarked, after a reluctant moment. "Why, I just heard her laughing," said Letitia, surprised. "Send her in at once, Leonie." And as the maid departed, Letitia added: "She may be unprepared for the drawing-room." This was undoubtedly true. Madame came in a moment later, also wiping her mouth, and with her face wreathed in smiles. Her hair was disheveled and her dress disordered. She might have been rolling on the floor. Her look was so strange, her gait so unsteady, that Letitia instinctively clutched my arm. Thereupon, Madame de Lyrolle fell promptly over the tiger-head, and--unlike many who had suffered a similar fate--she lay there, laughing hilariously. "And me a lady, too!" she exclaimed, pealing with mirth. Outside the room stood Leonie, apparently deeply agitated. As she saw her star prone on the best rug, and heard the bacchanalian laughter stertorously proceeding from her lips, she entered hastily and approached her relative. Letitia still held my arm in a grip, and my own emotions were--well, mixed. "Oh, come away, Aunt Delia," pleaded Leonie; "come away. She's not feeling good to-night"--turning to Letitia--"she's had toothache, and swallowed some of the whisky that she took to ease the pain. It must have gone to her head. Oh, Aunt Delia, get up. That ain't no position for a lady." Leonie burst into tears. The position was too much for her, especially as Aunt Delia gave unmistakable indications of a fondness for red garters with saucy bows on them! "Why do you call her Aunt Delia?" asked Letitia sternly, evidently in the belief that the Faubourg St. Germain had no dealings with Delias. "Because it's her name," replied Leonie sullenly. "That's what I call her. She was Delia O'Shaughnessy before she married that blooming old French chef on the French ocean steamer--blessed if I don't forget its name. She's always Aunt Delia O'Shaughnessy to me." Letitia covered her face with her hands. Madame O'Shaughnessy de Lyrolle began to kick until the bows on her garters fluttered. Still she laughed, loudly, shockingly, unendingly. "Was she ever in France?" I asked, mortally pained. "Not on your tintype!" declared the maid in disgraceful colloquialism, as she advanced to the tiger-head and tried to raise Aunt Delia's two hundred pounds. "New York's good enough for Aunt Delia; ain't it, Auntie? She in France! And with that husband! Nobody would want to go to a country that turned out specimens like that. But he taught Aunt Delia how to cook--coached her for years--and don't you forget it. She got that much out of him." "Now I understand her extravagance," cried Letitia, as though suddenly enlightened. "Now I see it all. He was a cook on some ocean greyhound, and she--" "Extravagant!" cried Leonie insolently; "I like that. Aunt Delia has cooked for the best people in this country. She has never _yet_ hired herself out to cheap skates. Say, Aunt Delia"--frantically endeavoring to pierce that lady's dulled comprehension--"they're complaining. We're extravagant. They want good things, but they hate to pay for 'em. They eat like pigs, and then kick at the bills." "Come away, Letitia," I said nervously. "You go to your room, and I'll see to this." "I will not leave you, Archie," she declared, though she was trembling; "I--I'm not afraid." "Won't either of you help me up with me aunt?" Leonie asked, her anger rising and an unsteadiness of gait, similar to that of the good lady on the tiger-head, manifesting itself. "Call yourselves human beings? Standing there and letting a lady suffer like this! You and your gold plates!" (tugging at Aunt Delia). "You and your rich Tarrytown aunt!" (pulling down Aunt Delia's refractory dress). "I don't believe it. I don't believe your stories. We've got our money, anyway, and you can fish--fish--fish!" With each "fish" Aunt Delia raised her limbs, and her dutiful niece pressed them discreetly down. Madame O'Lyrolle de Shaughnessy still continued her ebullition of laughter. She was deaf to her niece's entreaties. She had certainly come to stay, and the tiger-head appeared to suit her artistic tastes. "You will have to call in a policeman, Archie," said Letitia, in a low voice. Whether it was the innate sympathy of anything O'Shaughnessy for New York's finest, or whether Letitia's words acted as a stimulant to the lady's artistic temperament, we shall never know, but at the mere utterance of the word "policeman" Aunt Delia decided to quit her recumbent position, and with a look of offended dignity, and Leonie's assistance, she rose to her feet. "I'd like to see the po-lees-man who'd touch me," she said in deep contralto tones, with a lost chord in them. "Me for me bedstead, Leonie, old gal. Come, give us a hand." Then, with a solemnity that some people might consider humorous, she added, turning to Letitia: "Leonie's a good girl, and a comfort--hic--to her old aunt. Sorry to trouble you. Don't mention it. It's a pleasure. As my husband used to say--hang him!--'_Pas de quoi. A votre service._' Well, we'll go now, and thank you. So long, for a little while!" Leonie, with an expression of spite on her face that was almost withering, led away the Faubourg St. Germain's caterer. The fumes of wine filled the room and I threw open the windows, heaving a sigh of enjoyment as the fresh air reached us. Letitia's bravery appealed to me, and I complimented her upon her plucky behavior. The reaction had now set in and she was shivering apprehensively. "I don't think I can stand any more of this, Archie," she said weakly. "I--I've reached the limit. This scene was too degrading--too abject--too incredibly vulgar!" "They must leave the house in the morning!" "In the morning!" she cried, aghast. "Why not now? I shouldn't feel safe sleeping with them in the house. They might murder us, or each other." "They won't murder us, dear," I said soothingly, "and if they choose to murder each other--" "The scandal would be too horrible. Archie, let us implore them to go now. Let us offer them money to leave at once." "Money!" I said bitterly. "I'm not made of it, my girl. I certainly can't pay them to get out after having given them so much to come in. They won't hurt us, you silly child. They are just a trifle intoxicated." "A _trifle_ intoxicated! How can you say such a thing? Oh, those red garters--those terrible red garters--those bows--will be for ever in my mind. I can never--never--look a red garter in the face again. A trifle intoxicated! Why, it is in conditions like this that the worst crimes are committed. Let us take the midnight train to Tarrytown." "And leave them here to complete our ruin! No, Letitia. You have been a brave girl throughout this episode. Just be brave for a bit longer. To-morrow we shall see things differently. These women will sleep quietly, and so shall we." "I shan't. I couldn't to save my life. I should see red garters and those awful odious legs. I should hear that laughter. I can't forget it. O'Shaughnessy! Just think of it--the very name that I loathe, too. Aunt Delia! Isn't it wicked, Archie? Isn't it cruel? Ha! ha! ha! ha! Oh, I can't stand it. Ha! ha! ha! ha!" Letitia was in hysterics before I realized it. In alarm, I ran to the dining-room and mixed her a glass of bromo-seltzer, and then ran back and stood over her until she had drunk it. As she grew calmer and an ominous repose took the place of the hysteria, I implored her to try and forget everything until the morning, when these events would seem less awe-inspiring. The riot in the kitchen had ceased. A sound of deep contralto snoring, accompanied by similar music in a tone more treble, was all that we heard. Aunt Delia was evidently sleeping the sleep of the Faubourg St. Germain, while Leonie was still supporting her star. Nevertheless, I locked our door, and Letitia pushed the bureau against it. CHAPTER XIX Our enthusiasm for the alleged joys of an alleged New York home was now decidedly on the wane, and we were face to face with the problem that New Yorkers are strenuously trying to solve: how to live in apparent decency without one. We did not dare, just at present, to do more than reflect upon the intricacies of the enigma. We were, however, disillusioned. The old order of things, to which we still clung, had gone out of fashion, and we began to realize it. Madame Hyacinthe de Lyrolle (_née_ O'Shaughnessy) and her niece left us next day, with the reluctant aid of the police. Their awakening was not that repentant return to the normal condition that we had confidently expected. Madame's temperament was evidently not addicted to remorse. She was inclined to be violent in the morning, and we were roused by the noise of a hand-to-hand conflict between our hired ladies, in which the finger-nails of each seemed to play leading rôles. So I was obliged to telephone for a policeman, who (being named Doherty) seemed a trifle uncertain whether he had been called in to remove Letitia and myself or the Irish Gauls. Apparently he thought that we deserved his attention more picturesquely than they did. A sort of masonic sympathy established itself between Mr. Doherty and Mrs. O'Shaughnessy. Letitia and I felt almost _de trop_--as though we were spoiling sport or playing gooseberry. I managed to intimate to Mr. Doherty, however, that though American, I was still master in my own house. In due course, the policeman and the ladies left. In spite of the distasteful memory of Monsieur Hyacinthe de Lyrolle, I fancy that the _chère_ Madame was not utterly disgusted with the sex to which he belonged. The ensuing week was principally devoted to unexpected payments for unexpected things debited to my account by Madame Hyacinthe. Some philosophic people declare that it is a pleasure to pay for what one has had and enjoyed. That may be true. I will not argue the question. I assert, however, that it is difficult to find pleasure in paying for what one has never had, and that somebody else has enjoyed. An adjacent ice-cream parlor sent me in a large bill for ice-cream sodas that had been served in my apartment, at the rate of two or three times a day, during the sojourn of the French ladies. A drug store plied me with an account for various items, the advantages of which we had never reaped. For ten days I was busy settling up. It was the "joy of surprise" with a vengeance. Madame had thoughtlessly omitted to clothe herself at my expense. A few tailor-made gowns and ruffled silk petticoats would have added to the joyous revelations. "When I read," said Letitia, "of the silly New York women who don't know what a home means, and who offer prizes to servants who keep their places, my blood boils. Prizes to servants who keep their places! The prizes should go to the poor housekeepers who are able to overcome their sense of repugnance sufficiently to admit these creatures into their houses, and keep them there." "The women who talk most about the servant question, my dear," I said sententiously, "are the over-dressed, underfed matrons you see at the lobster palaces, who live on one meal a day, which they take at a restaurant, and spend their mornings in curl-papers and wrappers." "What I can't understand," resumed Letitia reflectively, "is the total disappearance of what we read about as the dignity of labor. Surely, Archie, it has a dignity. Some people must work for the benefit of others. If everybody had to dust, and sweep, and sew, and cook for herself, what would become of all the graces of life, of literature, art, music? I don't see anything so disgraceful in housework. We can't all be equal, can we--except in theory? Why, when you see two people together for just five minutes, you can note the superiority of the one, and the inferiority of the other." I had no desire to be dragged into an economic discussion. My mind was not in a condition serene enough to grapple with it. I had just paid out nearly eleven dollars to the ice-cream and candy purveyor who had surreptitiously cooled Madame de Lyrolle's "innards." "I suppose," continued Letitia, "that the reason New York women look so much nicer than they are is that the poor things have no time to do anything for their own mental refinement. They must eat like paupers, live like laborers' wives, and rely for their only pleasure upon clothes and a nocturnal restaurant. Then they slink back to their joyless 'home' and go to a bed that they have, themselves, made." "Poor souls!" I sighed. "You can't blame them for lack of conversational power," said Letitia, "or for want of internal resources. They can't even have children in comfort. Mrs. Archer told me that when she was first married she was so busy, and so uncomfortable, and so pressed for room, and always without a cook, that she literally had no time to have children. She wanted a little boy, but put off having him until she got a good cook. And as she never obtained the good cook, she felt that she had no right to make a poor little boy unhappy." "Mrs. Archer talks nonsense," I remarked rather severely (I felt it my duty to be severe on this occasion). "I don't see it at all. The comforts of home are even more necessary in case of children. These wretched creatures who masquerade as servants and who detest you simply because you employ them--and for no other reason--are menaces to safety. Imagine children around with the inebriated, incompetent drudges we have had--" Poor Letitia was talking "race suicide" with a vengeance, and I was not inclined to pursue the subject. Cook as an exterminator of the human species seemed too glittering a novelty. Yet there was much common sense in what my level-headed little wife said. "Cook is a tragedy, my girl," I admitted. "The world has had servants for centuries, and the world has progressed. Now that the end of the old régime is at hand and the cook has turned, I can't fancy that the world will be routed. Something new will be discovered, and cook can hang herself. The world must fight its own battles. It is up to the world, and you and I are just atoms." "Call yourself an atom, if you like, Archie," she said, quite hurt, "but leave me out of it. I hate always being looked upon as an atom and I can't endure scientists. Even if we _are_ very petty and unimportant and mere cogs in the wheel, we don't realize it. And if we did realize it, then we should just submit quietly to be ground down and pulverized. I won't be pulverized just yet. And all on account of cook, too!" But there was no doubt at all about it. Our enthusiasm was waning, and though we still decided to play the farce for a time longer, our effort was half-hearted. We realized the gaunt impossibility of the thing. We studied the life that was lived around us--the bleak, inhospitable holes that apparently refined people called home; nooks with chairs and tables in them, ornate, and decorated, but devoid of the subtile quality known as atmosphere; crannies where the married he and she hid their discomforts, and turned a brave front to the world; cold and dismal recesses where the casual visitor was offered a glass of ice-water, and where old-fashioned hospitality was as dead as a doornail; houses, in which, except on state occasions and amid sickening ceremony, bread was never broken, and conviviality unknown; barren kennels, unkempt cages, stark nests, cheerless dormitories! Home, in New York, had gone to the dogs, impelled thither by cook! "Last week," said Letitia, "Mrs. Archer gave a reception. She hired two colored girls and one man for the occasion. There was a whole line of carriages in the street. It was a very nice affair. Mrs. Archer received her guests in a lovely blue silk dress. There were sandwiches tied up with ribbons, delicious _paté de foie gras_, _bouillon en tasse_, ices, champagne, and all the rest of it. There was music and altogether a most pleasing time. We all enjoyed it immensely. Two days later I dropped into Mrs. Archer's in the afternoon. I was dead tired--almost fainting for a cup of tea. I found her in a dirty cotton wrapper, dusting the pictures, and looking odious. I hinted for tea, but it was no good. She had no servant. At last, in desperation, I asked for a sip of water, and she ran and brought it for me--in a teacup!" "A cup of tea is certainly not too much to expect," I murmured meditatively. "The poorest artisan's wife, with seventeen children, and three rooms, could afford a cup of tea," declared Letitia, in pained tones; "but a cup of tea suggests home, you know. Hospitality suggests home. People here have lost the knack of it. These bedizened Jezebels of the intelligence offices have smashed the idea to pieces. One has to set a day for the visitor, and prepare for it two weeks beforehand." "It must be true," I declared. "People don't drop in to dinner nowadays." "They can't, because the host and the hostess drop out--to dinner." It seemed impossible to realize that not so very long ago both Letitia and I had scoffed at the mere idea of the existence of such a thing as the servant question. We had disdained to admit it. We had shut our eyes, and cook had knocked us in the face. We were now as gods knowing good and evil, with more of the latter than the former. Our skittish lives were embittered. The beginning of the end had set in, and the prelude was being played. Yet we frivoled with a cook or two more. Nobody could possibly accuse us of cowardice. Some may say that we were silly (and to these I simply remark: prove it); but cowardly, we were not. We distinctly warded off the time of surrender. We fought to the last finish, until our cook-mangled bodies gave out in sheer inability to cope with the enigma. We secured the aid of an ancient lady, who had first breathed the breath of life in Ireland--a country, by-the-by, that talks eloquently of home rule, and yet kindly sends all its cooks over here. However, Ireland's bitterest foes could wish it no worse fate than the sort of home rule that its own cook-ladies administer. Mrs. O'Toole was sixty years old. She had been a cook, she informed us, for thirty-five years. That time she had apparently devoted to the art of learning how to learn nothing. All she could do was to stew prunes. It had taken her thirty-five years to acquire the knack. I could have stewed the universe in less time. She was most amiable, but had never heard of the most ordinary dishes that the most ordinary people affect. Like Mistress Anna Carter, she had infinite belief in the delicatessen curse--in the cooked-up rubbish that unfortunates throw down their luckless throats--in the instinct that prompts savages to eat earth. We called in Aunt Julia (poor Aunt Julia! I don't hate her nearly as much now!), in the hope that she might be able to teach Mrs. O'Toole a few rudimentary things, and as cook seemed so affable, we reasoned that she would probably be very glad to learn. But, bless your heart, Mrs. O'Toole had a soul above the sordid question of acquiring culinary knowledge. Aunt Julia cooked and Mrs. O'Toole let her cook! "If you will just watch me, Mrs. O'Toole," said Aunt Julia politely, "I'm sure you will be able to make this dish to-morrow." The cook-lady laughed in sheer light-heartedness. "Sure, mum," she said, "I've been thirty-five years without knowing how to make it, and I'm still alive. I've buried a husband and seven children, and have had a good time without all them new-fangled notions." It was hopeless. Mrs. O'Toole hummed _The Wearing o' the Green_ for the sake of her nationality, and took out her knitting. She was most good-tempered and pleasant about it, but she had no yearning to learn how to cook. Yet she must have had a ferociously arduous time in learning how _not_ to cook. She was charmingly familiar with us both--a real good soul with a rooted objection to the kitchen. "Yet some of these silly Guilds," said Letitia, "announce that they are going to teach women how to cook. How can they teach women who won't learn? My opinion is that the Guilds would have much quicker pupils if they promised to teach them how to loop the loop." Mrs. O'Toole was so jovial that I could almost see her looping the loop at Coney Island, and hear her emitting shrieks of Hibernian jollity as she hung head downward in that delightful institution. But I could not--and did not--see her cooking a dinner and laying a table. She went with as much good humor as she came. We kept her in our midst for a month, not because we wanted her for culinary purposes, but because she seemed able to sit in the kitchen, while we went out to dinner. She was both sober and honest, and had probably generally spent an innocuous month in every place. During a service of thirty-five years she must have graced four hundred and twenty places. Admitting, at a low average, three people to each household, she had therefore catered to twelve hundred and sixty appetites! It was an inspiring thought. Mrs. O'Toole's successor was an English lassie. At another time, our spirits would have risen at the prospect of an Albionite--a disciple of a country where servants still exist to some extent. As it was, we were so thoroughly discouraged that we had no illusions--which was just as well, as it spared us the annoyance of having them shattered. Katie Smith had been in the country but three days, but the rapid pace at which she had Americanized was the subtlest sort of compliment to New York City. There was very little that was typically English about her, save a picturesque h-lessness. In return for lost h's she had nothing to offer. Of course, the lack of h's would not have bothered us in the least. Miss Smith was very frank. She had gone wrong "at 'ome," and had been shipped here by her relatives. It was assumed that here she would "go right." We had no objections whatever to her past. Little cared we, in our desperation, for such trivialities as a past. We asked no questions, and were not curious as to her crime. Any old crime would suit us--as long as the criminal herself would let us live in peace. Miss Smith told us--still archly candid--that she had decided to become a cook, because, immediately on landing, she had been told that Americans were in such dire straits for cooks. "And have you ever been a cook?" asked Letitia kindly. "Oh, never," she replied indignantly, in a perish-the-thought tone, "I was a factory lady in the pen establishment of Messrs. M. Myers and Son, of Birmingham. Me a cook! Not I. But, of course, in this country, I don't think I shall mind it, as the wages are high." Months ago, we should have politely indicated the exact location of the door. Now, we were battered and pulpy, and remonstrance seemed absurd. Again we sent for Aunt Julia (on second consideration, I really like Aunt Julia!) and introduced her to the latest specimen of the genus "clean slate." My heart, at first, "kind of" went out to Katie Smith, because she had made pens, which are so necessary to me. But Letitia remarked, rather brusquely, that pens are not puddings, and that although they were _my_ bread-and-butter, she had no desire to eat them with hers. I am bound to say that Letitia's moods were becoming most variable. They were as unreliable as April weather. I suppose that the constant surprise was rather wearing on the poor girl. Miss Smith's career was so short that I might almost call it instantaneous. After having cooked us one alleged dinner, which tasted very much as pens _au gratin_ might possibly taste, she asked Letitia if she might go into the garden, to get the air. Letitia thought that she was joking. The garden! Perhaps, like the wine-cellar, it was under the bed in the spare room. Letitia laughed, but Miss Smith was serious. "I couldn't stay in no place where there wasn't no garding," she said. "My! Ain't you cramped up for room, with a kitchen like a blooming cubby-'ole, and all the places so 'ot that one can't breathe. And no garding! What do you do to get the air?" "You can put on your things and go for a walk, Katie," said Letitia good-naturedly. "Some of the girls in the house get the air, as you call it, on the roof. Would you like to go up on the roof?" Miss Smith was much amused. "Crikey!" she cried, "me on the roof! No, thank you, mum. I should get giddy, and that wouldn't do. I'm sorry, Mrs. Fairfax, but I must 'ave a garding, for the sake of me 'ealth. There must be a place where I can stroll of an evening." So Albion's little lassie left us, and we wired to poor Aunt Julia to tell her that she need not bother to come as there was nothing to come for. We were not more dejected than usual, for we had lost hope, and had ceased to garner expectations. "Perhaps if I asked our landlord to knock down a few of his houses and plant a garden, we might induce Katie to stay," I suggested sardonically to Letitia. "He owns three or four houses on this block. A very nice garden could be made. I wonder if she would like an old rose garden or if she would be satisfied with any old garden? He might even put in an orchard for her." Letitia sighed. "Yes, dear," she said. "I feel I ought to laugh at your humor, but you'll forgive me, Archie, won't you, if I fail to discover its value? Katie was really not a bad sort, and it is annoying to think that just because we hadn't a garden--" "But she couldn't cook, my girl!" "Of course she couldn't _cook_. You expect too much, Archie. If she had known how to cook she wouldn't have applied for the position. But she knew how to open the front door, and yesterday, when I asked her to bring me a glass of water, she was able to draw it for me. That, it seems to me, is quite an accomplishment for a New York domestic." One other attempt we made to stem the tide. Mrs. Archer, who sympathized sincerely with our plight and had grown accustomed to her own, which was similar, had heard of a nice fat orphan from an orphan asylum, who had taken the notion to "live out." (The expression "taking the notion" belongs exclusively to the New York hired lady. It symbolizes her state of mind as new ideas dawn upon it.) So we let in the nice fat orphan, and put her in the kitchen. She was a simple, unsophisticated thing, who had been rigidly educated in an excellent Roman Catholic institution, in blissful ignorance of the world in which she was expected to earn her living later. She burst out sobbing when she saw the lonely kitchen, and refused to be comforted. She had always had young girls around her, she said, and had never been separated from orphans. Letitia told her that she was an orphan, and--as an extra inducement--that I was an orphan. The girl looked at her in blank incredulity and with an expression of dismay. Her idea of orphans was a crowd of little girls in uniform, marching around, two by two. She could not do without this. She had never done without it. She cried so bitterly, that Letitia was touched. "Poor thing!" she said gently, as she told the story to me, "I only wish we knew some nice young orphans, Archie, to sit in the kitchen with her. But, of course, we don't. It really grieves me." Letitia irritated me. How _could_ she be gentle, and kind, and tender, confronted with all these wretched subterfuges and false pretenses? "I might go out and kill a few gentlemen and ladies," I suggested savagely; "and ask their orphans to play with this girl. It is the only way out of the difficulty. Really, Letitia, you are getting quite childish. I have no patience--" "That is quite true, dear. You certainly have no patience. This girl is most respectable. She is too young to drink, too religious to steal, too friendless to roam around--" "Too idiotic to be useful--" "In time, she might be useful," Letitia asserted, though with doubt in her voice. "She is an innocent little thing and I feel sorry for her. I can't help it; I do. She is so helpless! She doesn't even know her surname. She calls herself Rachel, pure and simple. She is not sure how old she is. I hate to let her go, Archie." "You needn't mind it in the least," I said; "she can walk right out of this house and get any position she wants. She can call herself a first-class cook and people will be glad to get her. When she sees that there are no orphans attached to the ordinary kitchen, she will accustom herself to the idea. You need have no scruples, Letitia. It is the poor devils of men who deserve sympathy in New York. If a woman suffers, it is because she is lazy and worthless." "How hard-hearted you are!" "No, I'm not. Never will I give a cent in charity to any begging woman. It is the men who have a hard time in this city. They can have any help that I am able to give them. But to the women I say merely: Learn how to do housework. Take a lesson or two in cooking. Study the home, and you can get good, comfortable positions as long as you want them! Any woman, begging in the New York streets, while thousands of unfortunate people clamor to give them good wages, should be arrested as a useless encumbrance. Those are my sentiments." "I dare say you are right, Archie," said Letitia, evidently impressed by my fiery eloquence, which bubbled forth, almost unpunctuated. "It seems to me that most of these women would sooner roam the streets in rags, and herd together in tenement houses like cattle, than do the work for which they should be fitted. It is wonderful." "Not wonderful," I said, "but deplorable. It is the spirit of independence gone wrong--turned against itself--pushed in a painful direction, like an ingrowing toe-nail. A system of education that educates in the letter and not in the spirit, is responsible. The mistaken idea of universal equality is the root of the evil. Shakespeare was no better than the man who blacked his boots; Goethe no bit superior to the women who cooked his hash. Delicate truths like this are instilled into the minds of the people. Silly socialistic men and women who have no use for either the comforts or refinements of life, are the criminals. Idle people who want to turn epigrams find this a fertile theme. Why, Letitia, do you remember when we went to see _Candida_ the other night, we noticed that even a man like Bernard Shaw was not averse from making one of his characters inveigh against the crime of keeping servants? It was Morell, I think, who was indignant that the young poet's father kept so many servants. 'Anyhow, when there's anything coarse-grained to be done,' he said, 'you ring the bell, and throw it on to somebody else. That's one of the great facts in your existence.' A man like Shaw, who lives in refinement, with a delightful home, neat-handed servants, a charming wife, and all the rest of it, can not resist the opportunity to hammer at a scheme that he must know is absolutely necessary." "You will talk yourself hoarse, dear," said Letitia. "Of course, Archie, it is a showy theme. People who use it can always be sure of making a hit with the gallery. Teaching equality is delightful entertainment for those who could never possibly be equal--who are literally born unequal. Why, Archie, some people, through no fault of their own, are born idiots. How could they possibly be equal to those who were not so born?" "In the meantime," I continued, "those who are born idiots avenge themselves on society by going out as cooks. It is their little scheme for getting even with the world. This has given cooks a bad name. Nobody cares to be in the same class as the idiot." "I'm only sorry," murmured poor Letitia, "that I learned Latin instead of cooking." "But my girl," I said soothingly, "I did not intend to marry a cook, and I would not have you changed in one single particular." She kissed me. "Just the same," she went on, "I'm sorry. It is an art. There are the arts of Cooking, and Higher Cooking, and Scientific Cooking, that are gastronomies worthy of study. I realize that, now it is too late. Willingly would I substitute Brillat-Savarin for Ovid, if I only could! It is unfortunate." "My dear," I said, and I drew her to my knee to break the news as easily as possible, "we have come to the end of our tether. As the children say when they have finished playing, we must 'bosh up.' We must make the best of a bad job, and, living in New York, do as New Yorkers do. In fact, our housekeeping must end." "Oh, Archie!" she cried, her eyes filling with tears; "do you--do you really mean it?" I bowed my head. It was inevitable. CHAPTER XX Letitia sat on an empty barrel in the carpetless drawing-room; there was desolation in her heart, chaos in mine; the tragedy of finality in the atmosphere. Strange men in linen overalls, ponderous boots, and crackly voices, creaked around, blithely disrespectful and lugubriously light-hearted. They whistled. One was named Jim; a second, Sam; a third, Joe. They had no surnames and needed none. They had come to put our poor little hollow mockery of a home into the New York receiving vault of all domestic remains known as the "storage warehouse." Sometimes they sang, as their work of devastation proceeded. They were merry souls. Occasionally they suggested the flowing bowl as an incentive to higher effort. Every day they took the corpses of homes that had succumbed to the "storage warehouse," and their sentiment was dead. Homes died so quickly in New York; their hold upon life was so frail; their assertive powers so numbed; their prospects of longevity so pitifully small! If New York furniture could think, its reflections would busy themselves with that time of passive pension and surcease from dusting, in the storage warehouse! If tables and chairs could speak, what would they not say of a fate that nipped them in their very bud and shipped them off, in arrested development, to a long vacation? Letitia sat on the empty barrel, a veritable picture of woe. Her dress was bedraggled and her hair unkempt. She had a smut on the end of her nose and it did not worry her. It was one of those smuts that it was quite impossible to overlook--large, black, and deep, intimating that it would spread, if touched. Her eyes were fixed upon Jim, and Sam, and Joe. She saw them through the dust, darkly. "Patience on a monument," could have taught my poor Letitia many useful things! "_If_ you please, mum," said Jim, pausing in a cheery rendition of _Laughing Water_ to confront Letitia; "I'll just start packing the china in that barrel, if you'll kindly get down. Sorry to disturb you, mum, but we'll try and get it done before we go to lunch." Lunch! Letitia shuddered, but she jumped from the barrel. Sympathetically, I appreciated her feelings. The word lunch sounded so dismally cruel. These men could eat horrid, stout, meat sandwiches and drink stupefying beer in the very midst of preparing us for the storage warehouse! This lunch seemed more of an outrage upon respectable sentiment than did the medical man's snack between the acts of a _post-mortem_ examination. Letitia was dry-eyed until they took up the tiger-head, over which we had fallen at so many merry, unexpected moments, and began to fold it up. Then she burst into tears and ran into the dining-room, where I followed her, slowly, and mournfully. "Don't, Letitia," I said, feeling ridiculously oppressed. "Why should we mind? New Yorkers don't think anything of all this. They rather like it. They look upon it as emancipation from care and worry. Don't cry, my girl. See, let me wipe that smut from your nose." "No, you s-shan't," she sobbed, warding me off. "If I ch-choose to be s-smutty, I--I w-will be s-smutty." I sat down and beat a nervous tattoo on the last table that had the last cloth upon it. The last cruet, containing the last vinegar, and the last mustard stood on this last table that had the last cloth upon it. I allowed Letitia to have her cry out. When she had finished and had dried her eyes, the smut had expanded to such an extent that portions of it were smeared upon her cheeks, chin, and lips. Under the circumstances, there was bathos amid the poor girl's pathos! "I can't realize it, Archie," she said funereally, when her equanimity was restored. "I can't grasp the fact that this is really the end, and that to-night--to-night, my poor boy--we shall be lodged in a family hotel, so-called, I suppose, because none of the guests have families and the proprietor wouldn't take them in if they had!" "I dare say, dear, we shall be very comfortable." "Parlor and bedroom elegantly furnished; bath; generous _cuisine_; fine music; view of Central Park and Hudson River! I have learned it all by heart. Nothing of it belongs to us, Archie. It is the sort of thing one looks at for two weeks in Paris, or Rome, or Berlin, but to regard it as permanent is too dreadful. And the starchy, artificial women strutting into the dining-room, wearing all the clothes they can get on to their backs, with their cheerless husbands in tow, eating the dinners that they haven't ordered and grumbling about them; then, trotting away from the dining-room, back to their silent rooms, there to wait until it is bedtime." "You can't possibly know, Letitia," I said, "as you've never lived in one of these places. You are morbid, and a bit unreasonable." "Oh, I've met people who _have_ lived in them," she retorted, "and who have liked it. They had nothing to worry about and nothing even to think about--except how to kill time. A friend of Mrs. Archer's told me that the favorite topic of conversation was the food. Was the meat of the best quality? Were the vegetables fresh or canned? Was the table as bountiful this season as last? Most of the people, it seems, grow tired of the food and go to other restaurants in despair." She paused, racking her brain for more torments and apparently taking a keen pleasure in torturing herself. Yet we both knew that it was inevitable. We had discussed the matter into shreds and argued it into tatters. Still, there was a sort of luxury in this grief. "I can see myself a year hence," she went on contemptuously, "going to flashy restaurants with you, and--perhaps, Archie, stealing spoons and forks, and bringing them home--I say 'home' but I mean 'family hotel'--as souvenirs. Mrs. Archer told me that all these women do that. I think it loathsome and detestable, now, but I dare say that I shall be exactly like the other women, as I am going to live in exactly the same way, for exactly the same reason." "You will never descend to that, my girl," I said solemnly. "How do you know?" she asked perversely. "I dare say we shall be so frantic for something to do that we shall look upon this kind of petty theft as sport--just as some people regard fishing. Of course, we shall. I imagine I shall feel proud of myself if I have successfully sneaked a sugar-bowl, and I can picture your joy at landing a silver soup-tureen! Oh, it will be exciting. We shall come to it; see if we don't." "Please--please don't talk in that way, Letitia. Yesterday you were quite resigned and even happy. I can't bear to see you in this mood. We both agreed that the family hotel was the only hope. We were driven to it--absolutely impelled to it. I think it is the packing that is upsetting you." "Sorry to trouble you," said Joe, poking his head in at the door; "we've finished the parlor, and are now going to start on this room. We've left two chairs in the parlor for you to sit on. Sorry to trouble you." Poor Letitia gave way again, as she saw our little "drawing-room" completely denuded. Nothing was left. Gone were the pictures, the ornaments, the tiger-head, the Indian cabinet, the what-nots and shelves, the footstools and plants. Barrels, crates, bits of wood, nails, old newspapers, straw, littered the room. It was the abomination of desolation. Letitia sat and wept on one chair. I took the other and closed my eyes in rueful meditation. Before my mental vision a procession of our destroyers passed mockingly. I saw Anna Carter, Mrs. Potzenheimer, Birdie Miriam McCaffrey, Gerda Lyberg, Olga Allallami, Madame Hyacinthe de Lyrolle, Leonie, Katie Smith, Rachel, and--could I ever forget that wistful, winsome face?--Priscilla Perfoozle. They seemed to glare at me revengefully, as though their aims had been accomplished, and their fell projects crowned with success. Then they formed a ring around me and danced in fiendish abandon. Each appeared to wear a badge on the left side of her bodice, just over the heart, and I could read the legend, "Death to the Home." The sight was ghastly. They grinned from ear to ear, in precisely the same way, and I was surprised to notice that their black dresses, heavily trimmed with crape, were precisely alike, as though they were all members of some devilish sisterhood. I believe I tried to open my eyes; my heart was beating wildly; I could feel the perspiration streaming from my face; I heard myself groan. "Archie!" cried Letitia, at my side. "What _is_ the matter? My poor boy, you have been asleep, and you must have been dreaming--at this time of day, too! Oh, you poor thing, you feel it all even more than I do. How selfish I am, after all--thinking only of myself. It is wicked of me and ungrateful. After all, what does anything really matter, as long as we have each other--you and I--and our health and our strength, and"--with a smile--"the price." Her words fell sweetly upon my ear. It was good to know that I had been nightmaring in the daytime, and that the fiendish sisterhood was intangible. "Cheer up, Archie," she went on, "we were both silly, gloomy things, and there is no reason why we should feel so oppressed, is there? As you say, it is this packing that has upset us. Packing is a horrid institution, anyway, even when one is going away for pleasure. I always feel sorry to leave any place, even if I hate it; don't you, Archie? I guess that we are both alike, and that we weren't built for such an unsentimental place as New York City." "We've nearly finished the dining-room," said Sam, looking in upon us suddenly, "and we'd like to bring a few of the things in here, if you wouldn't mind stepping into the bedroom! Sorry to trouble you, mum!" In a less remorseful frame of mind, we were driven to our little bedroom, as yet untouched. Letitia made a brave effort to remain calm. I could see that she was biting her lip, and I appreciated her determination so thoroughly that I made up my mind to do all I could to steer clear of further pathos. We sat on the bed. "I read this morning, Letitia," I said hurriedly, "that a bill has been introduced into the Assembly for the protection of homes from the unfit servants that are supplied by intelligence offices. It is asserted that women who should not be permitted to come in contact with the family circle are sent out. Strong arguments were made, and--" Letitia smiled in spite of herself. "It is amusing," she said. "Why bother about abolishing bad servants when there are no others? It is wonderful how people can interest themselves in that side of the case, when it is the other that is responsible for all our troubles. However, I suppose they need their little pastimes, even in Albany, and the uninitiated might think, when they read about it, that a bill to abolish bad servants would help you to get good ones, which is, of course, idiotic, as there are none." "Of course you are right, dear," I said, glad to see that I had roused her. "Anyway," she continued, "most people don't want homes and have forgotten what they are like, so that there is no need to feel too regretful. Unfortunately, the real nuisance is that when we're old and have grandchildren, we shall never be able to treat them in the good old way. Grandpa and grandma will be in furnished rooms and the old homestead will exist no more! Perhaps, after all, the home is just a relic of barbarism. Even grandchildren, however, are going out of fashion. New York women are too young to have them, and they have lost the art of growing old. Fancy a New York grandmother in a cap, knitting, with her grandchildren at her knee! No, Archie. She prefers yellow hair, a blush (supplied from a nineteen-cent box) upon her cheek, and a pneumatic figure pumped up around her poor old bones, to the ancient poetic notion." "It is the spirit of progress." "Yes, dear, it must be. Grandma is a giddy young thing and not a bit disturbed when grandpa is gathered unto his fathers. When that happens, she very often marries a pretty little college lad, who was in long dresses when her first grandchild was born. And she takes him to live with her in the family hotel and provides for him generously. And when she really can't live any longer--she would if she could--she dies and leaves him her cash. Dear strenuous young-old thing! One can't help admiring this wonderful tenacity." "You and I are horridly old-fashioned, Letitia." "And we _must_ reform," she declared emphatically. "It can't go on any longer. To us, New York seems funny, doesn't it? And the complicated relationships are so peculiar. An old woman (I beg her pardon, I mean a woman who, years ago, would have been old) and her daughter, think nothing of marrying brothers, and becoming all sorts of impossible relations to each other. Even that most hackneyed of all comic institutions, the mother-in-law, is a light and airy creature in this country, and has no rooted objection to being sued by her own daughter for alienating the affections of her own son-in-law." Letitia's exaggerations made me laugh. But it did her good to think them up and I made no protests. I was glad to see that she was herself again, and that the nerve-racking noise of the packing no longer disturbed her as acutely as it had done. "These family hotels simplify things, of course," she said. "They do away with all fuss and feathers. A man takes an elegantly furnished suite, and just asks in a wife! An old lady engages a handsome apartment and fishes up a husband to live in it with her. The _ménage_ starts immediately. No furnishers, and decorators, and upholsterers, and servants are necessary. Monsieur and Madame are at home instantly. In the old days, the establishment of a home meant everything. Now it is established almost as easily as it is broken up." "We're ready for the bedroom, now"--Joe appeared again--"and if you wouldn't mind stepping into the kitchen! Sorry to disturb you, mum!" There was nothing pathetic about the kitchen. The sight of the kitchen certainly awakened no regrets. The things were all packed, but we gazed stolidly around us, at the place that had made home-life impossible. "The poor still have their homes, Letitia," I said, "and the working people have not yet experienced all the signs of the times that you mention." "They will come to it," she declared--and I couldn't help smiling at her earnestness; "they are just waiting. Perhaps next century there will be no work-people. The trades-unions are doing their best. You wonder how I know all these things, Archie. Yes, you do; I can see it in your face. Well, I'll tell you. For the last month I have been reading nothing but these subjects. I haven't touched Ovid or Cicero. I don't believe I ever shall again. I am so fearfully interested in a condition of society that votes all labor a nuisance and consigns the 'sweat of the brow' to the luxury of the Turkish bath." "To think that cook has led us to this!" I murmured. "Cook is the all-pervading evil, Archie. She is the outward manifestation of this spirit of unrest. Mrs. Potzenheimer is but a type; Birdie Miriam McCaffrey is merely symbolic; Madame Hyacinthe de Lyrolle is simply--" "Unfit for publication, my dear," I interposed, and we both smiled. The rays of a gentle optimism were beginning to soothe us, as we realized our own non-responsibility in the matter of Fate, personified by Cook! At any rate, she had left us together. She had been powerless to separate us. * * * * * It was over. We stood in the street and watched the last relics of our little home, as they were placed in the storage-house wagons. They stood on the pavement for rude little boys to stare at, awaiting the helping hands of Jim, and Sam, and Joe. The Indian cabinet seemed to blink in the sun, as it rested on the sidewalk, preparatory to its journey. "Poor thing!" said Letitia, with a little gulp, as it was finally hoisted into the wagon. "It was only meant to be ornamental. It tried hard. It did its best. It stood by us, Archie, as long as it could. I hate to think of it, locked up in seclusion, with nobody to look at it." "There's our bureau!" I interrupted, as the pretty bit of furniture that had been honored by the encumbrance of Letitia's dainty toilet silver made its appearance out of doors, in the stark daylight. "I never realized until now what a beauty it was. How they bang it about! They have no respect for furniture. Here, you Jim"--to the son of toil--"try and be careful. Honestly, Letitia, these household goods of ours seem to be reproaching us." "Dear old inanimates!" she cried. "I dare say they know that we couldn't help it, that we were the victims of--Cook. Oh, Archie, there's the tiger-head, tied up, but still quite recognizable." The head had escaped from the restraining cords. It was salient, and impressive. The mouth of the tiger was open, in a snarl, and the glass eyes shone. Jim placed it on a chest of drawers, for which he was making a corner in the wagon. Letitia approached it in a sort of surreptitious manner, and patted the head. Then the foolish girl leaned forward and deliberately kissed the soft, smooth fur. Two little boys grinned derisively, and seemed to congratulate themselves upon their excellent position for a free show. The cab that was to take us to our family hotel stood at the door, and the trunks, containing our wearing-apparel, were laboriously placed upon it by the men. It was ready for us, but we could not tear ourselves away from the uncanny fascination of the wagons. Letitia held my arm, and we watched each fragment of our broken home, as it was lifted from our view into the recesses of the greedy vehicle. "Perhaps," I said, with a suspicious tremor in my voice, "we shall see them again before very long. They are still ours, Letitia. I--I--shall pay for their board every month; it--it will be a pleasure to do so. You know, my girl, we can--we can call them back at any moment." A large tear was trickling down Letitia's cheek, as she saw the men take their places on the wagons and realized that this--this was, indeed, the very end. "No, Archie," she said, "we shall never call them back. We shall never dare to do it. And, in the years to come, our experiences with these dear old things--that, later on, we shall sell--will sound like some absurd and far-fetched story that a new generation will never credit. The question that has broken us will be solved only in the way in which we are trying to solve it. There is, and there will be, no other solution." Jim smacked a whip; a huge "home"-laden wagon groaned and labored for a moment; then it slowly and reluctantly moved away. We watched it until it reached the corner and turned from our sight. The tears were streaming down Letitia's face, and I must confess that I bit my mustache so ferociously that I left ragged ends. "Come, my girl," I said in a low voice, as I opened the door of the cab. She got in, and I followed. We leaned back, heavy, silent, and with a mortal sorrow in our hearts. Then--then-- We were driven swiftly away to a new condition of things, in which the cooks shall cease from troubling, and we shall be at rest. THE END 
4622	----	fever, or small pox, or croup, active and energetic treatment would, probably, have been required, and the doctor would have known what he was about in administering his remedies. But, in a slight indisposition, like that from which your child suffered, it is, in my opinion, always better to give no medicine for a time. Drugs thrown into the tender system of a child, will always produce disease of some kind, more or less severe; and where slight disorders already exist, they are apt to give them a dangerous hold upon the body, or, uniting with them, cause a most serious, and, at times, fatal illness." But Mrs. Lee shook her head. She thought the doctors knew best. They had great confidence in their family physician. He had doctored them through many dangerous attacks, and had always brought them through safely. As to the new-fangled notions about giving little or no medicine, she had no confidence in them. Medicine was necessary at times, and she always gave her children medicine at least two, or three times a year, whether they were sick or well. Prevention, in her eyes, was better than cure. And where there was actual sickness, she was in favor of vigorous treatment. One good dose of medicine would do more good than a hundred little ones; with much more to the same effect. On the next morning, my dear baby, who was just as sick for a few hours as Mrs. Lee's child was at first, was as well as ever. Not long after breakfast, I was sent for by Mrs. Lee. Her poor child was much worse. The servant said that she was sure it was dying. I changed my dress hurriedly, and went over to the house of my neighbor. Shall I describe the painful object that met my sight? It was three days since I had seen the little sufferer; but, oh! how it had changed in that brief time. Its face was sunken, its eyes far back in their sockets, and its forehead marked with lines of suffering. The whole of its breast was raw from the blister, and its mouth, lying open, showed, with painful distinctness, the dreadful injury wrought by the mercury thrown, with such a liberal hand, into its delicate system. All the life seemed to have withdrawn itself from the skin; for the vital forces, in the centre of its body, were acting but feebly. The doctor came in while I was there. He said but little. It was plain that he was entirely at fault, and that he saw no hope of a favorable issue. All his, "active treatment" had tended to break down the child, rather than cure the disease from which it at first suffered. There was a great deal of heat about the child's head, and he said something about having it shaved for a blister. "Wouldn't ice do better, doctor?" I felt constrained to suggest. He turned upon me quickly and seemed annoyed. "No, madam!" he replied with dignity. I said no more, for I felt how vain my words would be. The blister, however, was not ordered; but, in its stead, mustard plasters were directed to be placed over the feet and legs to the knees, and a solution of iodine, or iron, I don't now remember which, prescribed, to be given every half hour. I went home, some time after the doctor left, feeling sick at heart. "They are murdering that child," I could not help saying to myself. My own dear babe I found full of health and life; and I hugged it to my breast with a feeling of thankfulness. Before the day closed, Mrs. Lee's poor child died. Was it a cause of wonder? CHAPTER XXVI. THE RIVAL BONNETS. I HAVE a pleasant story to relate of a couple of fashionables of our city, which will serve to diversify these "Confessions," and amuse the reader. To the incidents, true in the main, I have taken the liberty of adding some slight variations of my own. A lady of some note in society, named Mrs. Claudine, received a very beautiful bonnet from New York, a little in advance of others, and being one of the rival leaders in the fashionable world, felt some self-complacency at the thought of appearing abroad in the elegant head-gear, and thereby getting the reputation of leading the fashion. Notwithstanding Mrs. Claudine's efforts to keep the matter a secret, and thus be able to create a surprise when she appeared at church on the next Sunday, the fact that she had received the bonnet leaked out, and there was some excitement about it. Among those who heard of the new bonnet, was a Mrs. Ballman, who had written to a friend to get for her the very article obtained first by Mrs. Claudine. From some cause or other a delay had occurred, and to her chagrin she learned that a rival had the new fashion, and would get the _eclat_ that she so much coveted. The disappointment, to one whose pleasures in life are so circumscribed as those of a real fashionable lady, was severe indeed. She did not sleep more than a few hours on the night after she received the mortifying intelligence. The year before, Mrs. Claudine had led the fashion in some article of dress, and to see her carry off the palm in bonnets on this occasion, when she had striven so hard to be in advance, was more than Mrs. Bellman could endure. The result of a night's thinking on the subject was a determination to pursue a very extraordinary course, the nature of which will be seen. By telegraph Mrs. Bellman communicated with her friend in New York, desiring her to send on by the evening of the next day, which was Saturday, the bonnet she had ordered, if four prices had to be paid as an inducement to get the milliner to use extra exertions in getting it up. In due time, notice came back that the bonnet would be sent on by express on Saturday, much to the joy of Mrs. Ballman, who from the interest she felt in carrying out her intentions, had entirely recovered from the painful disappointment at first experienced. Saturday brought the bonnet, and a beautiful one it was. A few natural sighs were expended over the elegant affair, and then other feelings came in to chase away regrets at not having been first to secure the article. On the day previous, Friday, Mrs. Ballman called upon a fashionable milliner, and held with her the following conversation. "You have heard of Mrs. Claudine's new bonnet, I presume?" "Yes, madam," replied the milliner. "Do you think it will take?" asked Mrs. Ballman. "I do." "You have not the pattern?" "Oh, yes. I received one a week ago." "You did!" "Yes. But some one must introduce it. As Mrs. Claudine is about doing this there is little doubt of its becoming the fashion, for the style is striking as well as tasteful." Mrs. Ballman mused for some moments. There she drew the milliner aside, and said, in a low confidential tone. "Do you think you could get up a bonnet a handsome as that, and in just as good taste?" "I know I could. In my last received London and Paris fashions are several bonnets a handsome as the one that is about being adopted in New York, and here also without doubt." "I am not so sure of its being adopted here," said the lady. "If Mrs. Claudine introduces it, as I understand she intends doing on Sunday, it will certainly be approved and the style followed." "I very much doubt it. But we will see. Where are the bonnets you spoke of just now?" The milliner brought forth a number of pattern cards and plates, and pointed out two bonnets, either of which, in her judgment, was more beautiful than the one Mrs. Claudine had received. "Far handsomer," was the brief remark with which Mrs. Ballman approved the milliner's judgment. "And now," she added, "can you get me up one of these by Sunday?" "I will try." "Try won't do," said the lady, with some excitement in her manner. "I must have the bonnet. Can you make it?" "Yes." "Very well. Then make it. And let it be done in your very best manner. Why I wish to have this bonnet I need hardly explain to you. I believed that I would have received the bonnet, about to be adopted in New York, first. I had written to a friend to procure it; but, by some means, Mrs. Claudine has obtained hers in advance of me. Mine will be here to-morrow, but I don't mean to wear it. I wish to lead." "If you were both to appear in this bonnet, the fashion would be decided," said the milliner. "I know. But I have no wish to share the honor with Mrs. Claudine. Make me the bonnet I have selected, and I will see that it puts hers down." "You will remember," said the milliner, "that hers has been already adopted in New York. This will be almost sure to give it the preference. It would be better that you did not attempt a rivalry, than that you should be beaten." "But I don't mean to be beaten," replied the lady. "I have taken measures to prevent that. After Sunday you will hear no more of the New York bonnet. Mine will go, and this, I need not tell you, will be a feather in your cap, and dollars in your pocket; as I will refer to you as the only one who can get it up. So do your best, and improve the pattern we have selected, if it will bear improvement." The milliner promised to do her "prettiest," and Mrs. Ballman returned home in a state of considerable elation at the prospect of carrying off the palm, and humiliating her rival at the same time. Mrs. Claudine, though a little vain, and fond of excelling, was a woman of kind feelings, and entirely superior to the petty jealousies that annoyed Mrs. Ballman, and soured her towards all who succeeded in rivalling her in matters of taste and fashion. Of what was passing in the mind of the lady who had been so troubled at her reception of a new style of bonnet from New York, she was entirely ignorant. She was not even aware that Mrs. Ballman had ordered the same article, nor that she had suffered a disappointment. Saturday came. Mrs. Claudine was busy over some little article of dress that was to add to her appearance on the next day, when an Irish girl, who had formerly lived with her, entered her room. "Ah! Kitty!" said the lady pleasantly. "How do you do?" "I'm right well, mum, thankee," replied Kitty, with a courtesy. "Where do you live now, Kitty?" inquired Mrs. Claudine. "I'm living with Mrs. Ballman," said the girl. "A very good place, I have no doubt." "Oh, yes, mum. It is a good place. I hain't much to do, barrin' going out with the children on good days, and seein' after them in the house; and I get good wages." "I'm very glad to hear it, Kitty; and hope you will not give up so good a home." "No, indeed, mum; and I won't do that. But Mrs. Claudine--" Kitty's face flushed, and she stammered in her speech. "What do you wish to say?" inquired the lady, seeing that Kitty hesitated to speak of what was on her mind. "Indade, mum," said Kitty, evincing much perplexity, "I hardly know what I ought to do. But yez were good to me, mum, when I was sick and didn't send me off to the poor house like some girls are sent; and I never can forget yez while there's breath in me body. And now I've come to ask yez, just as a favor to me, not to wear that new bonnet from New York, to-morrow." It was some moments before, the surprise occasioned by so novel and unexpected a request left Mrs. Claudine free to make any reply. "Why, Kitty!" she at length exclaimed, "what on earth can you mean?" "Indade, mum, and yez mustn't ask me what I mane, only don't wear the bonnet to church on the morrow, because--because--och, indade, mum, dear! I can't say any more. It wouldn't be right." Mrs. Claudine told Kitty to sit down, an invitation which the girl, who was much agitated, accepted. The lady then remained silent and thoughtful for some time. "Kitty," she remarked, at length, in a serious manner, "what you have said to me sounds very strangely. How you should know that I intended appearing in a new bonnet to-morrow, or why you should be so much interested in the matter is more than I can understand. As to acting as you desire, I see no reason for that whatever." This reply only had the effect of causing Kitty to urge her request more strenuously. But she would give no reason for her singular conduct. After the girl had gone away, Mrs. Claudine laid aside her work--for she was not in a state of mind to do any thing but think---and sat for at least an hour, musing upon the strange incident which had occurred. All at once, it flashed upon her mind that there must be some plot in progress to discredit or rival her new bonnet, which Kitty had learned at Mrs. Ballman's. The more she thought of this, the more fully did she become satisfied that it must be so. She was aware that Mrs. Ballman had been chagrined at her leading off in new fashions once or twice before; and the fact, evident now, that she knew of her reception of the bonnet, and Kitty's anxiety that she should not wear it on Sunday, led her to the conviction that there was some plot against her. At first, she determined to appear in her new bonnet, disregardful of Kitty's warning. But subsequent reflection brought her to a different conclusion. The moment Mrs. Claudine settled it in her mind that she would not appear in the new bonnet, she began dressing herself, hurriedly, to go out. It was as late as five o'clock in the afternoon when she called at the store of the milliner who had been commissioned by Mrs. Ballman to get the rival bonnet. "Have you the last fashions from abroad?" enquired Mrs. Claudine. "We have," replied the milliner. "Will you let me see them?" "Certainly, ma'am." And the patterns were shown. After examining them carefully, for some time, Mrs. Claudine selected a style of bonnet that pleased her fancy, and said-- "You must get me up this bonnet so that I can wear it to-morrow." "Impossible, madam!" replied the milliner. "This is Saturday evening." "I know it is; but for money you can get one of your girls to work all night. I don't care what you charge; but I must have the bonnet." The milliner still hesitated, and seemed to be confused and uneasy. She asked Mrs. Claudine to sit down and wait for a little while, and then retired to think upon what she had better do. The fact was, Mrs. Claudine had pitched upon the very bonnet Mrs. Ballman had ordered, and her earnestness about having it made in time to wear on the next day, put it almost beyond her power to say no. If she were to tell her that Mrs. Ballman had ordered the same bonnet, it would, she knew, settle the matter. But, it occurred to her, that if both the ladies were to appear at church in the same style of bonnet, the fashion would be sure to take, and she, in consequence, get a large run of business. This thought sent the blood bounding through the milliner's veins, and decided her to keep her own counsel, and take Mrs. Claudine's order. "She's as much right to the bonnet as Mrs. Ballman," settled all ethical questions that intruded themselves upon the milliner. "I will have it ready for you," she said, on returning to Mrs. Claudine. "Very well. But mind," said the lady, "I wish it got up in the very best style. The hurry must not take from its beauty. As for the price, charge what you please." The milliner promised every thing, and Mrs. Claudine went home to think about the important events of the approaching Sabbath. On Sunday morning both bonnets were sent home, and both the ladies fully approved the style, effect, and all things appertaining to the elegant affairs. At ten o'clock, Kitty, who was a broad-faced, coarse-looking Irish girl, came into the chamber of Mrs. Ballman, dressed up in her best, which was not saying much for the taste and elegance of her appearance. "Are you all ready?" asked her mistress. "Yes, mum." "Very well, Kitty, here's the bonnet. Now, remember, you are to go into the pew just in front of ours. The Armburner's are all out of town, and there will be no one to occupy it." Kitty received the elegant bonnet which had come on express from New York, and placed it upon her head. "You really look charming," said the lady. But Kitty was not flattered by her words, and evinced so little heart in what she was doing that Mrs Ballman said to her, in a half threatening tone, as she left the room-- "Mind, Kitty, I shall expect to see you at church." "Oh, yes, mum; I'll be there," replied Kitty, courtesying awkwardly, and retiring. Not long after Kitty had retired, Mrs. Ballman, after surveying, for many minutes, the effect of her new bonnet, becoming more and more pleased with it every moment, and more and more satisfied that it would "take," left her room, and was descending the stairs for the purpose of joining the family, who were awaiting her below. Just at that unlucky moment, a servant, who was bringing down a vessel of water, slipped, and a portion of the contents came dashing over the head and shoulders of the richly attired lady, ruining her elegant bonnet, and completely destroying the happy frame of mind in which she was about attending public worship. No wonder that she cried aloud from the sudden shock and distress so untoward an event occasioned; nor that she went back weeping to her chamber, and refused to be comforted. Mr. Ballman and the children proceeded alone to church on that day. On their return home they found the lady in a calmer frame of mind. But Mr. Ballman looked grave and was unusually silent. Kitty came home and gave up her elegant head-dress; and when her mistress told her that she might keep it, she thanked her, but declined the present. "You went to church, of course," she said. "Oh, yes, mum," replied Kitty. "And sat in the Armburner's pew?" "Yes, mum." "Alone." "Yes, mum." "Was Mrs. Claudine there?" "Yes, mum." "Did she wear her new bonnet?" "Yes, mum." "It was exactly like this?" "Oh, no, mum, it was exactly like the new one you had sent home this morning." "What!" The face of the lady flushed instantly. "Wasn't it like this?" "No, mum." Mrs. Ballman sunk into a chair. "You can retire, Kitty," she said, and the girl withdrew, leaving her to her own feelings and reflections, which were not of the most pleasing character. The appearance of Kitty at church, fully explained to Mrs. Claudine the ungenerous game that had been played against her. Her first thought was to retaliate. But reflection brought other and better feelings into play. Instead of exposing what had been done, she destroyed the bonnet received from New York, and made an effort to keep what had occurred a secret. But Kitty's appearance at church in such an elegant affair, naturally created some talk. One surmise after another was started, and, at last, from hints dropped by the milliner, and admissions almost extorted from Mrs. Claudine, the truth came out so fully, that all understood it; nor was Mrs. Ballman long left in ignorance on this head. As to the fashion, Mrs. Claudine's bonnet became the rage; though, as might be supposed, Mrs. Ballman refused to adopt it. Who will be the successful rival next season, I am unable to predict. But it is believed that Mrs. Claudine intends giving Mrs. Ballman an advance of two weeks, and then coming in with a different style, and beating her in spite of the advantage. CHAPTER XXVII. MY WASHERWOMAN. WE were sitting at tea one evening--Mr. Smith, my sister and her husband, Mr. John Jones, and myself. In the midst of a pleasant conversation, Bridget looked into the dining-room. "What is wanted?" said I. "Mary Green is down stairs." "Oh! the washerwoman." "Yes ma'am." "Well, what does she want?" I knew what she wanted well enough. She had come for two dollars that I owed her. I felt annoyed. "Why?" the reader asks. "Obligations of this kind should always be met promptly and cheerfully." True; and I am of those who never grudge the humble poor the reward of their labor. But, it so happened that I had received a pretty liberal supply of money from my husband on this very day, all of which I had spent in shopping. Some of my purchases could not be classed exactly under the head, "Articles of Domestic Economy," and I was, already, in rather a repentant mood--the warmth of admiration at the sight of sundry ornamental trifles having subsided almost as soon as I found myself their owner. To my question, Bridget very promptly answered, "She's come for her money." When a woman feels annoyed, she is rarely able to repress its exhibition. Men are cooler, and have a quicker self control. They make better hypocrites. "She's very prompt," I remarked, a little fretfully, as I took out my porte-monnaie. Now I did not possess twenty cents, and I knew it; still, I fingered among its compartments as if in search of the little gold dollars that were not there. "Hav'nt you the change?" enquired Mr. Smith, at the same time drawing forth his purse, through the meshes of which the gold and silver coin glittered in the gas light. "No dear," I replied, feeling instant relief. "Help yourself;" said he, as he tossed the purse to my side of the table. I was not long in accepting the invitation you may be sure. "Don't think," said I, after Bridget had retired, "that I am one of those who grudge the toiling poor the meagre wages they earn. I presume I looked, as I spoke, a little annoyed. The fact is, to tell the honest truth, I have not a dollar in my porte-monnaie; this with the not very pleasant consciousness of having spent several dollars to-day rather foolishly, fretted me when the just demand of the washerwoman came." "I will exonerate my wife from any suspicion of grinding the faces of the poor." Mr. Smith spoke promptly and with some earnestness of manner. After a slight pause, he continued, "Some people have a singular reluctance to part with money. If waited on for a bill, they say, almost involuntarily, 'Call to-morrow,' even though their pockets are far from being empty. "I once fell into this bad habit myself; but, a little incident, which I will relate, cured me. Not many years after I had attained my majority, a poor widow named Blake did my washing and ironing. She was the mother of two or three little children, whose sole dependance for food and raiment was on the labor of her hands. "Punctually, every Thursday morning, Mrs. Blake appeared with my clothes, 'white as the driven snow;' but, not always, as punctually, did I pay the pittance she had earned by hard labor. "'Mrs. Blake is down stairs,' said a servant tapping at my room door, one morning, while I was in the act of dressing myself. "'Oh, very well,' I replied. 'Tell her to leave my clothes. I will get them when I come down.' "The thought of paying the seventy-five cents, her due, crossed my mind. But, I said to myself, 'It's but a small matter, and will do as well when she comes again.' "There was in this a certain reluctance to part with money. My funds were low, and I might need what change I had during the day. And so it proved! As I went to the office in which I was engaged, some small article of ornament caught my eye in a shop window. "'Beautiful!' said I, as I stood looking at it. Admiration quickly changed into the desire for possession; and so I stepped in to ask the price. It was just two dollars. "'Cheap enough,' thought I. And this very cheapness was a further temptation. "So I turned out the contents of my pockets, counted them over, and found the amount to be two dollars and a quarter. "'I guess I'll take it,' said I, laying the money on the shopkeeper's counter. "'Better have paid Mrs. Blake.' This thought crossed my mind, an hour afterwards, by which time, the little ornament had lost its power of pleasing. 'So much would at least have been saved.' "I was leaving the table, after tea, on the evening that followed, when the waiter said to me-- "'Mrs. Blake is at the door, and wishes to see you.' "I felt worried at hearing this; for there was no change in my pockets, and the poor washerwoman, had, of course, come for her money. "'She's in a great hurry,' I muttered to myself as I descended to the door. "'You'll have to wait until you bring home my clothes next week, Mrs. Blake.' I havn't any change this evening.' "The expression of the poor woman's face, as she turned slowly away, without speaking, rather softened my feelings. "'I'm sorry,' said I--'but, it can't be helped now. I wish you had said, this morning, that you wanted money. I could have paid you then.' "She paused, and turned partly towards me as I said this. Then she moved off, with something so sad in her manner, that I was touched, sensibly. "'I ought to have paid her this morning when I had the change about me. And I wish I had done so. Why didn't she ask for her money if she wanted it so badly.' "I felt, of coarse, rather ill at ease. A little while afterwards, I met the lady with whom I was boarding. "'Do you know anything about this Mrs. Blake, who washes for me?' I enquired. "'Not much; except that she is very poor, and has three children to feed and clothe. And what is worst of all, she is in bad health. I think she told me this morning, that one of her little ones was very sick.' "I was smitten with a feeling of self-condemnation, and soon after left the room. It was too late to remedy the evil, for I had only a sixpence in my pocket; and, moreover, I did not know where to find Mrs. Blake. Having purposed to make a call upon some young ladies that evening, I now went up into my room to dress. Upon my bed lay the spotless linen brought home by Mrs. Blake in the morning. The sight of it rebuked me; and I had to conquer, with some force, an instinctive reluctance, before I could compel myself to put on a clean shirt, and snow-white vest, too recently from the hand of my unpaid washerwoman. "One of the young ladies upon whom I called was more than a mere pleasant acquaintance. (And here Mr. Smith glanced, with a tender smile, towards me.) My heart had, in fact been warming towards her for some time; and I was particularly anxious to find favor in her eyes. On this evening she was lovelier and more attractive than ever. "Judge then, of the effect produced upon me by the entrance of her mother--at the very moment when my heart was all a-glow with love, who said, as she came in-- "'Oh, dear! This is a strange world!' "'What new feature have you discovered now, mother?' asked one of her daughters, smiling. "'No new one, child; but an old one that looks more repulsive than ever,' was answered. 'Poor Mrs. Blake came to see me just now, in great trouble.' "'What about, mother?' All the young ladies at once manifested unusual interest. "Tell-tale blushes came instantly to my countenance, upon which the eyes of the mother turned themselves, as I felt, with a severe scrutiny. "'The old story in cases like hers,' was answered. 'Can't get her money when earned, although, for daily bread, she is dependent on her daily labor. With no food in the house, or money to buy medicine for her sick child, she was compelled to seek me to-night, and to humble her spirit, which is an independent one, so low as to ask bread for her little ones, and the loan of a pittance with which to get what the doctor has ordered for her feeble sufferer at home.' "'Oh, what a shame!' fell from the lips of her in whom my heart felt more than a passing interest; and she looked at me earnestly as she spoke. "'She fully expected,' said the mother, 'to get a trifle that was due her from a young man who boards with Mrs. Corwin; and she went to see him this evening. But he put her off with some excuse. How strange that any one should be so thoughtless as to withhold from the poor their hard-earned pittance! It is but a small sum, at best, that the toiling seamstress or washerwoman can gain by her wearying labor. That, at least, should be promptly paid. To withhold it an hour is to do, in many cases, a great wrong.' "For some minutes after this was said, there ensued a dead silence. I felt that the thoughts of all were turned upon me as the one who had withheld from poor Mrs. Blake the trifling sum due her for washing. What my feelings were, it is impossible for me to describe; and difficult for any one, never himself placed in so unpleasant a position, to imagine. "My relief was great when the conversation flowed on again, and in another channel; for I then perceived that suspicion did not rest upon me. You may be sure that Mrs. Blake had her money before ten o'clock on the next day, and that I never again fell into the error of neglecting, for a single week, my poor washerwoman." "Such a confession from you, Mr. Smith, of all men," said I, feeling a little uncomfortable, that he should have told this story of himself. "We are none of us perfect," he answered, "He is best, who, conscious of natural defects and evils, strives against, and overcomes them." CHAPTER XXVIII. MY BORROWING NEIGHBOR. "I THINK, my dear," said I to my husband one day, "that we shall have to move from here." "Why so?" asked Mr. Smith, in surprise. "It is a very comfortable house. I am certain we will not get another as desirable at the same rent." "I don't know that we will. But--" Just as I said this, my cook opened the door of the room where we were sitting and said-- "Mrs. Jordon, ma'am, wants to borrow half a pound of butter. She says, they are entirely out, and their butter-man won't come before to-morrow." "Very well, Bridget, let her have it." The cook retired. "Why do you wish to move, Jane?" asked my husband, as the girl closed the door. "Cook's visit was quite apropos," I replied. "It is on account of the 'half pound of butter,' 'cup of sugar,' and 'pan of flour' nuisance." "I don't exactly comprehend you, Jane," said my husband. "It is to get rid of a borrowing neighbor. The fact is, Mrs. Jordon is almost too much for me. I like to be accommodating; it gives me pleasure to oblige my neighbors; I am ready to give any reasonable obedience to the Scripture injunction--_from him that would borrow of thee, turn thou not away_; but Mrs. Jordon goes beyond all reason." "Still, if she is punctual in returning what she gets, I don't know that you ought to let it annoy you a great deal." "There lies the gist of the matter, my dear," I replied. "If there were no 'if,' such as you suggest, in the case, I would not think a great deal about it. But, the fact is, there is no telling the cups of sugar, pans of flour, pounds of butter, and little matters of salt, pepper, vinegar, mustard, ginger, spices, eggs, lard, meal, and the dear knows what all, that go out monthly, but never come back again. I verily believe we suffer through Mrs. Jordon's habit of borrowing not less than fifty or sixty dollars a year. Little things like these count up." "So bad as that, is it?" said my husband. "Indeed it is; and when she returns anything, it is almost always of an inferior quality, and frequently thrown away on that account." While we were talking, the tea bell rang, and we retired to the dining-room. "What's the matter with this tea?" asked Mr. Smith, pushing the cup I had handed him aside, after leaving sipped of its contents. "I never tasted such stuff. It's like herb tea." "It must be something in the water," replied I. "The tea is the same we have been using all along." I poured some into a cup and tasted it. "Pah!" I said, with disgust, and rang the bell. The cook entered in a few moments. "Bridget, what's the matter with your tea? It isn't fit to drink. Is it the same we have been using?" "No, ma'am," replied Bridget. "It is some Mrs. Jordon sent home. I reminded Nancy, when she was here for butter, that they owed us some tea, borrowed day before yesterday, and she came right back with it, saying that Mrs. Jordon was sorry it had slipped her mind. I thought I would draw it by itself, and not mix it with the tea in our canister." "You can throw this out and draw fresh tea, Bridget; we can't drink it," said I, handing her the tea-pot. "You see how it works," I remarked as Bridget left the room, and my husband leaned back in his chair to wait for a fresh cup of tea. "One half of the time, when anything is returned, we can't use it. The butter Mrs. Jordon got a little while ago, if returned to-morrow, will not be fit to go on our table. We can only use it for cooking." "It isn't right," sententiously remarked my husband. "The fact is," he resumed, after a slight pause, "I wouldn't lend such a woman anything. It is a downright imposition." "It is a very easy thing to say that, Mr. Smith. But I am not prepared to do it. I don't believe Mrs. Jordon means to do wrong, or is really conscious that she is trespassing upon us. Some people don't reflect. Otherwise she is a pleasant neighbor, and I like her very much. It is want of proper thought, Mr. Smith, and nothing else." "If a man kept treading on my gouty toe for want of thought," said my husband, "I should certainly tell him of it, whether he got offended I or not. If his friendship could only be retained on these terms, I would prefer dispensing with the favor." "The case isn't exactly parallel, Mr. Smith," was my reply. "The gouty toe and crushing heel are very palpable and straightforward matters, and a man would be an egregious blockhead to be offended when reminded of the pain he was inflicting. But it would be impossible to make Mrs. Jordon at all conscious of the extent of her short-comings, very many of which, in fact, are indirect, so far as she is concerned, and arise from her general sanction of the borrowing system. I do not suppose, for a moment, that she knows about everything that is borrowed." "If she doesn't, pray who does?" inquired my husband. "Her servants. I have to be as watchful as you can imagine, to see that Bridget, excellent a girl as she is, doesn't suffer things to get out, and then, at the last moment, when it is too late to send to the store, run in to a neighbor's and borrow to hide her neglect. If I gave her a _carte blanche_ for borrowing, I might be as annoying to my neighbors as Mrs. Jordon." "That's a rather serious matter," said my husband. "In fact, there is no knowing how much people may suffer in their neighbors' good opinion, through the misconduct of their servants in this very thing." "Truly said. And now let me relate a fact about Mrs. Jordon, that illustrates your remark." (The fresh tea had come in, and we were going on with our evening meal.) "A few weeks ago we had some friends here, spending the evening. When about serving refreshments, I discovered that my two dozen tumblers had been reduced to seven or eight. On inquiry, I learned that Mrs. Jordon had ten--the rest had been broken. I sent to her, with my compliments, and asked her to return them, as I had some company, and wished to use them in serving refreshments. Bridget was gone some time, and when she returned, said that Mrs. Jordon at first denied having any of my tumblers. Her cook was called, who acknowledged to five, and, after sundry efforts on the part of Bridget to refresh her memory, finally gave in to the whole ten. Early on the next morning Mrs. Jordon came in to see me, and seemed a good deal mortified about the tumblers. "'It was the first I had heard about it,' she said. 'Nancy, it now appears, borrowed of you to hide her own breakage, and I should have been none the wiser, if you had not sent in. I have not a single tumbler left. It is too bad! I don't care so much for the loss of the tumblers, as I do for the mortifying position it placed me in toward a neighbor.'" "Upon my word!" exclaimed my husband. "That is a beautiful illustration, sure enough, of my remarks about what people may suffer in the good opinion of others, through the conduct of their servants in this very thing. No doubt Mrs. Jordon, as you suggest, is guiltless of a good deal of blame now laid at her door. It was a fair opportunity for you to give her some hints on the subject. You might have opened her eyes a little, or at least diminished the annoyance you had been, and still are enduring." "Yes, the opportunity was a good one, and I ought to have improved it. But I did not and the whole system, sanctioned or not sanctioned by Mrs. Jordon, is in force against me." "And will continue, unless some means be adopted by which to abate the nuisance." "Seriously, Mr. Smith," said I, "I am clear for removing from the neighborhood." But Mr. Smith said, "Nonsense, Jane!" A form of expression he uses, when he wishes to say that my proposition or suggestion is perfectly ridiculous, and not to be thought of for a moment. "What is to be done?" I asked. "Bear the evil?" "Correct it, if you can." "And if not, bear it the best I can?" "Yes, that is my advice." This was about the extent of aid I ever received from my husband in any of my domestic difficulties. He is a first-rate abstractionist, and can see to a hair how others ought to act in every imaginable, and I was going to say unimaginable case; but is just as backward about telling people what he thinks of them, and making everybody with whom he has anything to do toe the mark, as I am. As the idea of moving to get rid of my borrowing neighbor was considered perfect nonsense by Mr. Smith, I began to think seriously how I should check the evil, now grown almost insufferable. On the next morning the coffee-mill was borrowed to begin with. "Hasn't Mrs. Jordon got a coffee-mill of her own?" I asked of Bridget. "Yes, ma'am," she replied, "but it is such a poor one that Nancy won't use it. She says it takes her forever and a day to grind enough coffee for breakfast." "Does she get ours every morning?" "Yes, ma'am." Nancy opened the kitchen door at this moment--our back gates were side by side--and said-- "Mrs. Jordon says, will you oblige her so much as to let her have an egg to clear the coffee? I forgot to tell her yesterday that ours were all gone." "Certainly," I said. "Bridget, give Nancy an egg." "Mrs. Jordon is very sorry to trouble you, Mrs. Smith," said Nancy, re-appearing in a little while, and finding me still in the kitchen, "but she says if you will lend her a bowl of sugar it will be a great accommodation. I forgot to tell her yesterday that the sugar was all gone." "You appear to be rather forgetful of such matters, Nancy," I could not help saying. "I know I am a little forgetful," the girl said, good humoredly, "but I have so much to do, that I hardly have time to think." "Where is the large earthen dish that you use sometimes in making bread?" I asked, after Mrs. Jordon's cook had withdrawn, missing it from its usual place on the shelf. "Nancy borrowed it last week." "Why don't she bring it home?" "I've told her about it three or four times." Nancy opened the door again. "Please, ma'am to let Mrs. Jordon have another half pound of butter. We haven't enough to do for breakfast, and the butter man don't come until the middle of the day." Of course, I couldn't refuse, though I believe I granted the request with no very smiling grace. I heard no more of Nancy until toward dinner-time. I had given my cook orders not to lend her anything more without first coming to me. "Mrs. Jordon has sent in to know if you won't lend her two or three scuttles full of coal," said Bridget. "Mr. Jordon was to have sent home the fires are going down." "Certainly," I replied, "let her have it, but I want you to see that it is returned." "As to that, ma'am, I'll do my best; but I can't get Nancy to return one half what she borrows. She forgets from one day to another." "She mustn't forget," I returned, warmly. "You must go to Mrs. Jordon yourself. It isn't right." "I shall have to go, I guess, before I'm able to get back a dozen kitchen things of ours they have. I never saw such borrowing people. And then, never to think of returning what they get. They have got one of our pokers, the big sauce-pan and the cake-board. Our muffin rings they've had these three months. Every Monday they get two of our tubs and the wash-boiler. Yesterday they sent in and got our large meat-dish belonging to the dinner-set, and haven't sent it home yet. Indeed, I can't tell you all they've got." "Let Nancy have the coal," said I. "But we must stop this in some way, if it be possible." For three or four days the same thing was kept up, until I lost all patience, and resolved, offence or no offence, to end a system that was both annoying and unjust. Mrs. Jordon called in to see me one day, and sat conversing in a very pleasant strain for an hour. She was an agreeable companion, and I was pleased with the visit. In fact, I liked Mrs. Jordon. About an hour after she was gone, Nancy came into the kitchen, where I happened to be. "What's wanted now?" said I. My voice expressed quite as much as my words. I saw the color flush in Nancy's face. "Mrs. Jordon says, will you please to lend her a pan of flour? She will return it to-morrow." "Tell Mrs. Jordon," I replied, "that we are going to make up bread this afternoon, and haven't more than enough flour left, or I would let her have what she wants. And, by the way, Nancy, tell Mrs. Jordon that I will be obliged to her if she will send in my large earthen dish. We want to use it." Nancy didn't seem pleased. And I thought she muttered something to herself as she went away. Not five minutes elapsed before word came to my room that Mrs. Jordon was in the parlor and wished to speak to me. "Now for trouble," thought I. Sure enough, when I entered the parlor, the knit brow, flushed face, and angry eyes of my neighbor told me that there was to be a scene. "Mrs. Smith," she began, without ceremony or apology for her abruptness of manner, "I should like to know what you mean by the manner in which you refused to let me have a little flour just now?" "How did I refuse?" I was cool enough to inquire. "You refused in a manner which plainly enough snowed that you thought me a troublesome borrower. 'What's wanted now?' I think rather strange language to use to a domestic of mine." Really, thought I, this caps the climax. "To speak the plain truth, Mrs. Jordon," said I, "and not wishing to give any offence, you do use the privilege of a neighbor in this respect rather freely--more freely, I must own, than I feel justified in doing." "Mrs. Smith, this is too much!" exclaimed Mrs. Jordon. "Why you borrow of me twice where I borrow of you once. I am particularly careful in matters of this kind." I looked at the woman with amazement. "Borrow of you?" I asked. "Certainly!" she replied, with perfect coolness. "Scarcely a day passes that you do not send in for something or other. But dear knows! I have always felt pleasure in obliging you." I was mute for a time. "Really, Mrs. Jordon," said I, at length, as composedly as I could speak, "you seem to be laboring under some strange mistake. The charge of frequent borrowing, I imagine, lies all on the other side. I can name a dozen of my things in your house now, and can mention as many articles borrowed within the last three days." "Pray do so," was her cool reply. "You have my large wash-boiler," I replied, "and two of my washing tubs. You borrow them every Monday, and I have almost always to send for them." "I have your wash-boiler and tubs? You are in error, Mrs. Smith. I have a large boiler of my own, and plenty of tubs." "I don't know what you have, Mrs. Jordon; but I do know that you get mine every week. Excuse me for mentioning these things--I do so at your desire. Then, there is my coffee-mill, borrowed every morning." "Coffee-mill! Why should I borrow your coffee-mill? We have one of our own." "Yesterday you borrowed butter, and eggs, and sugar," I continued. "I?" my neighbor seemed perfectly amazed. "Yes; and the day before a loaf of bread--an egg to clear your coffee--salt, pepper, and a nutmeg." "Never!" "And to-day Nancy got some lard, a cup of coffee, and some Indian meal for a pudding." "She did?" asked Mrs. Jordon in a quick voice, a light seeming to have flashed upon her mind. "Yes," I replied, "for I was in the kitchen when she got the lard and meal, and Bridget mentioned the coffee as soon as I came down this morning." "Strange!" Mrs. Jordon looked thoughtful. "It isn't a week since we got coffee, and I am sure our Indian meal cannot be out." "Almost every week Nancy borrows a pound or a half pound of butter on the day before your butter man comes; and more than that, doesn't return it, or indeed anything she gets more than a third of the time." "Precisely the complaint I have to make against you," said Mrs. Jordon, looking me steadily in the face. "Then," said I "there is something wrong somewhere, for to my knowledge nothing has been borrowed from you or any body else for months. I forbid anything of the kind." "Be that as it may, Mrs. Smith; Nancy frequently comes to me and says you have sent in for this, that, and the other thing--coffee, tea, sugar, butter; and, in fact, almost everything used in a family." "Then Nancy gets them for her own use," said I. "But I have often seen Bridget in myself for things." "My Bridget!" I said, in surprise. I instantly rang the bell. "Tell Bridget I want her," said I to the waiter who came to the door. The cook soon appeared. "Bridget, are you in the habit of borrowing from Mrs. Jordon without my knowledge?" "No, ma'am!" replied the girl firmly, and without any mark of disturbance in her face. "Din't you get a bar of soap from our house yesterday?" asked Mrs. Jordon. "Yes, ma'am," returned Bridget, "but it was soap you owed us." "Owed you!" "Yes, Ma am. Nancy got a bar of soap from me last washing-day, and I went in for it yesterday." "But Nancy told me you wanted to borrow it," said Mrs. Jordon. "Nancy knew better," said Bridget, with a face slightly flushed; but any one could see that it was a flush of indignation. "Will you step into my house and tell Nancy I want to see her?" "Certainly, ma'am." And Bridget retired. "These servants have been playing a high game, I fear," remarked Mrs. Jordon, after Bridget had left the room. "Pardon me, if in my surprise I have spoken in a manner that has seemed offensive." "Most certainly there is a game playing that I know nothing about, if anything has been borrowed of you in my name for these three months," said I. "I have heard of your borrowing something or other almost every day during the time you mention," replied Mrs. Jordon. "As for me, I have sent into you a few times; but not oftener, I am sure, than once in a week." Bridget returned, after having been gone several minutes, and said Nancy would be in directly. We waited for some time, and then sent for her again. Word was brought back that she was nowhere to be found in the house. "Come in with me, Mrs. Smith," said my neighbor, rising. I did so, according to her request. Sure enough, Nancy was gone. We went up into her room, and found that she had bundled up her clothes and taken them off, but left behind her unmistakable evidence of what she had been doing. In an old chest which Mrs. Jordon had let her use for her clothes were many packages of tea, burnt coffee, sugar, soap, eggs; a tin kettle containing a pound of butter, and various other articles of table use. Poor Mrs. Jordon seemed bewildered. "Let me look at that pound lump of butter," said I. Mrs. Jordon took up the kettle containing it. "It isn't my butter," she remarked. "But it's mine, and the very pound she got of me yesterday for you." "Gracious me!" ejaculated my neighbor. "Was anything like this ever heard?" "She evidently borrowed on your credit and mine--both ways," I remarked with a smile, for all my unkind feelings toward Mrs. Jordon were gone, "and for her own benefit." "But isn't it dreadful to think of, Mrs. Smith? See what harm the creature has done! Over and over again have I complained of your borrowing so much and returning so little; and you have doubtless made the same complaint of me." "I certainly have. I felt that I was not justly dealt by." "It makes me sick to think of it." And Mrs. Jordon sank into a chair. "Still I don't understand about the wash-boiler and tubs that you mentioned," she said, after a pause. "You remember my ten tumblers," I remarked. "Perfectly. But can she have broken up my tubs and boiler, or carried them off?" On searching in the cellar we found the tubs in ruins, and the wash-boiler with a large hole in the bottom. I shall never forget the chagrin, anger, and mortification of poor Mrs. Jordon when, at her request, Bridget pointed out at least twenty of my domestic utensils that Nancy had borrowed to replace such as she had broken or carried away. (It was a rule with Mrs. Jordon to make her servants pay for every thing they broke.) "To think of it!" she repeated over and over again. "Just to think of it! Who could have dreamed of such doings?" Mrs. Jordon was, in fact, as guiltless of the sin of troublesome borrowing from a neighbor as myself. And yet I had seriously urged the propriety of moving out of the neighborhood to get away from her. We both looked more closely to the doings of our servants after this pretty severe lesson; and I must freely confess, that in my own case, the result was worth all the trouble. As trusty a girl as my cook was, I found that she would occasionally run in to a neighbor's to borrow something or other, in order to hide her own neglect; and I only succeeded in stopping the the evil by threatening to send her away if I ever detected her in doing it again. CHAPTER XXIX. EXPERIENCE IN TAKING BOARDERS. I HAVE no experiences of my own to relate on this subject. But I could fill a book with the experiences of my friends. How many poor widows, in the hope of sustaining their families and educating their children, have tried the illusive, and, at best, doubtful experiment of taking boarders, to find themselves in a year or two, or three, hopelessly involved in debt, a life time of labor would fail to cancel. Many, from pride, resort to this means of getting a living, because--why I never could comprehend--taking boarders is thought to be more genteel than needlework or keeping a small store for the sale of fancy articles. The experience of one of my friends, a Mrs. Turner, who, in the earlier days of her sad widowhood, found it needful to make personal effort for the sustenance of her family, I will here relate. Many who find themselves in trying positions like hers, may, in reviewing her mistakes, be saved from similar ones themselves. "I don't know what we shall do!" exclaimed Mrs. Turner, about six months after the death of her husband, while pondering sadly over the prospect before her. She had one daughter about twenty, and two sons who were both under ten years of age. Up to this time she had never known the dread of want. Her husband had been able to provide well for his family; and they moved in a very respectable, and somewhat showy circle. But on his death, his affairs were found to be much involved, and when settled, there was left for the widow and children only about the sum of four thousand dollars, besides the household furniture, which was very handsome. This sad falling off in her prospects, had been communicated to Mrs. Turner a short time before, by the administrator on the estate; and its effect was to alarm and sadden her extremely. She knew nothing of business, and yet, was painfully conscious, that four thousand dollars would be but a trifle to what she would need for her family, and that effort in some direction was now absolutely necessary. But, besides her ignorance of any calling by which money could be made, she had a superabundance of false pride, and shrunk from what she was pleased to consider the odium attached to a woman who had to engage in business. Under these circumstances, she had a poor enough prospect before her. The exclamation as above recorded, was made in the presence of Mary Turner, her daughter, a well educated girl, who had less of that false pride which obscured her mother's perceptions of right. After a few moments' silence the latter said-- "And yet we must do something, mother." "I know that, Mary, too well. But I know of nothing that we can do." "Suppose we open a little dry goods' store?" suggested Mary. "Others seem to do well at it, and we might. You know we have a great many friends." "Don't think of it, Mary! We could not expose ourselves in that way." "I know that it would not be pleasant, mother; but, then, we must do something." "It must be something besides that, Mary. I can't listen to it. It's only a vulgar class of women who keep stores." "I am willing to take in sewing, mother; but, then, all I could earn would go but a little way towards keeping the family. I don't suppose I could even pay the rent, and that you know, is four hundred dollars." "Too true," Mrs. Turner said, despondingly. "Suppose I open a school?" suggested Mary. "O no! no! My head would never stand the noise and confusion. And, any way, I never did like a school." "Then I don't know what we shall do, unless we take some boarders." "A little more genteel. But even that is low enough." "Then, suppose, mother we look for a lower rent, and try to live more economically. I will take in sewing, and we can try for awhile, and see how we get along." "O no, indeed, child. That would never do. We must keep up appearances, or we shall lose our place in society. You know that it is absolutely necessary for you and your brothers, that we should maintain our position." "As for me, mother," said Mary, in a serious tone, "I would not have you to take a thought in that direction. And it seems to me that our true position is the one where we can live most comfortably according to our means." "You don't know anything about it, child," Mrs. Turner replied, in a positive tone. Mary was silenced for the time. But a banishment of the subject did not, in any way, lesson the difficulties. Thoughts of these soon again became apparent in words; and the most natural form of these was the sentence-- "I don't know what we _shall_ do!" uttered by the mother in a tone of deep despondency. "Suppose we take a few boarders?" Mary urged, about three weeks after the conversation just alluded to. "No, Mary; we would be too much exposed: and then it would come very hard on you, for you know that I cannot stand much fatigue," Mrs. Turner replied, slowly and sadly. "O, as to that," said Mary, with animation: "I'll take all the burden off of you." "Indeed, child, I cannot think of it," Mrs. Turner replied, positively; and again the subject was dismissed. But it was soon again recurred to, and after the suggestion and disapproval of many plans, Mary again said-- "Indeed, mother, I don't see what we will do, unless we take a few boarders." "It's the only thing at all respectable, that I can think of," Mrs. Turner said despondingly; "and I'm afraid it's the best we can do." "I think we had better try it, mother, don't you?" "Well, perhaps we had, Mary. There are four rooms that we can spare; and these ought to bring us in something handsome." "What ought we to charge?" "About three dollars and a half for young men, and ten dollars for a man and his wife." "If we could get four married couples for the four rooms, that would be forty dollars a week, which would be pretty good," said Mary, warming at the thought. "Yes, if we could, Mary, we might manage pretty well. But most married people have children, and they are such an annoyance that I wouldn't have them in the house. We will have to depend mainly on the young men." It was, probably, three weeks after this, that an advertisement, running thus, appeared in one of the newspapers: "BOARDING--Five or six genteel young men, or a few gentlemen and their wives, can be accommodated with boarding at No.--Cedar street. Terms moderate." In the course of the following day, a man called and asked the terms for himself and wife. "Ten dollars," said Mrs. Turner. "That's too high--is it not?" remarked the man. "We cannot take you for less." "Have you a pleasant room vacant?" "You can have your choice of the finest in the house?" "Can I look at them, madam?" "Certainly, sir." And the stranger was taken through Mrs. Turner's beautifully furnished chambers. "Well, this is certainly a temptation," said the man, pausing and looking around the front chamber on the second floor. "And you have named your lowest terms?" "Yes, sir; the lowest." "Well, it's higher than I've been paying, but this looks too comfortable. I suppose we will have to strike a bargain." "Shall be pleased to accommodate you, sir." "We will come, then, to-morrow morning." "Very well, sir." And the stranger departed. "So much for a beginning," said Mrs. Turner, evidently gratified. "He seems to be much of a gentleman. If his wife is like him, they will make things very agreeable I am sure." "I hope she is," said Mary. On the next morning, the new boarders made their appearance, and the lady proved as affable and as interesting as the husband. "I always pay quarterly. This is the custom in all the boarding houses I have been in. But if your rules are otherwise, why just say so. It makes no difference to me," remarked the new boarder, in the blandest manner imaginable. "Just suit yourself about that, Mr. Cameron. It is altogether immaterial," Mrs. Turner replied, smiling. "I am in no particular want of money." Mr. Cameron bowed lower, and smiled more blandly, if possible, than before. "You have just opened a boarding house, I suppose, madam?" he said. "Yes sir, I am a new beginner at the business." "Ah--well, I must try and make you known all I can. You will find Mrs. Cameron, here, a sociable kind of a woman. And if I can serve you at any time, be sure to command me." "You are too kind!" Mrs. Turner responded, much pleased to have found, in her first boarders, such excellent, good-hearted people. In a few days, a couple of young men made application, and were received, and now commenced the serious duties of the new undertaking. Mary had to assume the whole care of the house. She had to attend the markets, and oversee the kitchen, and also to make with her own hands all the pastry. Still, she had, a willing heart, and this lightened much of the heavy burden now imposed upon her. "How do you like your new boarding house?" asked a friend of one of the young men who had applied, and been received. This was about two weeks after his entrance into Mrs. Turner's house. "Elegant," responded the young man, giving his countenance a peculiar and knowing expression. "Indeed? But are you in earnest?" "I am that. Why, we live on the very fat of the land." "Pshaw! you must be joking. Whoever heard of the fat of the land being found in a boarding house. They can't afford it." "I don't care, myself, whether they can afford it or not. But we do live elegantly. I wouldn't ask to sit down to a better table." "What kind of a room have you? and what kind of a bed?" "Good enough for a lord." "Nonsense!" "No, but I am in earnest, as I will prove to you. I sleep on as fine a bed as ever I saw, laid on a richly carved mahogany bedstead, with beautiful curtains. The floor is covered with a Brussels carpet, nearly new and of a rich pattern. There is in the room a mahogany wardrobe, an elegant piece of furniture--a marble top dressing bureau, and a mahogany wash-stand with a marble slab. Now if you don't call that a touch above a common boarding house, you've been more fortunate than I have been until lately." "Are there any vacancies there, Tom?" "There is another bed in my room." "Well, just tell them, to-night, that I'll be there to-morrow morning." "Very well." "And I know of a couple more that'll add to the mess, if there is room." "It's a large house, and I believe they have room yet to spare." A week more passed away, and the house had its complement, six young men, and the polite gentleman and his wife. This promised an income of thirty-one dollars per week. As an off-set to this, a careful examination into the weekly expenditure would have shown a statement something like the following: Marketing $12; groceries, flour, &c., $10; rent, $8; servants' hire-cook, chambermaid, and black boy, $4; fuel, and incidental expenses, $6--in all, $40 per week. Besides this, their own clothes, and the schooling of the two boys did not cost less than at the rate of $300 per annum. But neither Mrs. Turner nor Mary ever thought that any such calculation was necessary. They charged what other boarding house keepers charged, and thought, of course, that they must make a good living. But in no boarding house, even where much higher prices were obtained, was so much piled upon the table. Every thing, in its season, was to be found there, without regard to prices. Of course, the boarders were delighted, and complimented Mrs. Turner upon the excellent fare which they received. Mr. and Mrs. Cameron continued as affable and interesting as when they first came into the house. But the first quarter passed away, and nothing was said about their bill, and Mrs. Turner never thought of giving them a polite hint. Two of her young men were also remiss in this respect, but they were such gentlemanly, polite, attentive individuals, that, of course, nothing could be said. "I believe I've never had your bill, Mrs. Turner, have I?" Mr. Cameron said to her one evening, when about six months had passed. "No; I have never thought of handing it in. But it's no difference, I'm not in want of money." "Yes, but it ought to be paid. I'll bring you up a check from the counting-room in a few days." "Suit your own convenience, Mr. Cameron," answered Mrs. Turner, in an indifferent tone. "O, it's perfectly convenient at all times. But knowing that you were not in want of it, has made me negligent." This was all that was said on the subject for another quarter, during which time the two young men alluded to as being in arrears, went off, cheating the widow out of fifty dollars each. But nothing was said about it to the other boarders, and none of them knew of the wrong that had been sustained. Their places did not fill up, and the promised weekly income was reduced to twenty-four dollars. At the end of the third quarter, Mr. Cameron again recollected that he had neglected to bring up a check from the counting-room, and blamed himself for his thoughtlessness. "I am so full of business," said he, "that I sometimes neglect these little things." "But it's a downright shame, Mr. Cameron, when it's so easy for you to draw off a check and put it into your pocket," remarked his wife. "O, it's not a particle of difference," Mrs. Turner volunteered to say, smiling--though, to tell the truth, she would much rather have had the money. "Well, I'll try and bear it in mind this very night," and Mr. Cameron hurried away, as business pressed. The morning after Mr. Cameron's fourth quarter expired, he walked out, as usual, with his wife before breakfast. But when all assembled at the table, they had not (something very uncommon for them) returned. "I wonder what keeps Mr. and Mrs. Cameron?" remarked Mrs. Turner. "Why, I saw them leave in the steamboat for the South, this morning," said one of the boarders. "You must be mistaken," Mrs. Turner replied. "O no, ma'am, not at all. I saw them, and conversed with them before the boat started. They told me that they were going on as far as Washington." "Very strange!" ejaculated Mrs. Turner. "They said nothing to me about it." "I hope they don't owe you any thing," remarked one of the boarders. "Indeed, they do." "Not much, ma'am; I hope." "Over five hundred dollars." "O, that is too bad! How could you trust a man like Mr. Cameron to such an amount?" "Why, surely," said Mrs. Turner, "he is a respectable and a responsible merchant; and I was in no want of the money." "Indeed, Mrs. Turner, he is no such thing." "Then what is he?" "He is one of your gentlemen about town, and lives, I suppose, by gambling. At least such is the reputation he bears. I thought you perfectly understood this." "How cruelly I have been deceived!" said Mrs. Turner, unable to command her feelings; and rising, she left the table in charge of Mary. On examining Mr. and Mrs. Cameron's room, their trunk was found, but it was empty. The owners of it, of course, came not back to claim their property. The result of this year's experience in keeping boarders, was an income of just $886 in money, and a loss of $600, set off against an expense of $2380. Thus was Mrs. Turner worse off by $1494 at the end of the year, than she was when she commenced keeping boarders. But she made no estimates, and had not the most remote idea of how the matter stood. Whenever she wanted money, she drew upon the amount placed to her credit in bank by the administrator on her husband's estate, vainly imagining that it would all come back through the boarders. All that she supposed to be lost of the first year's business were the $600, out of which she had been cheated. Resolving to be more circumspect in future, another year was entered upon. But she could not help seeing that Mary was suffering from hard labor and close confinement, and it pained her exceedingly. One day she said to her, a few weeks after they had entered upon the second year-- "I am afraid, Mary, this is too hard for you. You begin to look pale and thin. You must spare yourself more." "I believe I do need a little rest, mother," said Mary; "but if I don't look after things, nobody will, and then we should soon have our boarders dissatisfied." "That is too true, Mary." "But I wouldn't mind it so much, mother, if I thought we were getting ahead. But I am afraid we are not." "What makes you think so, child?" "You know we have lost six hundred dollars already, and that is a great deal of money." "True, Mary; but we must be more careful in future. We will soon make that up, I am sure." "I hope so," Mary responded, with a sigh. She did not herself feel so sanguine of making it up. Still, she had not entered into any calculation of income and expense, leaving that to her mother, and supposing that all was right as a matter of course. As they continued to set an excellent table, they kept up pretty regularly their complement of boarders. The end of the second year would have shown this result, if a calculation had been made: cash income, $1306--loss by boarders, $150--whole expenses, $2000. Consequently, they were worse off at the end of the year by $694; or in the two years, $2188, by keeping boarders. And now poor Mrs. Turner was startled on receiving her bank book from the bank, settled up, to find that her four thousand dollars had dwindled down to $1812. She could not at first believe her senses. But there were all her checks regularly entered; and, to dash even the hope that there was a mistake, there were the cancelled checks, also, bearing her own signature. "Mary, what _shall_ we do?" was her despairing question, as the full truth became distinct to her mind. "You say we have sunk more than two thousand dollars in two years?" "Yes, my child." "And have had all our hard labor for nothing?" Mary continued, and her voice trembled as she thought of how much she had gone through in that time. "Yes." "Something must be wrong, mother. Let us do what we should have done at first, make a careful estimate of our expenses." "Well." "It costs us just ten dollars each week for marketing--and I know that our groceries are at least that, including flour; that you see makes twenty dollars, and we only get twenty-eight dollars for our eight boarders. Our rent will bring our expenses up to that. And then there are servants' wages, fuel, our own clothes, and the boys' schooling, besides what we lose every year, and the hundred little expenses which cannot be enumerated." "Bless me, Mary! No wonder we have gone behindhand." "Indeed, mother, it is not." "We have acted very blindly, Mary." "Yes, we have; but we must do so no longer. Let us give up our boarders, and move into a smaller house." "But what shall we do Mary? Our money will soon dwindle away." "We must do something for a living, mother, that is true. But if we cannot now see what we shall do, that is no reason why we should go on as we are. Our rent, you know, takes away from us eight dollars a week. We can get a house large enough for our own purposes at three dollars a week, or one hundred and fifty dollars a year, I am sure, thus saving five dollars a week there, and that money would buy all the plain food our whole family would eat." "But it will never do, Mary, for us to go to moving into a little bit of a pigeon-box of a house." "Mother, if we don't get into a cheaper house and husband our resources, we shall soon have no house to live in!" said Mary, with unwonted energy. "Well, child, perhaps you are right; but I can't bear the thought of it," Mrs. Turner replied. "And any how, I can't see what we are going to do then." "We ought to do what we see to be right, mother, had we not?" Mary asked, looking affectionately into her mother's face. "I suppose so, Mary." "Won't it be right for us to reduce our expenses, and make the most of what we have left?" "It certainly will, Mary." "Then let us do what seems to be right, and we shall see further, I am sure, as soon as we have acted." Thus urged, Mrs. Turner consented to relinquish her boarders, and to move into a small house, at a rent very considerably reduced. Many articles of furniture they were obliged to dispose of, and this added to their little fund some five hundred dollars. About two months after they were fairly settled, Mary said to her mother-- "I've been thinking a good deal lately, mother, about getting into something that would bring us in a living." "Well, child, what conclusion have you come to?" "You don't like the idea of setting up a little store?" "No, Mary, it is too exposing." "Nor of keeping a school?" "No." "Well, what do you think of my learning the dress-making business?" "Nonsense, Mary!" "But, mother, I could learn in six months, and then we could set up the business, and I am sure we could do well. Almost every one who sets up dress-making, gets along." "There was always something low to me in the idea of a milliner or mantua maker, and I cannot bear the thought of your being one," Mrs. Turner replied, in a decided tone. "You know what Pope says, mother-- 'Honor and shame from no _condition_ rise; Act well your part, there all the honor lies.'" "Yes, but that is poetry, child." "And song is but the eloquence of truth, some one has beautifully said," responded Mary, smiling. The mother was silent, and Mary, whose mind had never imbibed, fully, her mother's false notions, continued-- "I am sure there can be no wrong in my making dresses. Some one must make them, and it is the end we have in view, it seems to me, that determines the character of an action. If I, for the sake of procuring an honest living for my mother, my little brothers, and myself, am willing to devote my time to dress-making, instead of sitting in idleness, and suffering James and Willie to be put out among strangers, then the calling is to me honorable. My aim is honorable, and the means are honest. Is it not so, mother?" "Yes, I suppose it is so. But then there was always something so degrading to me in the idea of being nothing but a dress-maker!" Just at that moment a young man, named Martin, who had lived with them during the last year of their experiment in keeping boarders, called in to see them. He kept a store in the city, and was reputed to be well off. He had uniformly manifested an interest in Mrs. Turner and her family, and was much liked by them. After he was seated. Mrs. Turner said to him-- "I am trying, Mr. Martin, to beat a strange notion out of Mary's head. She has been endeavouring to persuade me to let her learn the dress-making business." The young man seemed a little surprised at this communication, and Mary evinced a momentary confusion when it was made. He said, however, very promptly and pleasantly, turning to Mary-- "I suppose you have a good reason for it, Miss Mary." "I think I have, Mr. Martin," she replied, smiling. "We cannot live, and educate James and William, unless we have a regular income; and I cannot shut my eyes to the fact that what we have cannot last long--nor to another, that I am the only one in the family from whom any regular income can be expected." "And you are willing to devote yourself to incessant toil, night and day, for this purpose?" "Certainly I am," Mary replied, with a quiet, cheerful smile. "But it never will do, Mr. Martin, will it?" Mrs. Turner remarked. "Why not, Mrs. Turner?" "Because, it is not altogether respectable." "I do not see any thing disrespectable in the business; but, with Mary's motive for entering into it, something highly respectable and honorable," Mr. Martin replied, with unusual earnestness. Mrs. Turner was silenced. "And you really think of learning the business, and then setting it up?" said Mr. Martin, turning to Mary, with a manifest interest, which she felt, rather than perceived. "Certainly I do, if mother does not positively object." "Then I wish you all success in your praiseworthy undertaking. And may the end you have in view support you amid the wearisome toil." There was a peculiar feeling in Mr. Martin's tone that touched the heart of Mary, she knew not why. But certain it was, that she felt doubly nerved for the task she had proposed to herself. As Mr. Martin wended his way homeward that evening, he thought of Mary Turner with an interest new to him. He had never been a great deal in her company while he boarded with her mother, because Mary was always too busy about household affairs, to be much in the parlor. But what little he had seen of her, made him like her as a friend. He also liked Mrs. Turner, and had from these reasons, frequently called in to see them since their removal. After going into his room, on his return home that evening, he sat down and remained for some time in a musing attitude. At length he got up, and took a few turns across the floor, and again seated himself, saying as he did so-- "If that's the stuff she's made of, she's worth looking after." From this period, Mr. Martin called to see Mrs. Turner more frequently, and as Mary, who had promptly entered upon the duties of a dress-maker's apprentice, came home every evening, he had as many opportunities of being with her and conversing with her as he desired. Amiable accomplished, and intelligent, she failed not to make, unconsciously to herself, a decided impression upon the young man's heart. Nor could she conceal from herself that she was happier in his company than she was at any other time. Week after week, and month after month, passed quickly away, and Mary was rapidly acquiring a skill in the art she was learning, rarely obtained by any. After the end of four months, she could turn off a dress equal to any one in the work-room. But this constant application was making sad inroads upon her health. For two years she had been engaged in active and laborious duties, even beyond her strength. The change from this condition to the perfectly sedentary, was more than her constitution could bear up under, especially as she was compelled to bend over her needle regularly, from ten to twelve hours each day. As the time for the expiration of her term of service approached, she felt her strength to be fast failing her. Her cheek had become paler and thinner, her step more languid, and her appetite was almost entirely gone. These indications of failing health were not unobserved by Mr. Martin. But, not having made up his mind, definitely, that she was precisely the woman he wanted for a wife, he could not interfere to prevent her continuance at the business which was too evidently destroying her health. But every time he saw her his interest in her became tenderer. "If no one steps forward and saves her," he would sometimes say to himself, as he gazed with saddened feelings upon her colorless cheek, "she will fall a victim in the very bloom of womanhood." And Mary herself saw the sad prospect before her. She told no one of the pain in her side, nor of the sickening sensation of weakness and weariness that daily oppressed her. But she toiled on and on, hoping to feel better soon. At last her probation ended. But the determined and ambitious spirit that had kept her up, now gave way. Martin knew the day when her apprenticeship expired, and without asking why, followed the impulse that prompted him, and called upon her in the evening. "Is any thing the matter, Mrs. Turner?" he asked, with a feeling of alarm, on entering the house and catching a glance at the expression of that lady's countenance. "Oh, yes, Mr. Martin, Mary is extremely ill," she replied, in evident painful anxiety. "What ails her?" he asked, showing equal concern. "I do not know, Mr. Martin. She came home this evening, and as soon as she reached her chamber fainted away. I sent for the doctor immediately, and he says that she must be kept very quiet, and that he will be here very early in the morning again. I am afraid she has overworked herself. Indeed, I am sure she has. For many weeks back, I have noticed her altered appearance and loss of appetite. It was in vain that I urged her to spare herself for a few weeks and make up the time afterwards. She steadily urged the necessity of getting into business as soon as possible, and would not give up. She has sacrificed herself, Mr. Martin, I very much fear, to her devotion to the family." And Mrs. Turner burst into tears. We need not say how sad and depressed Martin was, on turning away from the house, without the chance of seeing Mary, under the idea, too, of her dangerous illness. He called about ten o'clock the next morning, and learned that she was no better; that the doctor had been there, and pronounced her in a low nervous fever. Strict injunctions had been left that no one should be admitted to her room but the necessary attendants. Regularly every morning and evening Martin called to ask after Mary, for the space of fifteen days, and always received the sad information that she was no better. His feelings had now become intensely excited. He blamed himself for having favored the idea of Mary's going to learn a trade. "How easily I might have prevented it!" he said to himself. "How blind I was to her true worth! How much suffering and toil I might have saved her!" On the evening of the sixteenth day, he received the glad intelligence that Mary was better. That although greatly emaciated, and feeble as an infant, a decidedly healthy action had taken place, and the doctor expressed confident hopes of her recovery. "May I not see her, Mrs. Turner?" he asked, earnestly. "Not yet, Mr. Martin, The doctor is positive in his directions to have her kept perfectly quiet." Martin had, of course, to acquiesce, but with great reluctance. For five days more he continued to call in twice every day, and each time found her slightly improved. "May I not see her now?" he again asked, at the end of these additional days of anxious self-denial. "If you will not talk to her," said Mrs. Turner. Martin promised, and was shown up to her chamber. His heart sickened as he approached the bed-side, and looked upon the thin, white, almost expressionless face, and sunken eye, of her who was now the ruler of his affections. He took her hand, that returned a feeble, almost imperceptible pressure, but did not trust himself to utter her name. She hardly seemed conscious of his presence, and he soon turned away, sad, very sad, yet full of hope for her recovery. The healthy action continued, and in a week Mary could bear conversation. As soon as she could begin to sit up, Martin passed every evening with her, and seeing, as he now did, with different eyes, he perceived in her a hundred things to admire that had before escaped his notice. Recovering rapidly, in a month she was fully restored to health, and looked better than she had for years. Just about this time, as Martin was making up his mind to declare himself her lover, he was surprised, on entering their parlor one evening, to find on the table a large brass door-plate, with the words, "MARY TURNER, FANCY DRESS MAKER," engraved upon it. "Why, what are you going to do with this Mary?" he asked, forgetting that she did not know his peculiar thoughts about her. "I am going to commence my business," she replied in a quiet tone. "I have learned a trade, and now I must turn it, if possible, to some good account." "But your health won't bear it, Mary," he urged. "Don't you know that you made yourself sick by your close application in learning your trade?" "I do, Mr. Martin; but still, you know why I learned my trade." Mr. Martin paused for a few moments, and then looking into her face, said-- "Yes, I know the reason, Mary, and I always admired your noble independence in acting as you did--nay," and he took her hand, "If you will permit me to say so, have loved you ever since I had a true appreciation of your character. May I hope for a return of kindred feelings?" Mary Turner's face became instantly crimsoned with burning blushes, but she did not withdraw her hand. A brief silence ensued, during which the only sounds audible to the ears of each, was the beating of their own hearts. Martin at length said-- "Have I aught to hope, Mary?" "You know, Mr. Martin," she replied, in a voice that slightly trembled, "that I have duties to perform beyond myself. However much my feelings may be interested, these cannot be set aside. Under present circumstances, my hand is not my own to give." "But, your duties will become mine, Mary; and most gladly will I assume them. Only give me your hand, and in return I will give you a home for all you love, and you can do for them just as your heart desires. Will you now be mine?" "If my mother object not," she said, bursting into tears. Of course, the mother had no objection to urge, and in a few weeks they were married. It was, perhaps, three months after this event, that the now happy family were seated in a beautifully furnished parlor, large enough to suit even Mrs. Turner's ideas. Something had turned their thoughts on the past, and Mary alluded to their sad experience in keeping boarders. "You did not lose much, did you?" asked her husband. "We sunk over two thousand dollars," Mary replied. "Is it possible! You paid rather dear, then, for your experience in keeping a boarding house." "So I then thought," Mary answered, looking into his face with a smile, "But I believe it was money well laid out. What you call a good investment." "How so?" Mary stooped down to the ear of her husband, who sat a little behind her mother, and whispered, "You are dull, dear--I got you by it, didn't I?" His young wife's cheek was very convenient, and his lips touched it almost involuntarily. "What is that, Mary?" asked her mother, turning towards them, for she had heard her remark, and was waiting for the explanation. "Oh, nothing, mother, it was only some of my fun." "You seem quite full of fun, lately," said Mrs. Turner, with a quiet smile of satisfaction, and again bent her eyes upon the book she was reading. CHAPTER XXX. TWO WAYS WITH DOMESTICS. "AH, good morning, dear! I'm really glad to see you," said Helen Armitage to her young friend Fanny Milnor, as the latter came in to sit an hour with her. "I just wanted a little sunshine." "There ought to be plenty of sunshine here," returned Fanny smiling. "You always seem happy, and so does your mother and sister Mary, whenever I meet you abroad." "Abroad, or at home, makes quite a difference, Fanny. Precious little sunshine have we here. Not a day passes over our heads, that we are not thrown into hot water about something or other, with our abominable servants. I declare! I never saw the like, and it grows worse and worse every day." "Indeed! That is bad, sure enough. But can't you remedy this defect in some way?" "We try hard enough, dear knows! I believe we have had no less than, six cooks, and as many chambermaids in the last three months. But change only makes the matter worse. Sometimes they are so idle and dirty that we cannot tolerate them for a week. And then again they are so ill-natured, and downright saucy, that no one can venture to speak to them." As Helen Armitage said this, she arose from her chair, and walking deliberately across the room, rang the parlor bell, and then quietly walked back again and resumed her seat, continuing her remarks as she did so, upon the exhaustless theme she had introduced. In a little while a domestic entered. "That door has been left open by some one," the young lady said, in a half vexed tone of authority, and with a glance of reproof, as she pointed to the door of the back parlor leading into the passage. The servant turned quickly away, muttering as she did so, and left the parlor, slamming the door after her with a sudden, indignant jerk. "You see that!" remarked Helen, the color deepening on her cheeks, and her voice indicating a good deal of inward disturbance. "That's just the way we are served by nine out of ten of the people we get about us. They neglect every thing, and then, when reminded of their duty, flirt, and grumble, and fling about just as you saw that girl do this moment. I'll ring for her again, and make her shut that door as she ought to do, the insolent creature!" Helen was rising, when Fanny laid her hand on her arm, and said, in a quiet persuasive tone, "No--no--don't, Helen. She is out of temper, and will only retort angrily at further reproof. The better way is to pass over these things as if you did not notice them." "And let them ride over us rough shod, as they most certainly will! The fact is, with all our efforts to make them know and keep their places, we find it impossible to gain any true subordination in the house." "We never have any trouble of this kind," Fanny said. "You must be very fortunate then." "I don't know as to that. I never recollect an instance in which a domestic opposed my mother or failed to obey, cheerfully, any request. And we have had several in our house, within my recollection. At least half a dozen." "Half a dozen! Oh, dear! We have half a dozen a month sometimes! But come, let us go up to my room; I have some new prints to show you. They are exquisite. My father bought them for me last week." The two young ladies ascended to Helen's chamber in the third story. But the book of prints was not to be found there. "It is in the parlor, I recollect now," said Helen, ringing the bell as she spoke, with a quick, strong jerk. In about three or four minutes, and just as the young lady's patience was exhausted and her fingers were beginning to itch for another pull at the bell rope, the tardy waiting women appeared. "Hannah--Go down into the parlor, and bring me off of the piano a book you will find there. It is a broad flat book, with loose sheets in it." This was said in a tone of authority. The domestic turned away without speaking and went down stairs. In a little while she came back, and handed Helen a book, answering the description given. But it was a portfolio of music. "O no! Not this!" said she, with a curl of the lip, and an impatient tossing of her head. "How stupid you are, Hannah! The book I want, contains prints, and this is only a music book! There! Take it back, and bring me the book of prints." Hannah took the book, and muttering as she went out, returned to the parlor, down two long flights of stairs, and laid it upon the piano. "If you want the pictures, you may get them yourself, Miss; you've got more time to run up and down stairs than I have." As she said this Hannah left the parlor, and the book of prints lying upon the piano, and went back to the chamber she had been engaged in cleaning up when called away by Helen's bell. It was not long after she had resumed her occupation, before the bell sounded loudly through the passages. Hannah smiled bitterly, and with an air of resolution, as she listened to the iron summons. "Pull away to your heart's content, Miss!" she said, half audibly. "When you call me again take care and know what you want me for. I've got something else to do besides running up and down stairs to bring you pictures. Why didn't you look at them while you were in the parlor, or, take them up with you, if you wanted them in your chamber?" "Did you ever see the like!" ejaculated Helen, deeply disturbed at finding both her direction and her subsequent summons unattended to. "That's just the way we are constantly served by these abominable creatures." Two or three heavy jerks at the bell rope followed these remarks. "Pull away! It's good exercise for you!" muttered Hannah to herself. And this was all the notice she took of the incensed young lady, who was finally compelled to go down stairs and get the prints herself. But she was so much disturbed and caused Fanny to feel so unpleasantly that neither of them had any real enjoyment in examining the beautiful pictures. After these had been turned over and remarked upon for some time, and they had spent an hour in conversation, the bell was again rung. Hannah, who came with her usual reluctance, was directed to prepare some lemonade, and bring it up with cake. This she did, after a good deal of delay, for which she was grumbled at by Helen. After the cake bad been eaten, and the lemonade drank, Hannah was again summoned to remove the waiter. This was performed with the same ill grace that every other service had been rendered. "I declare! these servants worry me almost to death!" Helen again broke forth. "This is just the way I am served whenever I have a visiter. It is always the time Hannah takes to be ill-natured and show off her disobliging, ugly temper." Fanny made no reply to this. But she had her own thoughts. It was plain enough to her mind, that her friend had only herself to blame, for the annoyance she suffered. After witnessing one or two mote petty contentions with the domestic, Fanny went away, her friend promising, at her particular request, to come and spend a day with her early in the ensuing week. It can do no harm, and may do good, for us to draw aside for an instant the veil that screened from general observation the domestic economy of the Armitage family. They were well enough off in the world as regards wealth, but rather poorly off in respect to self-government and that domestic wisdom which arranges all parts of a household in just subordination, and thus prevents collisions, or encroachments of one portion upon another. With them, a servant was looked upon as a machine who had nothing to do but to obey all commands. As to the rights of servants in a household, that was something of which they had never dreamed. Of course, constant rebellion, or the most unwillingly preformed duties, was the undeviating attendant upon their domestic economy. It was a maxim, with Mrs. Armitage, never to indulge or favor one of her people in the smallest matter. She had never done so in her life, she said, that she had got any thanks for it. It always made them presumptuous and dissatisfied. The more you did for them, the more they expected, and soon came to demand as a right what had been at first granted as a favor. Mrs. Armitage was, in a word, one of those petty domestic tyrants, who rule with the rod of apparent authority. Perfect submission she deemed the only true order in a household. Of course, true order she never could gain, for such a thing as perfect submission to arbitrary rule among domestics in this country never has and never will be yielded. The law of kindness and consideration is the only true law, and where this is not efficient, none other will or can be. As for Mrs. Armitage and her daughters, each one of whom bore herself towards the domestics with an air of imperiousness and dictation, they never reflected before requiring a service whether such a service would not be felt as burdensome in the extreme, and therefore, whether it might not be dispensed with at the time. Without regard to what might be going on in the kitchen, the parlor or chamber, bells were rung, and servants required to leave their half finished meals, or to break away in the midst of important duties that had to be done by a certain time, to attend to some trifling matter which, in fact, should never have been assigned to a domestic at all. Under this system, it was no wonder that a constant succession of complaints against servants should be made by the Armitages. How could it be otherwise? Flesh and blood could not patiently bear the trials to which these people were subjected. Nor was it any wonder, that frequent changes took place, or that they were only able to retain the most inferior class of servants, and then only for short periods. There are few, perhaps, who cannot refer, among their acquaintances, to a family like the Armitages. They may ordinarily be known by their constant complaints about servants, and their dictatorial way of speaking whenever they happen to call upon them for the performance of any duty. In pleasing contrast to them were the Milnors. Let us go with Helen in her visit to Fanny. When the day came which she had promised to spend with her young friend, Helen, after getting out of patience with the chambermaid for her tardy attendance upon her, and indulging her daily murmurs against servants, at last emerged into the street, and took her way towards the dwelling of Mr. Milnor. It was a bright day, and her spirits soon rose superior to the little annoyances that had fretted her for the past hour. When she met Fanny she was in the best possible humor; and so seemed the tidy domestic who had admitted her, for she looked very cheerful, and smiled as she opened the door. "How different from our grumbling, slovenly set!" Helen could not help remarking to herself, as she passed in. Fanny welcomed her with genuine cordiality, and the two young ladies were soon engaged in pleasant conversation. After exhausting various themes, they turned to music, and played, and sang together for half an hour. "I believe I have some new prints that you have never seen," said Fanny on their leaving the piano, and she looked around for the portfolio of engravings, but could not find it. "Oh! now I remember--it is up stairs. Excuse me for a minute and I will run and get it." As Fanny said this, she glided from the room. In a few minutes she returned with the book of prints. "Pardon me, Fanny--but why didn't you call a servant to get the port-folio for you? You have them in the house to wait upon you." "Oh, as to that," returned Fanny, "I always prefer to wait upon myself when I can, and so remain independent. And besides, the girls are all busy ironing, and I would not call them off from their work for any thing that I could do myself. Ironing day is a pretty hard day for all of them, for our family is large, and mother always likes her work done well." "But, if you adopt that system, you'll soon have them grumbling at the merest trifle you may be compelled to ask them to do." "So far from that, Helen, I never make a request of any domestic in the house, that is not instantly and cheerfully met. To make you sensible of the good effects of the system I pursue of not asking to be waited on when I can help myself, I will mention that as I came down just now with these engravings in my hand, I met our chambermaid on the stairs, with a basket of clothes in her hands--'There now, Miss Fanny,' she said half reprovingly, 'why didn't you call me to get that for you, and not leave your company in the parlor?' There is no reluctance about her, you see. She knows that I spare her whenever I can, and she is willing to oblige me, whenever she can do so." "Truly, she must be the eighth wonder of the world!" said, Helen in laughing surprise. "Who ever heard of a servant that asked as a favor to be permitted to serve you? All of which I ever saw, or heard, cared only to get out of doing every thing, and strove to be as disobliging as possible." "It is related of the good Oberlin," replied Fanny, "that he was asked one day by an old female servant who had been in his house for many years, whether there were servants in heaven. On his inquiring the reason for so singular a question, he received, in substance, this reply--'Heaven will be no heaven to me, unless I have the privilege of ministering to your wants and comfort there as I have the privilege of doing here. I want to be your servant even in heaven.' Now why, Helen, do you suppose that faithful old servant was so strongly attached to Oberlin?" "Because, I presume, he had been uniformly kind to her." "No doubt that was the principal reason. And that I presume is the reason why there is no domestic in our house who will not, at any time, do for me cheerfully, and with a seeming pleasure, any thing I ask of her. I am sure I never spoke cross to one of them in my life--and I make it a point never to ask them to do for me what I can readily do for myself." "Your mother must be very fortunate in her selection of servants. There, I presume, lies the secret. We never had one who would bear the least consideration. Indeed, ma makes it a rule on no account to grant a servant any indulgences whatever, it only spoils them, she says. You must keep them right down to it, or they soon get good for nothing." "My mother's system is very different," Fanny said--"and we have no trouble." The young ladies then commenced examining the prints, after which, Fanny asked to be excused a moment. In a little while she returned with a small waiter of refreshments. Helen did not remark upon this, and Fanny made no allusion to the fact of not having called a servant from the kitchen to do what she could so easily do herself. A book next engaged their attention, and occupied them until dinner time. At the stable, a tidy domestic waited with cheerful alacrity, so different from the sulky, slow attendance, at home. "Some water, Rachael, if you please." Or, "Rachael, step down and, bring up some hot potatoes." Or--"Here, Rachael," with a pleasant smile, "you have forgotten the salt spoons," were forms of addressing a waiter upon the table so different from what Helen had ever heard, that she listened to them with utter amazement. And she was no less surprised to see with what cheerful alacrity every direction, or rather request, was obeyed. After they all rose from the table, and had retired to the parlor, a pleasant conversation took place, in which no allusions whatever were made to the dreadful annoyance of servants, an almost unvarying subject of discourse at Mr. Armitage's, after the conclusion of nearly every badly cooked, illy served meal.--A discourse too often overheard by some one of the domestics and retailed in the kitchen, to breed confirmed ill-will, and a spirit of opposition towards the principal members of the family. Nearly half an hour had passed from the time they had risen from the table, when a younger sister of Fanny's, who was going out to a little afternoon party, asked if Rachael might not be called up from the kitchen to get something for her. "No, my dear, not until she has finished her dinner," was the mild reply of Mrs. Milnor. "But it won't take her over a minute, mother, and I am in a hurry." "I can't help it, my dear. You will have to wait. Rachael must not be disturbed at her meals. You should have thought of this before, dinner. You know I have always tried to impress upon your mind, that there are certain hours in which domestics must not be called upon to do any thing, unless of serious importance. They have their rights, as well, as we have, and it is just as wrong for us to encroach upon their rights, as it is for them to encroach upon ours." "Never mind, mother, I will wait," the little girl said, cheerfully. "But I thought, it was such a trifle, and would have taken her only a minute." "It is true, my dear, that is but a trifle. Still, even trifles of this kind we should form the habit of avoiding; for they may seriously annoy at a time when we dream not that they are thought of for a moment. Think how, just as you had seated yourself at the table, tired and hungry, you would like to be called away, your food scarcely tasted, to perform some task, the urgency of which to you, at least, was very questionable?" "I was wrong I know, mother," the child replied, "and you are right." All this was new and strange doctrine to Helen Armitage, but she was enabled to see, from the manner in which Mrs. Milnor represented the subject, that it was true doctrine. As this became clear to her mind, she saw with painful distinctness the error that had thrown disorder into every part of her mother's household; and more than this, she inwardly resolved, that, so far as her action was concerned, a new order of things should take place. In this she was in earnest--so much so, that she made some allusion to the difference of things at home, to what they were at Mrs. Milnor's, and frankly confessed that she had not acted upon the kind and considerate principles that seemed to govern all in this well-ordered family. "My dear child!" Mrs. Milnor said to her, with affectionate earnestness, in reply to this allusion--"depend upon it, four-fifths of the bad domestics are made so by injudicious treatment. They are, for the most part, ignorant of almost every thing, and too often, particularly, of their duties in a family. Instead of being borne with, instructed, and treated with consideration, they are scolded, driven and found fault with. Kind words they too rarely receive; and no one can well and cheerfully perform all that is required of her as a domestic, if she is never spoken to kindly, never considered--never borne with, patiently. It is in our power to make a great deal of work for our servants that is altogether unnecessary--and of course, in our power to save them many steps, and many moments of time. If we are in the chambers, and wish a servant for any thing, and she is down in the kitchen engaged, it is always well to think twice before we ring for her once. It may be, that we do not really want the attendance of any one, or can just as well wait until some errand has brought her up stairs. Then, there are various little things in which we can help ourselves and ought to do it. It is unpardonable, I think, for a lady to ring for a servant to come up one or two pairs of stairs merely to hand her a drink, when all she has to do is to cross the room, and get it for herself. Or for a young lady to require a servant to attend to all her little wants, when she can and ought to help herself, even if it takes her from the third story to the kitchen, half a dozen times a day. Above all, domestics should never be scolded. If reproof is necessary, let it be administered in a calm mild voice, and the reasons shown why the act complained of is wrong. This is the only way in which any good is done." "I wish my mother could only learn that," said Helen, mentally, as Mrs. Milnor ceased speaking. When she returned home, it was with a deeply formed resolution never again to speak reprovingly to any of her mother's domestics--never to order them to do any thing for her,--and never to require them to wait upon her when she could just as well help herself. In this she proved firm. The consequence was, an entire change in Hannah's deportment towards her, and a cheerful performance by her of every thing she asked her to do. This could not but be observed by her mother, and it induced her to modify, to some extent, her way of treating her servants. The result was salutary, and now she has far less trouble with them than she ever had in her life. All, she finds, are not so worthless as she had deemed them. CHAPTER XXXI. A MOTHER'S DUTY. I CLOSE my volume of rambling sketches, with a chapter more didactic and serious. The duties of the housekeeper and mother, usually unite in the same person; but difficult and perplexing as is the former relation, how light and easy are all its claims compared with those of the latter. Among my readers are many mothers--Let us for a little while hold counsel together. To the mind of a mother, who loves her children, no subject can have so deep an interest as that which has respect to the well being of her offspring. Young mothers, especially, feel the need, the great need of the hints and helps to be derived from others' experience. To them, the duty of rightly guiding, forming and developing the young mind is altogether a new one; at every step they feel their incompetence, and are troubled at their want of success. A young married friend, the mother of two active little boys, said to me, one day, earnestly, "Oh! I think, sometimes, that I would give the world if I only could see clearly what was my duty towards my children. I try to guide them aright--I try to keep them from all improper influences--but rank weeds continually spring up with the flowers I have planted. How shall I extirpate these, without injuring the others?" How many a young mother thus thinks and feels. It is indeed a great responsibility that rests upon her. With the most constant and careful attention, she will find the task of keeping out the weeds a hard one; but let her not become weary or discouraged. The enemy is ever seeking to sow tares amid her wheat, and he will do it if she sleep at her post. Constant care, good precept, and, above all, good example, will do much. The gardener whose eye is ever over, and whose hand is ever busy in his garden, accomplishes much; the measure of his success may be seen if the eye rest for but a moment on the garden of his neighbor, the sluggard. Even if a weed springs here and there, it is quickly plucked up, and never suffered to obstruct or weaken the growth of esculent plants. A mole may enter stealthily, marring the beauty of a flower-bed, and disturbing the roots of some garden-favorite, but through the careful husbandman's well set enclosure, no beasts find an entrance. So it will be with the watchful, conscientious mother. She will so fence around her children from external dangers and allurements, that destructive beasts will be kept out; and she will, at the same time cultivate the garden of their good affections, and extirpate the weeds, that her children may grow up in moral health and beauty. All this can be done. But the right path must be seen before we can walk in it. Every mother feels as the one I have alluded to; but some, while they feel as deeply, have not the clear perceptions of what is right that others have. Much has been written on the subject of guiding and governing children--much that is good, and much that is of doubtful utility. I will here present, from the pen of an English lady, whose work has not, we believe, been re-printed in this country, a most excellent series of precepts. They deserve to be written in letters of gold, and hung up in every nursery. She says-- "The moment a child is born into the world, a mother's duties commence; and of all those which God has allotted to mortals, there are none so important as those which devolve upon a mother. More feeble and helpless than any thing else of living creatures is an infant in the first days of its existence--unable to minister to its own wants, unable even to make those wants known: a feeble cry which indicates suffering, but not what or where the pain is, is all it can utter. But to meet this weakness and incapacity on the part of the infant, God has implanted in the heart of the mother a yearning affection to her offspring, so that she feels this almost inanimate being to be a part of herself, and every cry of pain acts as a dagger to her own heart. And to humanity alone, of all the tribes of animated beings, has a power been given to nullify this feeling. Beast, bird, and insect, attend to the wants of their offspring, accordingly as those wants require much or little assiduity. But woman, if she will, can drug and stupefy this feeling. She can commit the charge of her child to dependants and servants, and need only to take care that enough is provided to meet that child's wants, but need not see herself that those wants are actually met. But a woman who does this is far, very far, from doing her duty. Who is so fit to watch over the wants of infancy as she who gave that infant birth? Can a mother suppose, that if she can so stifle those sensibilities which prompt her to provide for the wants of her children, servants and dependants, in whom no such sensibilities exist, will be very solicitous about their charge? How many of the infant's cries will be unattended to, which would at once have made their way to the heart of a mother! and, therefore, how many of the child's wants will in consequence remain uncared for! No one can understand so well the wants of a child as a mother--no one is ever so ready to meet those wants as she; and, therefore, to none but a mother, under ordinary circumstances, should the entire charge of a child be committed, And in all countries in which, luxury has not so far attained the ascendency, that in order to partake of its pleasures a mother will desert her offspring, the cares and trials of maternal love are entered upon as the sweetest of enjoyments and the greatest of pleasures. It was a noble saying of a queen of France, "that none should share with her the privileges of a mother;" and if the same sentiment found its way into every heart, a very different aspect would soon be produced. How many, through ill-treatment and neglect in childhood, carry the marks to their dying day in weak and sickly constitutions! how many more in a distorted body and crippled limbs! These are but the too sure consequences of the neglect of a mother, and, consequent upon that, the neglect of servants, who, feeling the child a burden, lessen their own trouble; and many a mother who, perhaps, now that her child has grown up, weeps bitter tears over his infirmities, might have saved his pain and her own sorrow by attending to his wants in infancy. "Can a mother forget her sucking child?" asks the inspired penman, in a way that it would seem to be so great an anomaly as almost to amount to an impossibility. Yet modern luxury not only proves that such a thing can be done, but it is one even of common occurrence. But if done, surely some great stake must be pending--something on which life and property are concerned--that a mother can thus forget the child of her bosom? Alas! no; the child is neglected, that no interruption may take place in the mother's stream of pleasure. For the blandishments of the theatre, or the excitements of the dance, is a child left to the charge of those who have nothing of love for it--no sympathy for its sufferings, no joyousness in sharing in its pleasures. A woman forfeits all claim to the sacred character of a mother if she abandon her offspring to the entire care of others: for ere she can do this, she must have stifled all the best feelings of her nature, and become "worse than the infidel"--for she gives freely to the stranger, and neglects her own. Therefore should a woman, if she would fulfil her duty, make her child her first care. It is not necessary that her whole time should be spent in attending to its wants; but it is necessary that so much of the time should be spent, that nothing should be neglected which could add to the child's comfort and happiness. And not only is it needful that a woman should show a motherly fondness for her child, so that she should attend to its wants and be solicitous for its welfare; it is also necessary that she should know how those wants are best to be provided for, and how that welfare is best to be consulted: for to the natural feelings which prompt animals to provide for their offspring, to humanity is added the noble gift of reason; so that thought and solicitude are not merely the effects of blind instinct, but the produce of a higher and nobler faculty. As we have already adverted to this point, we shall only say, that without a knowledge of how the physical wants of a child are to be met in the best manner, a mother cannot be said to be performing her duty; for the kindness which is bestowed may be but the result of natural feeling, which it would be far harder to resist than to fulfil; whereas the want of knowledge may have resulted from ignorance and idleness, and the loss of this knowledge will never be made up by natural kindness and love: it will be like trying to work without hands, or to see when the eyes are blinded. But there is yet a higher duty devolving upon woman. She has to attend to the mental and moral wants of her offspring, as well as to the physical. And helpless as we are born into the world if reference be made to our physical wants, we are yet more helpless if reference be made to our mental and moral. We come into the world with evil passions, perverted faculties, and unholy dispositions: for let what will be said of the blandness and attractiveness of children, there are in those young hearts the seeds of evil; and it needs but that a note be taken of what passes in the every-day life of a child, to convince that all is not so amiable as at first sight appears, but that the heart hides dark deformity, headstrong passions, and vicious thoughts. And to a mother's lot it falls to be the instructress of her children--their guide and pattern, and she fails in her duty when she fails in either of these points. But it may be said, that the requirement is greater than humanity can perform, and that it would need angelic purity to be able fully to meet it; for who shall say that she is so perfect that no inconsistencies shall appear between what she teaches and what she practises? It would be, indeed, to suppose mothers more than human to think that their instructions should be perfect. The best of mothers are liable to err, and the love a mother has for her child may tempt her frequently to pass over faults which she knows ought to be corrected. But making due allowance for human incompetency and human weakness, still will a mother be bound to the utmost of her power to be the instructress of her child, equally by the lesson she inculcates and the pattern she exhibits. There is, indeed, too much neglect shown in the instruction of children. Mothers seem to think, that if amiable qualities are shown in the exterior, no instruction is necessary for the heart. But this is a most futile attempt to make children virtuous; it is like attempting to purify water half-way down the stream, and leaving it still foul at the source. The heart should be the first thing instructed; a motive and a reason should be given for every requirement--a motive and a reason should be given for every abstinence called for--and when the heart is made to love virtue, the actions will be those of virtue; for it is the heart which is the great mover of all actions--and the moment a child can distinguish between a smile and a frown, from that moment should instruction commence--an instruction suited indeed to infantine capacities, but which should be enlarged as the child's capacities expand. It is very bad policy to suffer the first years of a child's life to pass without instruction; for if good be not written on the mind, there is sure to be evil. It is a mother's duty to watch the expanding intellect of her child, and to suit her instructions accordingly: it is equally so to learn its disposition--to study its wishes, its hopes and its fears, and to direct, control, and point them to noble aims and ends. Oh! not alone is it needful that a mother be solicitous for the health and happiness of her child on earth: a far higher and more important thought should engage her attention--concern for her child as an immortal and an accountable being. To all who bear the endearing name of mother, thus would we speak: That child with whom you are so fondly playing--whose happy and smiling countenance might serve for the representation of a cherub, and whose merry laugh rings joyously and free--yes! that blooming child, notwithstanding all these pleasing and attractive smiles, has a heart prone to evil. To you is it committed to be the teacher of that child; and on that teaching will mainly if not entirely depend its future happiness or misery; not of a few brief years--not of a life-time, but of eternity; for though a dying creature, it is still immortal, and the happiness or misery of that immortality depends upon your instruction. Will you neglect or refuse to be your child's teacher? Shall the world and its pleasures draw off your attention from your duty when so much is at stake? or, will you leave your child to glean knowledge as best it can, thus imbibing all principles and all habits, most of them unwholesome, and many poisonous? You can decide--you, the mother. You gave it life, you may make that life a blessing or a curse, as you inculcate good or evil; for if through your neglect, or through bad example, you let evil passions obtain an ascendency, that child may grow into a dissolute and immoral man; his career may be one of debauchery and profaneness; and then, when he comes to die, in the agonies of remorse, in the delirium of a conscience-stricken spirit, he may gasp out his last breath with a curse on your head, for having given him life, but not a disposition to use it aright, so that his has been a life of shame and disgrace here, and will be one of misery hereafter. That child's character is yet untainted; with you that decision rests--his destiny is in your hands. He may have dispositions the most dark and foul--falseness, hatred and revenge; but you may prevent their growth. He may have dispositions the most bland and attractive; you can so order it that contact with the world shall never sully them. Yes, you--the mother--can prevent the evil and nurture the good. You can teach that child--you can rear it, discipline it. You can make your offspring so love you, that the memory of your piety shall prevent their wickedness, and the hallowed recollection of your goodness stimulate their own. And equally in your power is it to neglect your child. By suffering pleasure to lure you--by following the follies of fashion, or by the charm of those baubles which the world presents to the eye, but keeps from your grasp--you may neglect your child. But you have neglected a plain and positive duty--a duty which is engraven on your heart and wound into your nature: and a duty neglected is sure, sooner or later, to come back again as an avenger to punish; while, on the other hand, a duty performed to the best of the ability returns back to the performer laden with a blessing. But it may be said, how are children to be trained in order that happiness may be the result? It is quite impossible to lay down rules for the management of children; since those which would serve for guidance in regulating the conduct of one child, would work the worst results when applied to another. But we mention a few particulars. The grand secret in the management of children is to treat them as reasonable beings. We see that they are governed by hope, fear, and love: these feelings, then, should be made the instruments by which their education is conducted. Whenever it is possible (and it is very rarely that it is not), a reason should be given for every requirement, and a motive for the undertaking any task: this would lead the child to see that nothing was demanded out of caprice or whim, but that it was a requirement involving happiness as well as duty. This method would also teach the child to reverence and respect the parent. She would be regarded as possessed of superior knowledge; and he would the more readily undertake demands for which he could see no reason, from a knowledge that no commands of which he understood the design were ever unreasonable. The manner of behaving to children should be one of kindness, though marked by decision of character. An over fondness should never allow a mother to gratify her child in any thing unreasonable; and after having once refused a request--which she should not do hastily or unadvisedly--no coaxing or tears should divert her from her purpose; for if she gives way, the child will at once understand that he has a power over his mother, and will resort to the same expedient whenever occasion may require; and a worse evil than this is, that respect for the parent will be lost, and the child, in place of yielding readily to her wishes, will try means of trick and evasion to elude them. In order to really manage a child well, a mother should become a child herself; she should enter into its hopes and fears, and share its joys and sorrows; she should bend down her mind to that of her offspring, so as to be pleased with all those trivial actions which give it pleasure, and to sorrow over those which bring it pain. This would secure a love firm and ardent, and at the same time lasting; for as a child advanced in strength of intellect, so might the mother, until the child grew old enough to understand the ties which bound them; and then, by making him a friend, she would bind him to her for life. There are none of the human race so sagacious and keensighted as children: they seem to understand intuitively a person's disposition, and they quickly notice any discrepancies or inconsistencies of conduct. On this point should particular attention be paid, that there be nothing practised to cheat the child. Underhand means are frequently resorted to, to persuade a child to perform or abstain from some particular duty or object; but in a very short time it will be found out, and the child has been taught a lesson in deception which it will not fail to use when occasion requires. And under this head might be included all that petty species of deceit used towards children, whether to mislead their apprehension, or to divert their attention. If any thing be improper for a child to know or do, better tell him so at once, than resort to an underhand expedient. If a reason can be given for requiring the abstinence; it should; but if not tell the child that the reason is such that he could not comprehend it, and he will remain satisfied. But if trick or scheming be resorted to, the child will have learned the two improper lessons of first being cunning, and then telling a falsehood to avoid it. In whatever way you wish to act upon a child, always propose the highest and noblest motive--this will generally be a motive which centres in God. Thus, in teaching a child to speak the truth, it should be proposed not so much out of obedience to parents, as out of obedience to God; and in all requirements the love and fear of God should be prominently set forth. A child is born with feelings of religion; and if these feelings are properly called forth, the actions will generally have a tendency to good. Thus, with a child whose disposition is to deceive, a mother has no hold upon such an one; for the child will soon perceive that his mother cannot follow him every where, and that he can commit with impunity many actions of deceit. But, impress the child with the truth that a Being is watching these actions, and that though done with the greatest cunning, they cannot be committed with impunity, and it is more than probable that they will never be committed at all. A temptation may be thrown in the way of such a child, but it will not be powerful enough to overcome the feeling that the action is watched. That child may eagerly pant to perform the forbidden action, or to partake of the forbidden pleasure; but he will not be able to rid himself of the feeling that it cannot be done without being observed. He will stand in a state of anxiety, and steal a glance around, in order to see the Being he feels is looking upon him, and every breeze that murmurs will be a voice to chide him, and every leaf that whistles will seem a footstep, and never will he be able to break the restraint; for wherever he goes and whatever he does, he will feel that his actions are watched by one who will punish the bad and reward the good. And in the same way might this be applied to all dispositions and feelings. How cheering is it to a timid child to be told that at no time is he left alone: but that the Being who made every thing preserves and keeps every thing, and that nothing can happen but by his permission! This is to disarm fear of its terrors, and to implant a confidence in the mind, for the child will feel that while his actions are good he is under the protection of an Almighty Parent. In the same way, in stimulating a child to the performance of a duty, the end proposed should be the favour of God. This would insure the duty being entered upon with a right spirit--not merely for the sake of show and effect, but springing from the heart and the mind--and, at the same time, it would prevent any thing of hypocrisy. If it were only the estimation of the world which was to be regarded, a child could soon understand that the applause would be gained by the mere exterior performance, be the motive what it might: but when the motive is centered in God, it is readily understood that the feeling must be genuine; otherwise, whatever the world may say, God will look upon it as unworthy and base. We believe it would be found to work the best results, if all the actions of a child were made thus to depend upon their harmony with the will of God; for it would give a sacredness to every action, make every motive a high and holy one, and harmonise the thoughts of the heart with the actions of the life. But in this mode of teaching, it is essentially necessary that a mother should herself be an example of the truth she teaches. It will be worse than useless to teach a child that God is always at hand, 'and spieth out all our ways,' if she act as though she did not believe in the existence of a Deity. In the same way will it hold good of every requirement. It will be vain to teach a child that lying is a great crime in God's sight, when a mother in her own words shows no regard to truth; and equally so of all other passions and feelings. It is idle to teach a child that pride--hatred--revenge--anger, are unholy passions, if a mother's own conduct displays either of them. How useless is it to teach that vanity should never be indulged in, when a mother delights in display! Such instruction as this is like the web of Penelope--unpicked as fast as done. The greatest reverence is due to a child; and previously to becoming a teacher, a mother should learn this hardest of all lessons--'Know thyself.' Without this, the instruction she gives her children will at best prove very imperfect. It is quite useless to teach children to reverence any thing, when a mother's conduct shows that, practically at least, she has no belief in the truths she inculcates. And a very hard requirement this is: but it is a requirement absolutely necessary, if education is meant to be any thing more than nominal. The finest lesson on the beauty of truth is enforced by a mother never herself saying what is false; for children pay great regard to consistency, and very soon detect any discrepancies between that which is taught and that which is practised. The best method of inculcating truth on the minds of children is by analogy and illustration. They cannot follow an argument, though they readily understand a comparison: and, by a judicious arrangement, every thing, either animate or inanimate, might be made to become a teacher. What lesson on industry would be so likely to be instructive as that gathered from a bee-hive? The longest dissertation on the evils of idleness and the advantages of industry would not prove half so beneficial as directing the observation to the movements of the bee--that ever-active insect, which, without the aid of reason, exercises prudence and foresight, and provides against the wants of winter. A child will readily understand such instruction as this, and will blush to be found spending precious hours in idleness. And in the same way with other duties, whether to God or mankind, the fowls of the air and the flowers of the field might be made profitable teachers, and the child would, wherever he went, be surrounded with instruction. This mode of teaching has this special recommendation--it raises up no evil passions: and a child which would display an evil temper by being reproved in words, will feel no such rancor at a lesson being inculcated in a way like this. This instruction will also be much longer remembered than one delivered in words, forasmuch as the object upon which the instruction is based would be continually presented to the eye. And, we believe, almost all duties might be inculcated in this manner. Thus, humility by the lily, patience by the spider, affection by the dove, love to parents by the stork,--all might be rendered teachers, and in a way never to be forgotten. And that this mode of teaching is the best, we have the example of Christ himself, who almost invariably enforced his instructions by an allusion to some created thing. What, for instance, was so likely to teach men dependence upon God as a reference to the 'ravens and the lilies,' which without the aid of reason had their wants cared for? And in the same way with children--what is so likely to teach them their duties, as a reference to the varied things in nature with whose uses and habits they are well acquainted? God should be the object upon which the child's thoughts are taught to dwell--for the minds even of children turn to the beautiful, and the beautiful is the Divine. All thoughts and actions should be raised to this standard; and the child would raise above the feelings of self-gratification and vanity, and the panting for applause, to the favor and love of God. Thus should religion be the great and the first thing taught; and a mother should be careful that neither in her own actions, nor in the motives she holds out to her children, should there be any thing inimical or contrary to religion. And by this course the best and happiest results may be expected to follow. The perverse and headstrong passions of the human heart are so many, that numerous instructions may seem to be useless, and a mother may have often to sigh over her child as she sees him allowing evil habits to obtain the mastery, or unholy dispositions to reign in his heart; but, as we have before said, we do not think that the instruction will be lost, but that a time will come when she will reap the fruits of her toil, care and anxiety. Such then is the duty of woman as a mother--to tend and watch over the wants of her child, to guard it in health, to nurse it in sickness, to be solicitous for it in all the changes of life, and to prevent, as much as possible, those many ills to which flesh is heir from assailing her fondly cherished offspring. It is also her province to instruct her children in those duties which will fall to their lot both as reasonable and as immortal creatures; and by so doing she will make her own life happy--leave to her children a happy heritage on earth, and a prospect of a higher one in heaven. But if a mother neglect her duty, she will reap the fruits of her own negligence in the ingratitude of her children--an ingratitude which will bring a double pain to her, from the thought that her own neglect was the cause of its growth, as an eagle with an arrow in his heart might be supposed to feel an agony above that of pain on seeing the shaft now draining its life's blood feathered from its own wing. Mrs. Child, in her excellent "Mother's Book," a volume that should be in the hands of every woman who has assumed the responsibilities of a parent, gives some valuable suggestions on the subject of governing children. I make a single extract and with it close my present rambling work. She says: "Some children, from errors in early management, get possessed with the idea that they may have every thing. They even tease for things it would be impossible to give them. A child properly managed will seldom ask twice for what you have once told him he should not have. But if you have the care of one who has acquired this habit, the best way to cure him of it is never to give him what he asks for, whether his request is proper or not; but at the same time be careful to give him such things as he likes, (provided they are proper for him,) when he does not ask for them. This will soon break him of the habit of teasing. "I have said much in praise of gentleness. I cannot say too much. Its effects are beyond calculation, both on the affections and the understanding. The victims of oppression and abuse are generally stupid, as well as selfish and hard-hearted. How can we wonder at it? They are all the time excited to evil passions, and nobody encourages what is good in them. We might as well expect flowers to grow amid the cold and storm of winter. "But gentleness, important as it is, is not all that is required in education. There should be united with it firmness--great firmness. Commands should be reasonable, and given in perfect kindness; but once given, it should be known that they must be obeyed. I heard a lady once say, 'For my part, I cannot be so very strict with my children. I love them too much to punish them every time they disobey me.' I will relate a scene which took place in her family. She had but one domestic, and at the time to which I allude, she was very busy preparing for company. Her children knew by experience that when she was in a hurry she would indulge them in any thing for the sake of having them out of the way. George began, 'Mother, I want a piece of mince-pie.' The answer was, 'It is nearly bed-time; and mince-pie will hurt you. You shall have a piece of cake, if you will sit down and be still.' The boy ate his cake; and liking the system of being hired to sit still, he soon began again, 'Mother, I want a piece of mince-pie.' The old answer was repeated. The child stood his ground, 'Mother, I want a piece of mince-pie--I _want_ a piece--I _want_ a piece,' was repeated incessantly. 'Will you leave off teasing, If I give you a piece?' 'Yes, I will--certain true,' A small piece was given, and soon devoured. With his mouth half full, he began again, 'I want another piece--I want another piece.' 'No, George; I shall not give you another mouthful. Go sit down, you naughty boy. You always act the worst when I am going to have company.' George continued his teasing; and at last said, 'If you don't give me another piece, I'll roar.' This threat not being attended to, he kept his word. Upon this, the mother seized him by the shoulder, shook him angrily, saying, 'Hold your tongue, you naughty boy!' 'I will if you will give me another piece of pie,' said he. Another small piece was given him, after he had promised that he certainly would not tease any more. As soon as he had eaten it, he, of course, began again; and with the additional threat, 'If you don't give me a piece, I will roar after the company comes, so loud that they can all hear me.' The end of all this was, that the boy had a sound whipping, was put to bed, and could not sleep all night, because the mince-pie made his stomach ache. What an accumulation of evils in this little scene! His health injured--his promises broken with impunity--his mother's promises broken--the knowledge gained that he could always vex her when she was in a hurry--and that he could gain what he would by teasing. He always acted upon the same plan afterward; for he only once in a while (when he made his mother very angry) got a whipping; but he was _always_ sure to obtain what he asked for, if he teased her long enough. His mother told him the plain truth, when she said the mince-pie would hurt him; but he did not know whether it was the truth, or whether she only said it to put him off; for he knew that she did sometimes deceive. When she gave him the pie, he had reason to suppose it was not true it would hurt him--else why should a kind mother give it to her child? Had she told him that if he asked a second time, she would put him to bed directly--and had she kept her promise, in spite of entreaties--she would have saved him a whipping, and herself a great deal of unnecessary trouble. And who can calculate all the whippings, and all the trouble, she would have spared herself and him? I do not remember ever being in her house half a day without witnessing some scene of contention with the children. "Now let me introduce you to another acquaintance. She was in precisely the same situation, having a comfortable income and one domestic; but her children were much more numerous, and she had had very limited advantages for education. Yet she managed her family better than any woman I ever saw, or ever expect to see again. I will relate a scene I witnessed there, by way of contrast to the one I have just described. Myself and several friends once entered her parlor unexpectedly, just as the family were seated at the supper-table. A little girl, about four years old, was obliged to be removed, to make room for us. Her mother assured her she should have her supper in a little while, if she was a good girl. The child cried; and the guests insisted that room should be made for her at table. 'No,' said the mother; 'I have told her she must wait; and if she cries, I shall be obliged to send her to bed. If she is a good little girl, she shall have her supper directly.' The child could not make up her mind to obey; and her mother led her out of the room, and gave orders that she should be put to bed without supper. When my friend returned, her husband said, 'Hannah, that was a hard case. The poor child lost her supper, and was agitated by the presence of strangers. I could hardly keep from taking her on my knee, and giving her some supper. Poor little thing! But I never will interfere with your management; and much as it went against my feelings, I entirely approve of what you have done.' 'It cost me a struggle,' replied his wife; 'but I know it is for the good of the child to be taught that I mean exactly what I say.' "This family was the most harmonious, affectionate, happy family I ever knew. The children were managed as easily as a flock of lambs. After a few unsuccessful attempts at disobedience, when very young, they gave it up entirely; and always cheerfully acted from the conviction that their mother knew best. This family was governed with great strictness; firmness was united with gentleness. The indulgent mother, who said she loved her children too much to punish them, was actually obliged to punish them ten times as much as the strict mother did." THE END. 
45751	----	_LITTLE SUNBEAMS._ VI. NELLIE'S HOUSEKEEPING. By the Author of this Volume. I. LITTLE SUNBEAMS. By JOANNA H. MATHEWS, Author of the "Bessie Books." 6 vols. In a box $6.00 _Or, separately_:-- I. BELLE POWERS' LOCKET. 16mo 1.00 II. DORA'S MOTTO. 16mo 1.00 III. LILY NORRIS' ENEMY 1.00 IV. JESSIE'S PARROT 1.00 V. MAMIE'S WATCHWORD 1.00 VI. NELLIE'S HOUSEKEEPING 1.00 II. THE FLOWERETS. A series of Stories on the Commandments. 6 vols. In a box $3.60 "Under the general head of 'Flowerets,' this charming author has grouped six little volumes, being a series of stories on the Commandments. 'Our folks' are in love with them, and have made off with them all before we could get the first reading."--_Our Monthly._ III. THE BESSIE BOOKS. 6 vols. In a box $7.50 "We can wish our young readers no greater pleasure than an acquaintance with dear, cute little Bessie and her companions, old and young, brute and human."--_American Presbyterian._ ROBERT CARTER AND BROTHERS, _New York_ NELLIE'S HOUSEKEEPING. "Be good, sweet child, and let who will be clever: Do noble things, not dream them, all day long; So shalt thou make life, death, and that vast for ever. One grand, sweet song."--KINGSLEY. BY JOANNA H. MATHEWS, AUTHOR OF THE "BESSIE BOOKS" AND THE "FLOWERETS." NEW YORK: ROBERT CARTER AND BROTHERS, 530 BROADWAY. 1882. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by ROBERT CARTER AND BROTHERS, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. CONTENTS. PAGE I. HARD AT WORK 7 II. A TALK WITH PAPA 25 III. NELLIE A HOUSEKEEPER 50 IV. A COURTSHIP 70 V. WHITE MICE 94 VI. THE GRAY MICE 113 VII. THE BLACK CAT 136 VIII. DAISY'S SACRIFICE 157 IX. MAKING GINGER-CAKES 181 X. FRESH TROUBLES 204 XI. A NIGHT OF IT 224 XII. AN ALARM 236 XIII. LAST OF THE SUNBEAMS 245 [Illustration] NELLIE'S HOUSEKEEPING. I. _HARD AT WORK._ "NELLIE, will you come down to the beach now?" "No!" with as much shortness and sharpness as the little word of two letters could well convey. "Why not?" "Oh! because I can't. Don't bother me." And, laying down the pencil with which she had been writing, Nellie Ransom pushed back the hair from her flushed, heated face, drew a long, weary sigh, took up the Bible which lay at her elbow, and, turning over the leaf, ran her finger slowly and carefully down the page before her. Carrie stood with one elbow upon the corner of the table at which her sister sat, her chin resting in her palm as she discontentedly watched Nellie, while with the other hand she swung back and forth by one string the broad straw hat she was accustomed to wear when playing out of doors. "I think you might," she said presently. "Mamma says I can't go if you don't, and I want to go so." "I can't help it," said Nellie, still without taking her eyes from her Bible. "I wish you'd stop shaking the table so." "How soon will you come?" persisted Carrie, taking her elbow from the table. "When I'm ready, and not before," snapped Nellie. "I wish you'd let me alone." Carrie began to cry. "It's too bad," she whimpered. "Mamma says, if I go at all, I must go early, so as to be back before sundown, 'cause my cold is so bad. There won't be any time for me to play." Nellie made no answer, but, having found what she wanted in her Bible, began to write again, copying from the page of the Holy Book before her. Presently Carrie, forgetting her caution, tossed down her hat, and pettishly plumped both elbows upon the table, muttering,-- "I think you're real mean." "Stop shaking the table, or I won't go at all," said Nellie, in a loud, irritable tone. "Ask mamma to let Ruth take you." "She can't spare Ruth, she says. The baby is fretful, and she don't feel well enough to take care of it herself; and I think you might go with me. I haven't been to the beach for four days, because I was sick," pleaded Carrie, wiping the tears from her eyes. "Well, I'm too busy to go now. You'll have to wait until I'm ready," said Nellie. "I'll come by and by." "By and by will leave hardly any time," said Carrie, with a wistful glance out upon the lawn, where the shadows were already growing long. No answer; only the rustle of Nellie's sheet of paper as she turned it over. Carrie wandered restlessly about the room for a moment or two; then, coming back to the table, began idly to turn over some loose papers which lay at Nellie's right hand. Nellie snatched them from her. "Now, look here," she said, "if you don't go away and let me and my things alone, I won't go to the beach at all. You hinder me all the time, and I won't be so bothered." "Cross, hateful thing!" said Carrie, passionately. "I don't b'lieve you mean to go at all. I wish I had a better sister than you." Nellie turned once more to the Bible, but deigned no answer to this outburst. Carrie looked back from the door, which she had reached on her way from the room, and said in a tone one shade less furious than her last,-- "You're always poking over your Bible now, but it don't seem to teach you to be kind. You grow crosser and crosser every day; and you're not one bit like you used to be." "Carrie!" called Mrs. Ransom's gentle voice from the next room; and Carrie vanished, leaving Nellie, as she had said she wished to be, alone. Did her work go smoothly after that? Not very, at least for a few moments. Perhaps mamma had heard all that had passed, and Nellie did not feel quite satisfied that she should have done so. What had she said to Carrie? She could hardly recollect herself, so divided had been her attention between her little sister and the task before her; but she was quite certain that she had been "cross," and spoken to Carrie in an unkind manner, apart from her refusal to accompany the child, who, she well knew, had been confined to the house for the last few days, and deprived of her usual play and exercise in the open air. But then Carrie might just as well have waited patiently a few moments till she was ready to go, and not bothered her so. She would go presently when she had looked out three--well, no--five--six more verses, and written them out; and once more she took up the Bible. But the words before her eyes mingled themselves with those which were sounding in her ears. "Not like she used to be! Crosser and crosser every day!" Ah! none knew this better than Nellie herself, and yet she strove, or thought she did, against the growing evil. Well, there was no use thinking about it now. She would finish the task she had set herself, call Carrie, make it up with her, and go to the beach. And once more she was absorbed in her work, in spite of aching head and burning cheeks,--so absorbed that she did not heed how time was passing, did not heed that the six verses had grown into ten, until, as she was searching for the eleventh, the last golden rays of the sun fell across her paper, and, looking up quickly, she saw that he was just sinking in the far west. Too late for Carrie to go out now! The poor child had lost her afternoon stroll. Oh, she was so sorry! How could she forget? Hastily shutting the Bible and pushing it from her, she gathered up her papers, thrust them into her writing-desk, and turned the key, ran into the hall for her hat, and went in search of Carrie. Where was she? She had not heard the child's voice since she left her in such a temper, nor had she heard Daisy's. Probably the two little sisters had found some other way of amusing themselves, and Carrie would have forgotten her disappointment. Well, she would be sure to give her a good play on the beach to-morrow. Where could the children be? For, as Nellie thought this to herself, she was looking in all the places where they were usually to be found, but they were nowhere to be seen. She called in vain about house and garden; no childish voice answered. "I suppose Carrie is provoked with me, and won't speak to me, and won't let Daisy," she said to herself. "Well, I'm sure I don't care." But she did care, though she would not acknowledge it to herself; and she sat down upon the upper step of the porch, and watched the last rosy sunset tints fading out of the soft clouds overhead, with a restless, discontented feeling at her heart. The stillness and the beauty of the scene did not seem to bring peace and rest to her troubled little soul. And why was it troubled? Because for days past--nay, for weeks past--Nellie had been conscious of an increasing ill-humor and irritability,--"crosser and crosser every day,"--yes, that was it; but why was it? She did not know, she could not help it; she was sure she tried hard enough; and every night and morning, when she said her prayers and asked not to be "led into temptation," she always thought particularly of the temptation to be cross, for that seemed what she had to struggle with in these days. That, and one other thing. Nellie tried to put that other ugly failing out of sight, would not believe that she was guilty of it; and yet it would come before her sometimes, as it did now; and as she thought of little kindnesses, even little duties unperformed and neglected, she wondered if she were really growing selfish. She should so hate to be selfish. And yet--and yet--people were always asking her to do favors at such inconvenient times, when she was so busy; and somehow she was always busy now. There was so much she wanted to do; so much to accomplish this summer, before she returned to the city and to school; and she did not like to be interrupted when she was reading or studying. It was so hard to put her mind to it again, and she was sure it was right to try to improve herself all she could. The click of the gate-latch roused her from her troublesome thoughts; and, looking around, she saw her mother crossing the lawn, Carrie holding her hand and walking quietly by her side, Daisy jumping and skipping before them. Daisy was always skipping and jumping. What a happy, merry little thing she was! never still one moment, except when she was asleep, and not always so very still then, little roll-about that she was! But where had they all been? The toys the children had with them soon answered this question, for Daisy was pulling a wagon which had been filled with stones and shells. The most part of these, however, lay scattered here and there along the way home; for Daisy's prancings and caperings--she was supposed to be a pony just now--had jolted them out of the wagon and shed them broadcast on the path. Still the few that were left at the bottom of the wagon told whence they had come; and the tiny spade and pail full of shells which Carrie held told the same story. But how tired and languid mamma looked! how wearily she walked across the lawn! Nellie ran down to meet her. "Why, mamma!" she exclaimed. "Have you been down to the beach?" "Yes, Nellie." "But, mamma, you look so tired. Didn't you know that was too long a walk for you?" Nellie, a child grave and wise for her years, always, or almost always, showed a tender, thoughtful care for her mother; and it was sometimes really droll to see how she checked or advised her against any imprudence, even gently reproved, as in the present case, when the deed was done. "You ought not to do it, mamma, you really ought not." "I had promised Carrie that she should go this afternoon," said Mrs. Ransom, "and I could not bear that she should be disappointed after being shut up in the house for four days." "Mamma," said Carrie, "I'm sure I'd rather have stayed home than had you make yourself too tired. I didn't know it was too far for you. I really didn't. Oh, I'm so sorry you said you'd take me! Will it make you ill again?" "No, dear. I think not. I do not believe it will hurt me, though I do feel rather tired," said Mrs. Ransom, smiling cheerfully down into the little troubled face which looked up so penitently into her own. Self-reproached, humbled and repentant, Nellie could find no words to say what she would, or rather the choking feeling in her throat stifled her voice; and she could only walk silently by her mother's side until they reached the piazza, where Mrs. Ransom sank wearily into a chair, giving her hat and parasol into the hands of the eager little Carrie, who seemed to feel as if she could not do enough to make her mother comfortable after the sacrifice she had made for her; and Daisy, who always thought she must do what Carrie did, followed her example. Carrie brought a footstool, Daisy immediately ran for another, and nothing would do but mamma must put one foot on each. Carrie brought a cushion to put behind her, and Daisy, vanishing into the library, presently reappeared, rolling along with a sofa pillow in each hand, and was quite grieved when she found that mamma could not well make use of all three. Then Carrie bringing a fan, and fanning mamma, Daisy must do the same, and scratched mamma's nose, and banged her head, and thumped her cheek with the enormous Japanese affair which would alone serve her purpose; to all of which mamma submitted with the meekest resignation, only kissing the dear little, blundering nurse, whenever such mishaps occurred, and saying,-- "Not quite so hard, darling." And meanwhile Nellie, with that horrid lump in her throat, could do nothing but stand leaning against the piazza railing, wishing--oh, so much!--that she had gone with Carrie when she asked her, and so spared mamma all this fatigue. Mamma had uttered no word of reproach; she knew that none was needed just now, although she feared that under the same temptation Nellie would do the same thing again. But what greater reproach could there be than that pale face and languid voice, and the knowledge that but for her selfishness--yes, selfishness, Nellie could not shut her eyes to it--mamma need not have gone to the beach. And she knew that it was necessary and right that her mother should be shielded from all possible fatigue, trouble, and anxiety; she knew that they had all come to Newport this summer because the doctor had recommended that air as best for her, and that papa had taken this small but pretty cottage at a rather inconvenient expense, so that she might be quite comfortable, have all her family about her, and gain all the benefit possible. Every one was so anxious and careful about her, as there was need to be; and she had improved so much the last fortnight in this lovely air, and under such loving care. And now! She had been the first one to cause her any fatigue or risk,--she who had meant to be such a good and thoughtful young nurse. To be sure, she had never dreamed that mamma would take Carrie to the beach, but still it was all her fault. Oh dear! oh dear! Carrie and Daisy chattered away to one another and to their mother, while the latter sat silently resting in her easy-chair, thinking more of Nellie than of them, thinking anxiously too. Suddenly a choking sob broke in upon the children's prattle,--a sob that would have its way, half stifled though it was. "Nellie, dear!" said Mrs. Ransom. "Come here, my child,"--as Nellie turned to run away. Nellie came with her hands over her face. "Don't feel so badly, dear. I am not so very tired, and I do not think it will hurt me," said Mrs. Ransom. "I thought I was stronger than it seems I am; but another time we will both be more careful, hey?" And she drew away Nellie's hand, and tenderly kissed her hot, wet cheek. Nellie went down upon one of the pair of stools occupied by her mother's feet, somewhat to Daisy's disgust, who only forgave her by reason of the distress she saw her in, and buried her face on her knee. She was never a child of many words, and just now they failed her altogether; but her mother needed none. "What did Nellie do? Did she hurt herself?" asked the wondering Daisy. "No," said Carrie. "She hasn't hurt herself, but she"--Carrie's explanations were not apt to prove balm to a wounded spirit, and her mother checked her by uplifted finger and a warning shake of her head, taking up the word herself. "No," she said to Daisy. "Nellie is troubled about something, but we won't talk about it now." "Yes, we'll never mind, won't we?" said Daisy. "But I'll fan her to make her feel better." And, suiting the action to the word, she slipped down from her perch beside her mother, and began to labor vigorously about Nellie's head and shoulders with her ponderous instrument. Somehow this struck Nellie as funny, and even in the midst of her penitent distress she was obliged to give a low laugh; a nervous little laugh it was, too, as her mother noticed. "She's 'most better now," said Daisy, in a loud whisper, and with a confidential nod at mamma. "I fought I'd cure her up. This is a very nice fan when people don't feel well, or feel sorry," she added, as she paused for a moment, with an admiring look at the article in question; "it makes such a lot of wind." And she returned desperately to her work, bringing down the fan with a whack on Nellie's head, and then apologizing with-- "Oh! I didn't mean to give you that little tap, Nellie; it will waggle about so in my hands." Nellie laughed again, she really could not help it, though she felt ashamed of herself for doing so; and now she raised her head, wiped her eyes, and smiled at Daisy; the little one fully believing that her attentions had brought about this pleasing result. Perhaps they had. But although cheerfulness was for the time restored, poor Nellie's troubles had not yet come to an end for that evening. [Illustration] [Illustration] II. _A TALK WITH PAPA._ MR. RANSOM had said that the family were not to wait tea for him, as he might be late; but they were scarcely seated at the table when he came in and took his place with them. "Elinor," he said immediately, looking across the table at his wife, "I met Mr. Bradford, and he told me he had seen you down on the beach with the children. I told him he must be mistaken, as you were not fit for such a walk, but he insisted he was right. It is not possible you were so imprudent, is it?" "Well, yes, if you will call it imprudence," answered Mrs. Ransom, smiling. "I do not feel that it has hurt me." "Your face tells whether it has hurt you or no," said her husband in a vexed tone; "you look quite tired out: how could you do so?" "I wanted Carrie to have the walk, and I felt more able to go with her than to spare the nurse and take care of baby myself," answered Mrs. Ransom, trying to check farther questioning by a side glance at Nellie's downcast face. But Mr. Ransom did not understand, or did not heed the look she gave him. "And where was our steady little woman, Nellie?" he said. "I thought she was to be trusted to take care of the other children at any time or in any place." "And so she is," said Mrs. Ransom, willing, if possible, to spare Nellie any farther mortification, "but she was occupied this afternoon." "That's nonsense," exclaimed Mr. Ransom, with another vexed look at his wife's pale face; "Nellie could have had nothing to do of such importance that it must hinder her from helping you. Why did you not send her?" "Papa," murmured poor Nellie, "I--mamma--I--please--it was all my fault. I--I was cross to Carrie. Please don't blame mamma." Nellie's humble, honest confession did not much mollify her father, who was a quick-tempered man, rather apt to be sharp with his children if any thing went wrong; but another pleading look from his wife checked any very severe reproof, and in answer to her "I really think the walk did not hurt me," he contented himself with saying shortly, "I don't agree with you," and let the matter drop. No sooner was Nellie released from the tea-table than she was busy again over her Bible and the slips of paper, quite lost to every thing else around her. The children chattered away without disturbing her; and she did not even notice that papa and mamma, as they talked in low tones on the other side of the room, were looking at her in a manner which would have made it plain to an observer that she was the subject of their conversation. By and by Daisy came to kiss her for good-night. She raised her head slightly, and turned her cheek to her little sister, answering pleasantly enough, but with an absent air, showing plainly that her thoughts were busy with something else. Daisy held strong and natural objections to this not over-civil mode of receiving her caress, and, drawing back her rosy lips from the upraised cheek, said,-- "No, I shan't kiss you that way. I want your mouf; it's not polite to stick up a cheek." An expression of impatience flitted over Nellie's face; but it was gone in an instant, and, dropping her pencil, she put both arms about Daisy, and gave her a hearty and affectionate kiss upon her puckered little mouth. Daisy was satisfied, and ran off, but, pausing as she reached the door, she looked back at her sister and said,-- "You're an awful busy girl these days, Nellie; the play is all gone out of you." Nellie smiled faintly, hardly heeding the words; but other eyes which were watching her thought also that she did indeed look as if "all the play had gone out" of her. She returned to her work as Daisy left her side, but even as she did so she drew herself up with a sigh, and passed her hand wearily across her forehead. "It is time a stop was put to this," whispered her father, and mamma assented with a rather melancholy nod of her head. Not two minutes had passed when Daisy's little feet were heard pattering down the stairs again, and her glowing face appeared in the open door. "Ruth says she can't put baby down to put me to bed," she proclaimed with an unmistakable air of satisfaction in the circumstances which made it necessary for mother or sister to perform that office for her. "Who wants to do it?" she added, looking from one to the other. Mrs. Ransom looked over at Nellie, as if expecting she would offer to go with Daisy; but the little girl paid no attention, did not even seem to hear the child. Mrs. Ransom rose and held out her hand to Daisy. "Nellie," said Mr. Ransom sharply, "are you going to let your mother go upstairs with Daisy?" Nellie started, and looked up confusedly. "Oh! I didn't know. Do you want me to, mamma? Couldn't Ruth put her to bed?" she said, showing that she had, indeed, not heard one word of what had passed. "Ruth cannot leave the baby," said her mother; "but I do not want you to go unwillingly, Nellie. I would rather do it myself." "I am quite willing, mamma," and the tone of her voice showed no want of readiness. "I did not know you were going. Come, Daisy, dear." But she could not refrain from a backward, longing look at her book and papers as she left the room. She was not unkind or cross to her little sister while she was with her; far from it. She undressed her carefully and tenderly,--with rather more haste than Daisy thought well, perhaps, but doing for her all that was needful; and, if she were more silent than usual, that did not trouble Daisy, _she_ could talk enough for both. But her thoughts were occupied with something quite different from the duty she had before her; she forgot one or two little things, and would even have hurried Daisy into bed without hearing her say her prayers, but for the child's astonished reminder. This done, and Daisy laid snugly in her crib, she kissed her once more, and gladly escaped downstairs. Daisy was never afraid to be left alone; besides, there was the nurse just in the next room. "Are you going back to that horrid writing?" asked Carrie, as Nellie took her seat at the table again. "I am going back to my writing," answered Nellie, dryly. Carrie looked, as she felt, disgusted. Papa and mamma had gone out on the piazza; but mamma would not let her be in the evening air, and she wanted amusement within; and here was Nellie going back to that "horrid writing," which had occupied her so much for the last three days. Nellie had plainly neither time nor thought to bestow upon her; and she wandered restlessly and discontentedly about the room, fretting for "something to do." But a few minutes had passed when a loud thump sounded overhead; and a shriek followed, which rang through the house. There was no mistaking the cause: Daisy had fallen out of bed, as Daisy was apt to do unless she were carefully guarded against it; and the catastrophe was one of such frequent occurrence, and Daisy so seldom received injury therefrom, that none of the family were much alarmed, save her mother. Mrs. Ransom ran upstairs, followed quickly by Nellie and Carrie, and more slowly by her husband, who hoped and believed that Daisy had had her usual good fortune, and accomplished her gymnastics without severe injury to herself. It proved otherwise this time, however; for, although not seriously hurt, Daisy had a great bump on her forehead, which was fast swelling and turning black, and a scratch upon her arm; and she was disposed to make much of her wounds and bruises, and to consider herself a greatly afflicted martyr. How did it happen? Daisy should have been fastened in her little bed, so that she could not fall out. "Nellie," said Mrs. Ransom, as she held the sobbing child upon her lap and bathed the aching little head with warm water and arnica,--"Nellie, did you fasten up the side of the crib after you had put Daisy in bed?" "No, mamma, I don't believe I did," said conscience-stricken Nellie. "I don't quite remember, but I am afraid I did not." "And why didn't you? You know she always rolls out, if it is not done," said her mother. "I--I suppose I did not remember, mamma. I was thinking about something else; and I was in such a hurry to go downstairs again. I am so sorry!" And she laid her hand penitently on that of Daisy, who was regarding her with an injured air, as one who was the cause of her misfortunes. "Yes, I am afraid that was it, Nellie," said Mrs. Ransom. "Your mind was so taken up with something else that you could not give proper attention to your little sister. I am sorry I did not come myself to put her to bed." It was the second time that day that Nellie might have been helpful to her mother, but she had only brought trouble upon her. She stood silent and mortified. Mr. Ransom took Daisy from her mother and laid her back in her crib, taking care that she was perfectly secured this time; then went downstairs. But Daisy was not to be consoled, unless mamma sat beside her and held her hand till she went to sleep; so Mrs. Ransom remained with her, dismissing Carrie also to bed. Nellie assisted her to undress, making very sure that nothing was forgotten this time, and then returned to see if her mother was ready to go downstairs. But Daisy was most persistently wide awake; her fall had roused her from her first sleep very thoroughly; and she found it so pleasant to have mamma sitting there beside her that she had no mind to let herself float off to the land of dreams, but kept constantly exciting herself with such remarks as-- "Mamma, the's a lot of tadpoles in the little pond."--"Mamma, the's lots of niggers in Newport; oh! I forgot, you told me not to say niggers; I mean colored, black people."--"Mamma, when I'm big I'll buy you a gold satin dress." Or suddenly rousing just as her mother thought she was dropping off to sleep, and putting the startling question, "Mamma, if I was a bear, would you be my mamma?" and mamma unhappily replying "No," she immediately set up a dismal howl, which took some time to quiet. Finding this to be the state of affairs, and warned by her mother's uplifted finger not to come in the room, Nellie went downstairs again, meaning to return to her former occupation. But, to her surprise, the Bible, which she remembered leaving open, was closed and laid aside, her papers all gone. "Why," she said, "who has meddled with my things, I wonder?" "I put them all away, Nellie," said her father. "I am going to write more, papa." "Not to-night. Put on your hat and come out with me for a little walk," said Mr. Ransom. Nellie might have felt vexed at this decided interference with her work; but the pleasure of a moonlight walk with papa quite made up for it, and she was speedily ready, and her hand in his. Mr. Ransom led her down upon the beach, Nellie half expecting all the time some reproof for the neglect which had caused so much trouble; but her father uttered none, talking cheerfully and pleasantly on other subjects. It was a beautiful evening. The gentle waves, shimmering and glancing in the moonlight, broke softly on the beach with a soothing, sleepy sound; and the cool salt breeze which swept over them came pleasantly to Nellie's flushed, hot cheeks and throbbing head. She and her father had the beach pretty much to themselves at this hour; and, finding a broad, flat stone which offered a good resting-place, they sat down upon it, and watched the waves as they curled and rippled playfully upon the white sands. "Now," thought Nellie, when they were seated side by side,--"now, surely, papa is going to find fault with me; and no wonder if he does. Twice to-day I've made such trouble for mamma, when I never meant to do a thing! I don't see what ailed me to-day. It has been a horrid day, and every thing has gone wrong." And Nellie really did not know, or perhaps I should say had not considered, what it was that had made every thing go wrong with her for the greater part of the day. But no; again she was pleasantly disappointed. Papa talked on as before, and called her attention to the white sails of a ship gleaming far off in the silver moonlight, and told her an interesting story of a shipwreck he had once witnessed on this coast. As they were on their way home, however, and when they had nearly reached the house, Mr. Ransom said,-- "Nellie, what is this you are so busy with, my daughter?" "What, my writing do you mean, papa?" asked Nellie, looking up at him. "Yes, some Bible lesson, is it not?" "Not just a lesson, papa," answered Nellie. "Miss Ashton gave us three or four subjects to study over a little this summer, if we chose, and to find as many texts about as we could; but it is not a lesson, for we need not do it unless we like, and have plenty of time." "Then it is not a task she set you?" said Mr. Ransom. "Oh, no, papa! not at all. She said she thought it would be a good plan for us to read a little history every day, or to take any other lesson our mammas liked, but she did not even first speak of this of herself; for Gracie Howard asked her to give us some subjects to hunt up texts about, and then Miss Ashton said it would be a good plan for us to spend a little time at that if we liked, and she gave us four subjects. She said it would help to make us familiar with the Bible." "Yes," said Mr. Ransom musingly, and as if he had not heeded, if indeed he had heard, the last sentence of her speech. "And I have such a long list, papa," continued Nellie, "that is, on the first subject; and on the second I have a good many, too, but I am not through with that. I had very few the day before yesterday; but then, you know, Maggie Bradford came to see me, and she is doing it, too, and she had so many more than I had that I felt quite ashamed. Then the same afternoon I had a letter from Gracie Howard, and she told me she had more than a hundred on the first, and nearly a hundred on the second; so I felt I must hurry up, or maybe all the others would be ahead of me. I've been busy all day to-day finding texts, and copying them." "Is that all you have done to-day?" asked Mr. Ransom. Nellie cannot gather from his tone whether he approves or not; but it seems to her quite impossible that he should not consider her occupation most praiseworthy. "Oh, no, papa!" she answered. "I have done several things besides. I read nearly twenty pages of my history twice over, and learned every one of the dates; then I studied a page of Speller and Definer, and a lesson in my French Phrase-book, and did four sums, and said '7 times' and '9 times' in the multiplication table, each four times over. 7's and 9's are the hardest to remember, so I say those the oftenest. I did all those lessons and half an hour's sewing before I went to my texts; but I've been busy with those almost ever since." "And you have had no walk, no play, all day?" questioned Mr. Ransom. Nellie was not satisfied with her father's tone now; it did not by any means express approbation. "I have not played any, papa, but I had some exercise; for all the time I was learning my French phrases, I was rolling the baby's wagon around the gravel walk." "And it was pretty much the same thing yesterday, was it not?" said Mr. Ransom. "Well, yes, papa," rather faintly. "Nellie," said her father, "did you ever hear the old couplet, 'All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy'?" "Yes, papa," answered Nellie, half laughing, half reluctantly, as she began to fear that her father intended to interfere with her plans for study. "But am I 'a dull boy'?" "Neither 'dull' nor a 'boy,'" answered her father, playfully shaking the little hand in his. "But I fear there is danger of the former, Nellie, if you go on taking so much 'work' and no 'play.' Miss Ashton did not desire all this, if I understand you, my dear." "Oh, no, papa! I was just doing it of myself. Miss Ashton only said, if our papas and mammas did not object, she thought it would be wiser for us to have a little lesson or reading every day. But you see, papa"--Nellie hesitated, and then came to a full stop. "Well?" said her father, encouragingly. "Papa, I seem to be so far behind all the girls of my age in our class. It makes me feel ashamed, and as if I must do all I could to catch up with them." "I do not know," said Mr. Ransom. "It seems to me that a little girl who keeps the head of her spelling, history, and geography classes for at least a fair share of the time, and who has taken more than one prize for composition and steady, orderly conduct, has no need to feel ashamed before her school-fellows." "Well, no, papa--but--but--somehow I am not so quick as the others. I generally know my lessons, and do keep my place in the classes about as well as any one; but it takes me a great deal longer than it does most of the others. Gracie Howard can learn in half the time that I can; so can Laura Middleton, Maggie Bradford, and 'most all the girls as old as I am, whom I know." "And probably they know them and remember them no better than my Nellie," said her father. Mr. Ransom was not afraid of making his little daughter conceited or careless by over-praise; she had not sufficient confidence in herself or her own powers, and needed all the encouragement that could be given to her. Too much humility, rather than too little, was Nellie's snare. "Yes, papa," she answered. "I suppose I do _remember_ as well as any of the rest, and I seldom miss in my lessons; but I don't see why it is that often when Miss Ashton asks us some question about a lesson that has gone before, or about something that I know quite well, the words do not seem to come to me very quick, and one of the others will answer before I can. Miss Ashton is very good about that, papa, and sometimes it seems as if she knew I was going to answer; for she will say, 'Nellie, you know that, do you not, my dear?' and make the others wait till I can speak. But, papa, even then it makes me feel horridly, for it seems as if I was stupid not to be quick as the others, and I can't bear to have them waiting for me to find my words. So I want to study all I can, even out of school and in vacation." Nellie's voice shook, and her father saw in the moonlight that the eyes she raised to him were full of tears. "And you think that all this extra study is going to help you, my little girl?" he said. "Why, yes, I thought it would, papa. I want to learn a great deal, for, oh, I would so like to be quick and clever, to study as fast and answer as well as Maggie, Gracie, or Lily! Please don't think I am vexed if the other children go above me in my classes, or that I am jealous, papa; I don't mean to be, but I would like to be very wise, and to know a great deal." "I certainly shall not think you are envious of your schoolmates and playfellows, my daughter, however far they may outstrip you, and papa can feel for you in your want of readiness and quickness of speech, for he is troubled sometimes in the same way himself; but, Nellie, this is a misfortune rather than a fault, and, though you would do well to correct it as far as you can, I do not know that you are taking the right way; and I am sure, my dear, that you have plainer and nearer duties just now." "You say that, papa, because I was disobliging to Carrie this afternoon, and careless with dear little Daisy to-night, and I know it serves me right; but do you think it is not a very great duty for me to improve myself all I can?" "Certainly, Nellie, I think it your duty to make the most of your advantages, and that you should try to improve yourself as much as you can at proper times and in proper places; but I do not think it wise or right that my little girl should spend the time that she needs for rest or play in what is to her hard work and study. My child, you are doing now four times as much as you should do, while at the same time you are forgetting or neglecting the little every-day duties that fall to you. Is it not so?" "I dare say you think so, papa, after to-day," answered Nellie, with quivering voice; "but I can try not to let myself be so taken up again with my lessons, and then there will be no harm in it, will there?" "Have you felt very well, quite like yourself, during the last few days, Nellie?" "Well, no, sir," said Nellie, reluctantly. "Not quite. I feel rather tired every morning when I wake up, and my head aches a good deal 'most all the time. And--and--I _don't_ feel quite like myself, for I feel cross and hateful, and I don't think I usually am very cross, papa." "And the harder you work, the worse you feel; is it not so?" "Well, I don't know, papa; but you do not think study makes my head ache, or makes me cross, do you?" "Certainly I do, dear; too much study, too much work, which may make Nell a dull girl, if she does not take care. Your little mind has become over-tired, Nellie; so has your little body; and health and even temper must suffer." "I'll try not to be cross or careless again, papa," said Nellie, humbly. "And there is no need for me to play if I do not choose, is there?" "Who gave you your health and good spirits, Nellie?" "Why, God, papa!" "And do you think it right, then, for you to do any thing which destroys or injures either?" "No, papa," more slowly still, as she saw his meaning. They had been standing for the last few moments at the foot of the piazza steps, where mamma sat awaiting them; and now, stooping to kiss his thoughtful, sensible little daughter, Mr. Ransom said,-- "We have had talk enough for to-night, Nellie; and it is past your bed-time. Think over what we have said, and to-morrow I will talk to you again. Put texts and lessons quite out of your head for the present, and go to sleep as soon as you can. Good-night, my child." Nellie bade him good-night, and, kissing her mother also, obeyed, going quietly and thoughtfully upstairs. That was nothing new for Nellie; but her mother's anxious ear did not fail to notice that, spite of the walk and talk with papa, her foot had not its usual spring and lightness. [Illustration] [Illustration] III. _NELLIE A HOUSEKEEPER._ MR. RANSOM acted wisely in leaving what he had said to work its own effect on his little girl. Nellie was such a sensible, thoughtful child--almost too thoughtful and quiet for her years--that she was sure to think it all over, to consider what was right, and, when she had decided that, to resolve to do what she believed to be her duty. She was honest with herself too, not making excuses for her own shortcomings when she saw them, or trying to believe that what she wished was the right thing to do because she wished it. If she saw clearly that it was wrong, wrong for _her_, a temptation and a snare, though it might be right in other circumstances, she would be sure to put it from her, hard as it might be. And her father thought that it would be easier for her to resolve of her own accord to give up some of the tasks on which her heart was set than it would be to do so at his command. It is generally pleasanter to believe that we are guided by our own will and resolution than by that of another. Mr. Ransom was right. Nellie did indeed think over in all seriousness the conversation she had had with her father; even more, she went back in her own mind over past weeks and months, and acknowledged to herself that for some time she had found every thing but study irksome and troublesome to her, that lately even this had lost its pleasure, though she would persevere and felt irritated and troubled at the least interruption to the tasks she set herself. She was forced to see that she did not feel "like herself" either in mind or body; that after hours of study her head ached and throbbed, she was weary and cross, finding every thing a burden, and having no wish or energy for play or exercise. It had been especially so for the last two or three days, ever since she had worked so hard over her "Bible subjects;" and honestly, though unwillingly, with many tears, Nellie made up her mind to do what she saw to be right, and give up at least a portion of the tasks she had undertaken. "For I do see I'm growing cross and hateful," she said to herself. "I can't bear to have the children come and ask me to play, or to do any little favor for them, and I don't like it very much whenever mamma wants me to help her. I know I _felt_ provoked when she asked me to roll the baby's wagon this morning, though I don't think I let her see it. I believe I don't feel so happy or so good, or even so well, as I used to do, and I don't know--I'm afraid it is so much reading and studying makes it so. I think I'll have to make up my mind not to know as much, or to be so quick and clever as Maggie, and Gracie, and some of the others." But this was a hard resolve for Nellie, and she fell to sleep in no happy frame of mind. She slept later than usual the next morning, for her mother, remembering how dull and languid she had seemed, would not let her be awakened; and Mrs. Ransom and the children were just finishing breakfast when she came downstairs. "Why, where's papa?" asked Nellie, seeing his place was vacant. "A telegram came this morning which called him to town very unexpectedly," said her mother. "He went in and kissed you as you lay asleep, and left his love and good-by for you, and told me to tell you he hoped to see his own old Nellie back when he comes home in a week's time." Nellie knew what that meant, but she was sorry that papa had gone,--sorry, not only that he should have been obliged to leave home sooner than he had expected, but also that she could not now talk more with him on the matter of her studies. However, there was her dear mother: she would listen to her, and give her all the advice and help she needed. The children asked permission to leave the table, which was granted; but Mrs. Ransom herself sat still while Nellie took her breakfast, talking cheerily to her, and trying to tempt her very indifferent appetite by offering a little bit of this or that. "Nellie," said her mother, when they were alone, "I was thinking of asking you how you would like to be my little housekeeper." "Your housekeeper, mamma!" echoed Nellie, pausing in the act of buttering her biscuit, and looking at her mother with surprise. "Yes," answered Mrs. Ransom, "or rather suppose we should be housekeeper together, you being feet and hands, and I being the head. Is that a fair division, think you?" Nellie colored and laughed. "Why, yes; but do you think I could, mamma?" "I think there are a hundred little things you might do if you would like," said her mother. "I'll give you the keys, and you may make the store-room and sideboard your especial charge, keeping them in perfect order, giving out what is needed, seeing that the sugar-bowls, tea-caddy, cracker-basket, and so forth, are kept full, taking my orders to the cook, and other little things which will be a great help to me, and which will give you some useful lessons. What do you say?" "Why, I'd like it ever so much, mamma, but"-- "Well, but what?" said Mrs. Ransom, as Nellie hesitated. "Mamma, I think I'm rather stupid about such things, and I might make you trouble sometimes." "Not _stupid_, Nellie; and, if you are willing to learn, I shall be willing to put up with a little trouble now and then, and to excuse mistakes. If you undertake it, I believe you will be faithful and painstaking, as you are about every thing, and that you can really be a great help to me. Will you try it for a week, and see how you like it? By the time that papa comes home again, you will be accustomed to it, and he will not be apt to suffer from the little slips you may make at first." "Yes, indeed, mamma; and, if you are not tired of such a funny housekeeper as I shall make, I don't think I shall be tired of doing it. Mamma, _do_ you think I could learn to make some cake? those ginger-snaps papa likes?" "I do not doubt it," said Mrs. Ransom, smiling back into the face that was eager and bright enough now. "Mamma," said Nellie, "did papa tell you what we were talking about last evening while we were out walking?" "Yes, dear, he did; and he said he thought our Nellie had sense enough to see what she ought to do, and courage and strength of mind enough to make any sacrifice she felt to be right." "Courage, mamma?" "Yes, dear, it often needs much courage--what is called moral courage--to resolve to do what we feel to be a duty, especially if it calls for any sacrifice of our pride or vanity, or of the desire to appear well in the eyes of others." Nellie knew that she was thinking of such a sacrifice, and it was rather a consolation to have mamma speaking of it in this way. "Moral courage" sounded very fine. But she sat silent, slowly eating her omelet and biscuit, and feeling that she had not quite made up her mind how far the sacrifice must go, or how much of her work she should decide to give up. But one thing she had fully resolved,--that her studies should no longer interfere with what papa called "nearer and plainer duties," or cause needless injury to her health and temper. She would help mamma, play with the children, walk and run as other little girls of her age did, and try hard to put from her all rebellious and impatient feelings at not being quite so clever as some among her schoolmates. "Mamma," she said, after another pause, during which she had finished her breakfast,--"mamma, how much do you think it would be wise for me to study every day?" "Well," said Mrs. Ransom slowly, and as if she knew that she was about to give advice that would not be quite agreeable, "if you wish to know what I think _wisest_, I should say give up study altogether for at least a fortnight." "For a whole fortnight, two weeks, mamma?" echoed Nellie, in dismay. She had expected that her mother would say she might well study two hours a day, hoped for three, wished that it might be four, and had resolved to be content with the allowance proposed; but to give up her books altogether for two weeks! "It seems such a waste of time for such a great girl as me, mamma," she added. "Well, my great girl of ten years, suppose we say one week then," said Mrs. Ransom playfully. "Keep on with your practising as usual, and with your half-hour of sewing these with your new housekeeping duties will take up a good part of the morning without much 'waste of time,' I think; the rest of the day I would give entirely to play and amusement. If at the end of a week we do not find that you are feeling better and happier"-- "And not so cross," put in Nellie, with rather a shamefaced smile. Her mother smiled, too, and took up her speech. "Then we will agree that my plan was not needful, and that all this constant poring over books does not hurt your health, your temper, or your mind." "Yes, mamma," said Nellie, with a sigh she could not suppress, though she did try to speak cheerfully. Then she added, "O mamma, I should so like to be a very clever, bright girl, and to know a great deal!" "A very good thing, Nellie, but not the first of all things, my daughter," said Mrs. Ransom, putting her arm about the waist of her little girl, who had risen and come over to her side. "No, mamma," said Nellie softly, "and you think I have made it the first of all things lately, do you not?" Before Mrs. Ransom could answer, sounds of woe came from the piazza without, Daisy's voice raised in trouble once more. Tears and smiles both lay near the surface with Daisy, and had their way by turns. One moment she would be in the depth of despair, the next dimpling all over with laughter and frolic; so that Nellie did not fear any very serious disaster when she ran to see what the matter was. The great misery of Daisy's life was this,--that people were always taking her for a boy, a mistake which she considered both unnatural and insulting, and which she always resented with all her little might. Nellie found her sitting at the head of the piazza steps, crying aloud, with her straw hat pressed over her face by both hands. "What's the matter, Daisy?" asked her sister. "Oh! such a wicked butcher-man came to my house," answered Daisy, in smothered tones from beneath her hat. "What did he do? What makes him wicked?" asked Nellie. "He sweared at me," moaned Daisy; "oh! he sweared dreadful at me." "Did he?" said Nellie, much shocked. "Yes," said Daisy, removing the hat so far that she was able to peep out with one eye at her sister, "he did. He called me 'Bub,' and I'm not a bub, now." Nellie was far from wishing to wound Daisy's feelings afresh; but this mild specimen of _swearing_ struck her as so intensely funny that she could not keep back a peal of laughter,--a peal so merry and hearty that it rejoiced her mother's heart, who had not heard Nellie laugh like that for several weeks. Daisy's tears redoubled at this. She had expected sympathy and indignation from Nellie, and here she was actually laughing. "You oughtn't to laugh," she said resentfully; "it is very naughty to swear bad names at little girls, and I shan't eat the meat that bad butcher-man brought." Nellie sat down beside the insulted little one, and, smothering her laughter, said coaxingly,-- "I wouldn't mind that, Daisy. Here, dry your eyes." "Yes, you would," sobbed Daisy, taking down the hat, but rejecting the pocket handkerchief her sister offered; "I have a potterhancher of my own in my pottet;" and she pulled out the ten-inch square article in question, and mournfully obeyed Nellie's directions. "He called me a fellow too, and he ought to see I don't wear boys' clothes," she added. "How did he come to be talking to you?" asked Nellie, trying to keep a grave face. "What were you doing?" "I was very good and nice, just sitting on the grass, and making a wreaf of some clovers Carrie gave me," explained Daisy, piteously, "and he brought the meat in, and said, 'Good-morning, bub; you're a nice little fellow!' and I'm not, now." "Here he comes again," said Nellie, as a jolly, good-natured-looking butcher's boy came around from the other side of the house. "I shan't let him see me," cried Daisy, and, scrambling to her feet, she rushed into the house before the disturber of her peace came near her again. A moment later Nellie heard her rippling laugh over some trifle which had taken her attention, and she knew that the April shower was over, and sunshine restored. This little incident had so diverted Nellie's thoughts, and amused her so much, that for the time she forgot the subject of the conversation with her mother, which had been so abruptly broken off; and when she returned to her, she laughed merrily again as she related the cause of Daisy's trouble, and her indignation at having been taken for a boy. Mrs. Ransom did not return to it. She thought that enough had been said, and she agreed with her husband in thinking that Nellie would feel a certain satisfaction in believing she exercised her own will and judgment in the matter. "Here are the keys, dear," she said, when she and Nellie had laughed over Daisy's tribulations; "and it is time Catherine had her orders for the day. Go first to the kitchen and tell her"--and here Mrs. Ransom gave Nellie the necessary directions, which she in her turn was to repeat to the cook. Then she was to ask the woman what was needed from the store-room, and to give out such things. "What's Nellie going to do?" asked Carrie, who had come in, and stood listening while her mother gave Nellie her directions. "I'm going to be mamma's housekeeper," said Nellie, feeling at least a head taller with the importance of all this responsibility. "Oh!" said Carrie, looking at her with admiration, and quite as much impressed as she was expected to be. "You can come with me, and see me, if you want to," said Nellie. "And can I help her, mamma?" asked Carrie. "Yes, if Nellie is willing, and can find any thing for you to do," answered Mrs. Ransom. Thoroughly interested now in her new undertaking, Nellie had for the time quite forgotten lessons, "Bible subjects," and other tasks, till Carrie said,-- "What are you going to do, Nellie, when you have finished keeping house?" "I think it will take me a good while to do all the housekeeping," replied Nellie. "When that is finished, I will see. Oh! I'll go down to the beach with you, Carrie, if mamma says we may." Carrie looked very much pleased. "Then you're not going back to that old Bible lesson this morning?" she asked. "Why, Carrie! what a way to speak of the Bible!" "Oh!" said Carrie, rather abashed, "but I didn't mean the Bible was old, Nellie; only the long, long lessons you have been studying out of it are so tiresome, and make you so busy." Nellie understood by this how much Carrie had missed her company since she had been so taken up with her self-chosen task; and again she felt that she had been rather selfish in letting it occupy so much of her time. Here Daisy met them, and, asking where they were going, was told of Nellie's new dignity. Of course she wanted to "help" too; and, permission being given, she marched first into the kitchen, and informed the cook,-- "Me and Carrie and Nellie are going to keep the house." Nellie gave her orders with great correctness, Daisy repeating them after her, in order that the cook might be sure to make no mistake, except when Nellie told what was to be done with the meat, when she declared she should not "talk about the meat that wicked butcher brought," and turned her back upon it with an air of offended dignity. Her resolution held good throughout the day, for at dinner she positively refused to eat of either the meat or poultry brought by the "swearing butcher-man," and even held out against the charms of a chicken's wish-bone which mamma offered. Next to the store-room, where the two younger children looked on with admiring approbation, while Nellie gave out to the cook such articles as were needed for the day, and then saw that tea-canisters, sugar-bowls, cake-basket, &c., were all in proper order. The filling of the cake-basket and sugar-bowls was a particularly interesting process, especially when Nellie, following mamma's daily practice, bestowed "just one lump of sugar" on each of her little sisters, taking care to select the largest, and then sweetening her own labors with a like chosen morsel. It was great fun also to ladle out rice, break the long sticks of macaroni, and, best of all, to weigh out the pound of raisins required for the pudding. Daisy, however, permitted herself some liberties under the new reign which she would not have ventured upon under her mother's rule; and, not considering herself obliged to obey Nellie, was decoyed away by the cook under the pretence of shelling peas for dinner. Having opened about five pods, little white teeth as well as her ten fingers assisting at the operation, and letting about every other pea roll away, she concluded that she was tired of helping Catherine, and went back to Nellie, who was fortunately by this time quite through with her arrangements in the store-room. "Mamma," said Nellie, when she had returned to her mother and reported how successfully she had fulfilled all her orders,--"mamma, I do not think the store-room is in very good order." "I know it is not, dear," replied Mrs. Ransom, "and I have been wishing to have it properly arranged, but have not really felt able to attend to it." "Couldn't I do it, mamma?" asked Nellie, full of zeal in her new character. "It would be rather hard work for you; but some day next week we will go there together and overlook things; after which I will have it dusted and scrubbed, and then you shall arrange it as you please. The people who hired this house before we had it were not as neat as my Nellie, I fear. But I am thankful to find that there are no mice about; I have not heard one since we have been here." Mrs. Ransom's dread of a mouse was a matter of great wonder to her children, who could not imagine how she could be so afraid of such "cunning little things;" and, although she really did try to control it, it had the mastery over her whenever she saw or heard one, and was a source of great and constant discomfort to her. [Illustration] IV. _A COURTSHIP._ "WILL you come to the beach now, Nellie?" said Carrie. "Yes, if mamma has nothing more for me to do," said Nellie; and mamma telling her that there was nothing at present, they were soon ready and on their way; Daisy also being allowed to accompany them on promise of being very, very good and obedient to Nellie. Nellie, wise, steady little woman that she was, was always to be trusted to take care of the other children, and to keep them out of mischief, so long as she gave her mind to it; and her mother had no fear that it would be otherwise now, after the lesson of last night. Poor Nellie! the sight of that black bump on Daisy's forehead was sufficient reminder in itself, even had she not formed such good resolutions. _She_ felt it, I believe, more than Daisy did. An unexpected pleasure awaited Nellie and Carrie when they reached the beach, for there they met, not only the little Bradfords, whom they now saw frequently, but also Lily Norris and Belle Powers, who had come to pass the day with their friends, Maggie and Bessie. Daisy and Frankie Bradford, who were great cronies and allies, were soon busily engaged in making sand-pies, and conveying them in their little wagons to imaginary customers who were supposed to live upon the rocks. Nellie had brought her doll with her. This was a doll extraordinary, a doll well known and far famed. It had been presented to Nellie by old Mrs. Howard, as a reward for her kind and generous behavior to her little grand-daughter Gracie, at a time when the latter had fallen into trouble and disgrace at school. To the young residents of Newport, the chief claim to distinction of the Ransom family lay in the fact that in their midst resided this wonderful creation of art. Mr. and Mrs. Ransom enjoyed the glorious privilege of being "the father and mother of the girl that has the doll." Nellie herself was considered the most enviable of mortals, while her brothers and sisters shared a kind of reflected glory. To meet Nellie when she had her treasure out for an airing was an event in the day; and frantic rushes were made to windows or down to gates and palings when the announcement was made,--"The doll is coming!" It was impossible that Nellie should not be gratified by all this flattering homage to her darling, and she received such tributes with a proud but still generous satisfaction, for she would always take pains to walk slowly when she saw some eager eye fastened upon the doll, or carry it so as to afford the best view of all the beauties of its toilet; and, choice and careful as she was of it, she was always ready when she met any of her young friends to allow them to take and nurse it for a while. Of late, however, even this doll had been neglected and put aside in the press of work which Nellie had laid upon herself; and this was the first time in several days that she had appeared in public. So Nellie was eagerly welcomed, partly on her own account, partly on that of her daughter; and after the latter had been duly admired, and ah'ed and oh'ed over to the heart's content of her mamma and the spectators, she was intrusted to Belle's tender care for a while, Lily having the promise of being allowed to take her afterwards. Nellie was never a child who cared much for romping play or frolic; quiet games and amusements suited her much better; therefore her playmates were rather surprised when, having seen her doll safe in Belle's keeping, she proposed a race down the length of the beach, to see who could first reach a given rock she pointed out. For Nellie, like many another little child--ay, and grown person too--when they mean to turn over a new leaf, was now disposed to run into the opposite extreme, and to strive to make up for lost time by taking an amount of play and exercise to which she was not accustomed at any time. Maggie and Lily readily agreed to her proposal, though they were rather surprised at it, as coming from her; but Bessie declined, not being fond of a romp, and Carrie, too, chose to stay with Bessie and Belle. Nellie, however, soon found that strength and breath gave way, unaccustomed as she had been for weeks past to a proper amount of exercise; and she was forced to sit down upon a stone and watch Lily and Maggie as they sped onwards towards the goal. They flew like the wind, and it was hard to tell which was there the first, for they fairly ran against one another as they reached it, and, laughing and breathless, turned to look back for Nellie, who smilingly nodded to them from the distance. Meanwhile Bessie, Belle, and Carrie were amusing themselves more quietly. "Do you think your mamma would let you come to our house this afternoon?" said Bessie to Carrie. "Mamma said we might ask you." "Oh, yes! I'm sure she would. She quite approves of your family," answered Carrie. "I should think she might," said Belle. "Mamma thought we'd all like to have a good play together," said Bessie. "And, besides, we have some new things to show you, Carrie. We have some white mice that Willie Richards gave us; and they are just as tame, as tame." "Oh! they're too cunning for any thing," said Belle. "They hide in your pocket, or up your sleeve, or in your bosom if you'll let them, and eat out of your fingers, and are not one bit afraid." "How did you tame them so?" asked Carrie, who was extremely fond of dumb pets of all kinds. "We did not do it," said Bessie. "Willie Richards did it before he sent them to us; but white mice can be tamed very easily. Harry says so." "Gray mice can be tamed too," said Belle. "Why, no!" said Carrie. "They always scamper away from you as fast as they can go." "Not always," said Belle, with the air of one who had good authority for her statement. "Not always, do they, Bessie? For there's a little mouse lives in our parlor at the hotel in New York, and he's just as tame as he can be, and he comes out every evening to be fed." "And do you feed him?" asked Carrie. "Yes," said Belle. "Every evening I bring a piece of bread or cracker or cake from the dinner table for him, and when papa and I come in the parlor he is always on the hearth waiting for us. Then papa sits down by the table, and the mousey runs up his leg and jumps on the table, and then he takes the crumbs I put down for him. Oh, he's so cunning, and his eyes are so bright! And he even lets me smooth his fur with my finger." "How did you make him so tame?" asked Carrie. Belle colored and hesitated, looking down upon the doll in her arms, and seeming as if she would much rather not tell the story; but Carrie, who was not very quick to see where another's feelings were concerned, repeated her question. "Well," said Belle, slowly at first, and then, as she became interested in her own story, with more ease, "he used to run about the room, but was not one bit tame, and papa told the waiter to set a trap for him. And the man did; and one morning when we went in the room the little mouse was caught. And he looked so cunning and so funny, peeping through the bars of the trap, that I felt very sorry about him; and, when the man was going to take him away to drown him, I cried very hard, and begged papa to let me keep him in the trap. And because I felt so badly papa said I might, but I must feed him, so he would not starve; and he very 'spressly told me I must not lift the door of the trap, for fear the mouse would run out. Papa thought I would soon grow tired of him,--he said so afterwards; but I did not, and I grew very attached to that mouse, and he to me. But--but"--Belle's voice faltered again, and she looked ashamed--"but I disobeyed my papa, and one day I opened the door of the trap a te-en-y little bit, just a very little bit; but the mouse ran out just as quick, as quick, and scampered away to the fireplace where his hole was." "Did your papa scold you?" asked Carrie, as Belle paused to take breath. "No," answered Belle, remorsefully, "he didn't _scold_ me, but he looked very sorry when I told him. He always looks sorry at me when I am not good, but he never scolds me, and that makes me feel worse than if he was ever so cross to me." "Well, what about the mouse?" asked Carrie. "That very evening I was sitting on papa's knee, talking to him," continued Belle, "and what do you think? why, the first thing I saw was the mouse on the hearth looking right at me. I had a maccaroon, and papa crumbled a little bit of it on the floor, and the mouse came and eat it. Then he played about a little while; we kept very still, and at last he ran away. But the next night, and every night after that, he came; and at last one evening, first thing we knew, he jumped on papa's foot and ran up his leg; and now every evening he does that, and sits on the table till I feed him." "How cunning!" said Carrie. "I wish I had one; but I'd rather have a white mouse." "The white mice are prettier, but then they are stupider than Belle's mouse," said Bessie. "They don't do much but eat and go to sleep. I don't think they are so very interesting." "There's Daisy crying again," said Carrie. "Daisy, what's the matter now?" raising her voice. Daisy only cried the louder, and the three children ran forward to where she sat upon the sand, the picture of woe; while Frankie, busily engaged in piling sand pies into his wagon, remained sublimely indifferent to her distress. Nellie, Maggie, and Lily came running back also to see what was the matter. "What _are_ you crying for, Daisy?" asked Nellie. "Frankie, do you know what is the matter with her?" "He told me he'd marry me if I let him mix the pies," sobbed the distressed Daisy; "and now he won't." "Now, Daisy, you ought to be ashamed to say that," cried Frankie, stopping short with a pie in each hand, and looking with a much aggrieved air at his little playmate. "Yes, I did promise to marry her if she'd let me make the pies," he continued, turning to Nellie, "and so I will; but I promised three other girls before her, and so I told her she'd have to wait till they were all dead, and she wouldn't have patience, but just went and cried about it. I can't help it if so many girls want to marry me," added the young sultan, tenderly laying his sand pies in the wagon. Daisy had ceased her cries to listen to Frankie's statement of the case; but her spirits were so depressed at once more hearing this indefinite postponement of her matrimonial prospects that she broke forth into a fresh wail of despair. "Oh, Daisy!" said Nellie, "what shall we do with you: you're growing to be a real cry-baby." "Yes," said Master Frankie, seeing his way at once to a peaceful solution of his difficulties. "And I shall never, never marry a cry-baby. You'd better hurry up and be good, Daisy." At this terrible threat, Daisy's shrieks subsided into broken sobs; and Frankie, touched by the extreme desolation of her whole aspect, farther consoled her, by telling her if she would dry her eyes and be good, he would let her "make two mixes, and marry her besides." At which condescension on the part of her chosen lord and master, Daisy was in another instant beaming with smiles, and thrusting her dimpled hands into the wet sand; and the older children left her and Frankie to their play. All but Bessie, that is, who lingered behind to give her brother a little moral lecture. For Bessie's sense of justice had been shocked by Frankie's arrangements, and the hard bargain he had driven with the devoted Daisy, who upon all occasions submitted herself to his whims, and let him rule her with a rod of iron. Moreover, Bessie considered his gallantry very much at fault, and thought it quite necessary to speak her mind on the subject. "Frankie," she said with gravity, "you are selfish to Daisy, I think. You ought to let her make half the pies." "I'm letting her do two mixes," said Frankie; "and, besides, she said I needn't let her do any if I'd marry her. That's fair." "No, it's not. It's not fair, nor polite either," said Bessie, reprovingly. "You oughtn't to make it a compliment for you to marry Daisy. It is a compliment to you." This was a new view of the subject to Frankie, and, as he stood gazing at Daisy and considering it, Bessie added,-- "Anyhow, you ought to let her do half. You're not good to be so selfish." Daisy meanwhile had been balancing in her own mind the comparative advantages of the present and the future good, and came to the conclusion that she had made a foolish choice, and that the mixing of sand pies was more to be desired than the promise, whose fulfilment seemed so far distant; and now, with a deprecating look at Frankie, she made known this change in her sentiments. "I b'lieve I'd rafer mix half the mud than be your wife, Frankie," she said. "I'll just 'scuse myself and do the pies." "Oh! I'll let you do half," said Frankie, encouragingly, "and marry you too, Daisy. I really will." But Daisy, before whom Bessie's words had also placed the matter in a new light, now felt the advantage of her position, and was disposed to make the most of it, as she found Frankie inclined to become more yielding. "I'll see about marrying you," she said coquettishly, "but I _will_ do half the pies." "Yes, yes, you shall," replied Frankie, now extremely desirous to secure the prize the moment there seemed to be a possibility of its slipping through his fingers; "and you'll really marry me, won't you, Daisy?" "Maybe so," said Daisy, a little victorious, as was only natural, at finding the tables thus turned. "Ah! not maybe, Daisy. Say you truly will, dear Daisy, darling Daisy. You shall mix all the pies, Daisy, and I'll be your horse, too." "I'll tell you anofer time," said Daisy, much enjoying the new position of affairs. "Ah! no, Daisy," pleaded the now humble suitor: "if you'll promise now, I'll--I'll--Daisy, I'll give you my white mice." Daisy plumped herself down upon the sand, and gazed at Frankie, astounded at the magnitude of this offer, in return for the promise which, in her secret soul, she was longing to give. "Maybe your mamma won't let you give 'em away," she said at length; and then, with relenting in her generous little heart, she added, "and I wouldn't like to take 'em from you, Frankie: it's too much." "Yes, yes, mamma would let me," said Frankie, eagerly. "Bessie has a pair, and Maggie a pair, and I a pair; and mamma said that was too many, and she won't mind one bit if I give you mine. And I don't care for them at all, Daisy, they're such stupid things. I'd just as lieve give them to you." "Well," said Daisy, shaking her curls at him, "then I'll promise; and I only want to mix half the pies, Frankie, I wouldn't do 'em all, oh! not for any thing." This amicable agreement being sealed with a kiss, and peace thoroughly restored, Bessie left the two little ones to their "mixes," and went back to the others, whom she entertained with an account of Frankie's complete defeat and submission. They rather rejoiced at it, for the way in which Frankie usually lorded it over the submissive Daisy did not at all agree with their ideas of propriety. "But do you think Frankie really means to give the white mice to Daisy?" asked Nellie. "Why, yes," answered Bessie, "he _promised_, you know." "But," said Nellie, doubtfully, "I do not think mamma would like Daisy to have them." "Oh! she needn't mind," said Maggie. "Our mamma did say she was sorry Willie Richards had sent three pair; and Frankie has not really cared for his since the first day. They're too quiet for him. Daisy might just as well have them." "But I don't know if mamma would care to have them in the house," said Nellie. "She is so afraid of mice." "What, a grown-up lady afraid of white mice!" said Lily. "Well, she's afraid of _real_ mice," said Nellie, "and I'm not sure she wouldn't be of white ones." "Pooh! I don't believe she would be," said Carrie. "I wish we could have them." "I shouldn't think your mother would mind _white_ mice," said Belle: "you can ask her." "You're all to come to our house this afternoon, you know," said Maggie, "and then you can see them; and bring Daisy too, Nellie: we want her." After a little more talk and play, the children separated, Nellie going home with her sisters, and promising to come over to Mrs. Bradford's house as early in the afternoon as possible. "What makes you go home so soon?" asked Carrie, supposing that it was those "horrid lessons" which took Nellie away. "I thought mamma might have something else she wanted me to do," said Nellie, "and we have been down on the beach a good while." "What makes you do the housekeeping," asked Carrie,--"just to help mamma, or because you like to?" "Mamma asked me to do it to help her," said Nellie, without a thought of her mother's real object in proposing the plan, "but I do like to do it, it is real fun." "I'd like to do something to help mamma," said Carrie. "Me too," put in Daisy. "I think you both could do something to help her, if you chose," said Nellie, with a little hesitation; for she was a modest, rather shy child, who never thought it her place to correct or give advice even to her own brothers and sisters. "How can I?" asked Carrie, and,-- "How could I?" mimicked Daisy, looking up at her sister as she trotted along by her side. "Well," said Nellie, "I think you, Carrie, could be more obedient to mamma." "I'm sure I do mind mamma," said Carrie, indignantly. "I never do any thing she tells me not to." "No," said Nellie, "you never do the things she tells you you must _not_ do, and you generally do what she says you _must_ do; but--but--perhaps you won't like me to say it, Carrie, but sometimes you do things which mamma has not forbidden, but which we both feel pretty sure she would not like; and then, when she knows it, it makes trouble for her." Carrie pouted a little, she could not deny Nellie's accusation, but still she was not pleased. "Pooh!" she said, "I don't mean that. I mean I want to do some very great help for her, something it would be nice to say I had done." "You're not large enough for that yet," said Nellie, "and I don't believe you could help her more than by being good all the time." "Then why don't you be good all the time?" said Carrie, not at all pleased. "I shouldn't think it was a great help to mamma to let Daisy fall out of bed." Nellie colored, but made no reply. Not so Daisy, who at once took up arms in Nellie's defence. Seizing upon her hand, and holding it caressingly to her cheek, she said to Carrie,-- "Now don't you make my Nellie feel bad about it. That falling out of bed wasn't any thing much; and my bump feels, oh! 'most well this morning. I b'lieve it feels better'n it did before I bumped it. Nellie, what could I do to help mamma?" "If you tried not to cry so often, Daisy, darling, it would help mamma. It worries her when you cry, and sometimes you cry for such very little things." "Does she think a bear is eating me up when she hears me cry and can't see me?" asked Daisy, whose mind was greatly interested in these quadrupeds. "No," said Nellie, "'cause she knows there are no bears here to eat little girls; but it troubles her to hear you cry. Besides, you are growing too big to cry so much, and you don't want people to call you a cry-baby, do you?" "No, I don't," answered Daisy, emphatically, "'cause then Frankie won't marry me. And I don't want to t'ouble mamma, Nellie. But how can I help crying when I hurt myse'f?" "Oh! you can cry when you hurt yourself," said Nellie, "but try not to cry for very little things; and we'll all see what we can do to help her. I believe I have been selfish in reading and studying all the time lately, and not thinking much about other people, especially mamma, so I will give up my books for a while, and try to help her about the house; and Daisy will try not to cry so much; and--and Carrie will be careful not to do the things mamma would not like her to do; will you not, Carrie?" Carrie made no answer; she was not mollified by Nellie's taking blame to herself for her own short-comings, but only resented the gentle reproof she had herself received. Perhaps one reason was that she felt she deserved it. But pet Daisy took hers in good part. "I will," she said, clapping her hands, and looking as if tears were always the farthest thing possible from her bright face, "I will try. I won't cry a bit if I can help it, but just laugh, and be good all the time, unless I hurt myse'f, oh! very, very much, indeed. Nellie," pausing in her capers with an air of deep consideration,--"but, Nellie, if somebody cut off my nose, I ought to cry, oughtn't I?" "Oh, yes! certainly," laughed Nellie. "And if a bear _did_ come, I could sc'eam very loud, couldn't I?" "Yes, whenever that bear of yours comes, you can cry as loud as you please," answered Nellie. "Oh! he's not mine," said Daisy. "He's a black man's, I b'lieve. I 'spect he's an old black Injin man's. There's mamma on the piazza, an' there's two ladies come to see her." [Illustration] [Illustration] V. _WHITE MICE._ THE ladies with mamma proved to be two aunts who had come to pass a part of the day with her. They had brought pretty gifts for each one of the children: a series of books for Nellie,--for they knew her tastes; a wax doll for Carrie; and a doll's tea-set for Daisy. So it was no wonder if the white mice were for the time forgotten in the children's delight over their new treasures. Carrie's doll was the handsomest one she had ever owned; not by any means equal to Nellie's nonpareil, it is true, but she was more than contented with it. Nellie was equally pleased with her books; but after looking at the pictures, and seeing "how very interesting" the series looked, she resolutely put them away, and devoted herself to the entertainment of her aunts, believing that as "mamma's housekeeper" a part of this duty devolved upon her. Moreover, she found that her "help" was needed by her mother in certain little preparations for this unexpected company. Perhaps in her new zeal she did more than was needful, and might have left some things to the servants; but her mother was so glad to see her occupied and content without her beloved study books, that she put no check upon her. Carrie, too, being very anxious to carry out her new resolution of making herself of use to mamma, was very busy, and more than once had her fingers where they were not wanted. She ended her performances by a mistake which alarmed her very much, believing as she did that she had done great mischief. The grocery-man having brought several articles from the store at a time when it was not convenient for the cook to attend to them at once, they had been left standing upon the kitchen porch. Such as were to go to the store-room were by Nellie's direction now carried there; but there were others which were to be left under the cook's care, among them some rock-salt and some saltpetre. Carrie being, as I have said, seized with the desire of making herself useful, went peering from one to another of these things. Seeing the salt in one bucket, and the saltpetre in another, neither of the vessels being full, and not knowing there was any difference between them, she thought the one pail would hold both, and forthwith emptied the one into the other. "An' whatever have ye been about then, Miss Carrie?" she heard the next instant from Catherine the cook, and the woman stood beside her with uplifted hands, looking from the empty bucket to the full one. "If she ain't been and emptied all the salt-pater into me rock-salt," she cried to one of the other servants who was near. "Oh my! and saltpetre explodes and goes off sometimes, when it is put with other things," called Nellie, who had heard from the store-room. "Children, come away from it; it might be dangerous." Away went Carrie, frightened half out of her senses, and, rushing into the room where her mother sat with her aunts, cried in a tone of great distress,-- "Oh! mamma, mamma, I've put all the Peter salt into the other salt, and Nellie thinks we'll blow up." The smile with which her mother and the other ladies heard this alarming announcement somewhat reassured her, and she soon learned that she had done no such very great harm; but, her brothers Johnny and Bob hearing the story, it was long before she heard the last of the "Peter salt." With so much else to think about, it is not very surprising that the little girls should forget the white mice; and, even up to the time of their leaving home to go to Mrs. Bradford's house, Nellie did not remember to ask her mother if she would object to them. Daisy, mindful of the advantage she had gained in the morning, and very much enjoying the position of affairs, was extremely coy and coquettish with Frankie this afternoon; while he, anxious to return to his old standpoint with her, would have given her every thing she fancied, and courted her favor by every means in his power. So you may be sure that he repeated his offer of the white mice, for which he really did not care much, so that it was no great act of generosity to give them up to his young lady-love. "They're my own, my very own," said the delighted child, showing her prize to Nellie, and the others. "Frankie says so. Just see this one run up my arm, and the ofer one is way down in my pottet. Oh! they're so cunning, and my very own. There comes that one out of my pottet." Daisy was too much absorbed with her mice to notice the grave, doubtful face with which Nellie heard her, and watched the tame little creatures as they ran over her hands and arms, and up to her shoulder. Nellie could not bear to damp her little sister's pleasure, but she feared that her mother would be nervous and troubled by their presence. "Did you ask your mamma if Daisy could have them?" asked Maggie, noticing the expression of her face, and guessing the cause. "No, I quite forgot it," answered Nellie; "and I can't bear to disappoint the dear little thing; and yet--and yet--I am 'most sure mamma will not like to have them about." "I don't believe she'd mind," said Bessie. "Our Aunt Annie is dreadfully afraid of real mice, but she don't mind those white ones a bit." "Suppose you take them home with you, and see what your mamma says," suggested Maggie. "If she will not let Daisy keep them, then you could bring them back to-morrow; but I feel 'most sure she will not be willing to disappoint Daisy. Just see how delighted she looks, Nellie." "Or if your mamma won't let Daisy keep them, Johnny could bring them back to-night," said Bessie. Nellie was still doubtful; but it was quite true that she herself could not bear to check Daisy's delight by even a hint that their mother would not admire or tolerate the white mice; and, though against her better judgment, she resolved to let the child carry them home, and then act as circumstances, or rather mamma's wishes, dictated. It would have been better to have told Daisy at once, Nellie knew that; but she always shrank from inflicting pain, or saying that which was disagreeable to another; and, besides, she had a faint hope that her mother might not so much mind the _white_ mice. Miss Annie Stanton's example was an encouraging one in this matter. So after an afternoon pleasantly spent in play, during which Daisy could scarcely be persuaded to part from her new pets for a single moment, the Ransom children said good-by to their young friends, and turned their faces homeward. Daisy walked sedately along by Nellie's side, not skipping and jumping as was her wont, lest she should disturb the precious white mice, one of which lay curled in her "pottet," the other in a box also given to her by Frankie, which she held tenderly clasped with both hands to her breast. The child's face was radiant as she talked of her treasures, and every now and then peeped within the box where one of them lay; and Nellie, watching and listening to her, was ready to believe that mamma could not and would not have any fear of the pretty little things. Still! She, Nellie, had intended to be the first to speak to her mother of the white mice, and to tell Daisy to keep them out of sight till mamma should hear of them, and her permission be gained to bring them into the house. She was just about to speak to Daisy as they entered the gate, when her attention was called for the moment by Johnny, who begged her to help him unravel a knot in his fish-line, knowing well--impetuous fellow!--that her patient fingers were better at that than his own stronger but less careful ones. All that needed patience and gentleness it seemed natural to bring to steady, painstaking Nellie. But just at the moment that she was engaged with Johnny's line, and when she had for the time forgotten Daisy and the white mice, the little one spied her mother coming out upon the piazza; and, anxious to display her prize, she scampered away over the lawn as fast as her feet could carry her, Carrie following. "Mamma, mamma!" cried Daisy as she reached her mother's side, "dear mamma, just see what Frankie Bradford gave me. All for my own, my very own, to keep for ever, an' ever, an' ever, he said so." And, plunging her hand into her pocket, she brought forth one mouse and laid it in triumph on her mother's lap; then, opening the box, thrust the other beneath her very eyes, her own chubby face fairly brimming over with dimples and smiles. Mrs. Ransom turned a shade paler, shrank back a little, then with a forced smile said,-- "Yes, darling, very pretty. I dare say you are very much pleased; but suppose you put this little fellow in the box with his brother. It is a better place for him than mamma's lap." "Oh, no! mamma, he'd just as lieve stay in your lap," said Daisy. "He's not a bit af'aid of you. He likes peoples. See, he'll run right up your arm;" and, taking the mouse up, she would have laid it upon her mother's hand, had not Mrs. Ransom drawn back with an unmistakable shudder and expression of disgust which struck even the unconscious Daisy. "Don't, darling, don't," she said hurriedly, but gently, unwilling to wound her little girl, or to give her any dread of the harmless creatures, but still feeling that she _could not_ bear them near her. "Take them away, my pet: you know mamma does not like mice." "They're not _weally_ mice, mamma," said the little one, opening great astonished eyes at her mother, but at the same time obeying her words and drawing farther away with her mice,--"they're only white ones, not _weally_ ones." "Yes, darling," said her mother, trying to control her disgust for the child's sake, "but mamma does not like any mice. Suppose you put them away." Just at this moment Nellie ran up the piazza steps. "O mamma!" she said, seeing the expression of her mother's face, "I meant to tell you about the white mice before Daisy brought them near you or showed them to you, but she was too quick for me. Daisy, darling, take them away; you see mamma does not like them, and you must take them back to Frankie Bradford." To have seen Daisy's face! She could not believe it possible that any one should really have a fear or dislike to "such cunning little things" as her white mice, and she stood looking from mother to sister, dismay, disappointment, and wonder mingling in her expression. Poor little Daisy! Nellie hastily explained to her mother, telling her how she had been detained by Johnny, and that she had not intended to allow her to see the mice until she had learned whether or no they would annoy her; and ending by saying that she was sure Daisy would be a good girl and carry them back to Frankie. Nellie herself, Mrs. Ransom and Carrie, all expected to hear Daisy break into one of her dismal wails at this proposal; but, to their surprise, this did not follow. True, the little face worked sadly, and Daisy winked her eyes very hard, trying to keep back the gathering tears, while her bosom, to which she held the mice tightly clasped, rose and fell with the sobs she struggled to suppress. "Mamma," she at last gasped rather than said,--"mamma, I'm trying very hard: I _am_ trying not to be a cry-baby any more, 'cause Nellie said that was a good way to be a help to you; but, mamma, oh! I do 'most _have_ to be a cry-baby if you don't love my mice, 'cause I do love 'em so." "My precious lambie!" said the mother; and, forgetting her own aversion to Daisy's pets in her sympathy for the child, she held out her arms to her, and gathered her, mice and all, within their loving clasp. Thoughtful Nellie in another instant had taken the mice from Daisy's hold, and shutting both within the box laid it on a chair at a distance. "Mamma," sobbed Daisy, hiding her little pitiful face on her mother's bosom, "I will take 'em back to Frankie. I didn't know you would degust 'em so, and I'm sorry I bringed 'em home for you to see. And, mamma, I wouldn't be a cry-baby, 'deed I wouldn't, if I could help it." "You can cry a little if you want to, and no one shall call you a cry-baby, my pet," said her mother, "and"--Mrs. Ransom hesitated; then after a little struggle with herself, went on--"and you shall keep the mice, darling. Perhaps we can find a place for them where mamma will not see them." Daisy raised her head, showing flushed cheeks and tearful eyes, and a still quivering lip, although smiles and dimples were already mingling themselves with these signs of distress, at this crumb of comfort. Never was such an April face and temper as Daisy Ransom's. "I'll tell you, mamma," said Johnny, coming to the rescue, "Bob and I can make a cubby hole for them down in the garden-house, and they can live there, where they need never bother you. Daisy can go and play with them there when she wants them. Will that do, Daisy?" Do? One would have thought so to see Daisy's delight. She was beaming and dimpling all over now. "Oh! you dear, darling, loving Johnny," she exclaimed, clapping her hands; then turning to her mother, and softly touching her cheek, she asked in the most insinuating little way,-- "Mamma, dear, would they trouble you down in the garden-house? If they would, I'll do wifout 'em." Who could resist her sweet coaxing way. Not her mother, certainly, who, once more kissing the little eager, upturned face, assured her that she might keep the white mice, and have them down in the garden-house. "There's an old bird-cage upstairs in the attic," said Nellie, "why wouldn't that do for a house for them?" "Just the thing. I'll bring it," said Johnny, and away he went upstairs, three steps at once, and returning in less time than would have seemed possible, with the old, disused bird-cage. "It is rather the worse for wear," he said, turning it around, and viewing it disparagingly, "but we'll make it do. I'll cobble it up; and it will hold the mice anyhow, Daisy." To Daisy it seemed a palace for her mice. Every thing was _couleur de rose_ to her now that she was to be allowed to keep her new pets, and that, as she believed, without any annoyance to mamma. Johnny and Bob were very kind too. They went to work at once; the former straightening the bent bars of the cage, the latter finding a cup and a small tin box for the food and drink of the white mice. Daisy was enchanted, and stood by with radiant face till she saw her pets lodged safely within their new house, when she was even satisfied to have the boys carry them to the garden-house, and to stay behind herself; mamma telling her that it was too late for her to go out again. Never was happier child than Daisy when she laid her little head on her pillow that night. "What a nice day this has been!" said Carrie, as the four elder children sat with their mother upon the piazza, after Daisy had gone to rest. "What's made it so wonderfully nice?" asked Johnny. "Well, I don't know," said Carrie. "I've had a very pleasant time somehow, and I believe it's 'cause Nellie has been with me 'most all day, and been so nice. Why, Nellie, you haven't studied one bit to-day." "Why, no," exclaimed Nellie. "I declare I forgot all about my practising and sewing, and every thing. I never thought of my books, I've been so busy. Why didn't you remind me of the practising and sewing, mamma?" Her mother smiled. "I thought it just as well to let you take the whole day for other things, Nellie," she said: "a whole holiday from books and work will not hurt you. You _have_ managed to live and be happy through it, have you not?" "Why, yes," answered Nellie, astonished at herself, as she recollected how completely lessons, sewing, and practising had slipped from her mind; "and it has been a very nice day, as Carrie says. A great deal pleasanter than yesterday," she added, as she contrasted her feelings of last night with those of to-night. There could be no doubt of it. She felt more like herself, better and happier to-night, than she had done, not only yesterday, but for many days previous; and here was fresh proof, if her sensible little mind had needed it, that her father and mother were right, and that "all work and no play" were fast taking ill effect on both mind and body. Now it will not do for little girls who are inclined to be idle and negligent in their studies to find encouragement for their laziness in Nellie's example, or to think that what was good for her must be good for them. Nellie was a child who, as you have seen, erred on the other side, not only from real love for her books, but also from the desire to learn as much and as fast as her quicker and more clever schoolmates; but this is a fault with which but few children can be reproached, and I should be sorry to have my story furnish any one with an excuse for idleness or neglect of duty. [Illustration] [Illustration] VI. _THE GRAY MICE._ DURING the next few days Daisy, and not Daisy only, but also the other children, found great pleasure and satisfaction in the white mice. They were all very careful not to take them near the house where they might trouble their mother, and Daisy was so particular about this, and so grateful to mamma for allowing her to keep them, that whenever she saw her go out in the garden, or even on the piazza which faced that way, she would rush to the garden-house, put the cage containing her mice in a corner behind a bench, throw over that a piece of old cocoa matting with half a dozen garden-tools piled on top, and then come out in a state of great excitement, shutting the door behind her, and holding it fast with both hands till mamma was out of sight. One might have thought, to see her, that some fierce dog or wild animal was behind that door, able to unlatch it for itself, and eager to make a fierce attack on her mother. As for taking them near the house, or letting them annoy mamma in any way, that Daisy would not have thought of; and she was so good that when a rainy day came, and she could not go out to the garden-house, she never whimpered or fretted at all, but cheerfully submitted to have her pets cared for by the boys. After that first day of her new experiment, Nellie did not altogether discard her lessons. Her half-hour of sewing, another of reading history, and an hour's practising, mamma thought might as well be kept up; but she no longer devoted herself to her books and writing as she had done: indeed, this would have been quite impossible if she properly fulfilled her new and pleasant duties as mamma's little housekeeper. There seemed so much to be done; and Nellie was quite amazed to find what a help she could be, and how interested she felt in having things in nice order. One morning, Mrs. Ransom said she would have the store-room cleaned, and put in thorough order. But first various drawers, bins, boxes, and other receptacles must be looked over; and this Nellie could do, with Catherine to assist her, and move such articles as were too heavy or cumbersome for her. Mrs. Ransom went herself to the store-room, and gave both Nellie and the cook some general orders, but she was feeling more than usually languid that day, and soon tired of the bustle; so she returned to the library, telling Nellie to send to her if she was in any difficulty, or at any loss to know what to do. Nellie determined that mamma should be troubled as little as possible, and, with a pleasant sense of responsibility and happiness, set about her task. Catherine humored her as much as possible; for Nellie, with her pleasant, gentle ways, was a favorite with all her inferiors, and every servant in the house was ready to oblige her, or do her bidding. Carrie and Daisy were very busy too, of course, and trotted many times between kitchen, pantry, and store-room, carrying articles that were to be thrown away or put in other places. "There now, Miss Nellie, I think you can get along without me for a bit," said Catherine, at last. "I have my bread to see to, and you could be overhauling all these boxes and pots the while, and setting by what you're sure Mrs. Ransom will want emptied. If ever I see sech an untidy set as must have had this house afore us, and a shame to them it is to be laving things this way, and they calling themselves ladies and gentlemen." And, with her arms full of "rubbish," away walked the good-natured Irishwoman, whose tidy soul was, as she had said, sorely vexed by the slovenly way in which the house had been left by those who had lived in it before Mrs. Ransom's family. "Here, Daisy," said Nellie, who thought it necessary to find incessant occupation for the busy little fingers of her smallest "helper" lest they should find it for themselves,--"here, Daisy dear, you may sort those corks. Pick out all the large ones and put them in this jar, and put the small ones in this. That will be a great help." "I'd rafer help fissing sugar," said Daisy, raising herself on tiptoe with one hand on the edge of the sugar-barrel, and peeping longingly within its depths. "Yes, I dare say you would," laughed Nellie, "but then the sugar is to stay where it is. But I'll tell you, Daisy. Run and ask mamma if I may give you the largest lump of sugar I can find when the corks are done." Away scampered Daisy, and did not return for some minutes, her attention being attracted on the way with something else than her errand, for one thing at a time was not Daisy's motto. Having at once eased her own mind on the subject of the sugar by receiving mamma's permission to have "the largest lump that Nellie could find," she thought that both sugar and corks would keep till it suited her convenience to return to the store-room, and, seeing a large parcel lying upon the hall-table, she was seized with a thirst for information respecting its contents. She walked round and round it, inspecting it on every side; then ran back to her mother. "Mamma," she said, "there's oh! _such_ a big bundle on the hall-table." "Yes, I know it," said mamma. "And with writing on it," said Daisy. "I fink the writing says, Miss Daisy Ransom, with somebody's respects." "No," said her mother, smiling: "it says John Ransom, Esq." "Is that our Johnny?" asked Daisy. "No, it means papa," answered her mother. "Are you going to open it, mamma. Papa is away." "No, we'll leave it till papa returns. He will be here to-morrow evening." "I don't fink it's a good plan to wait. It makes people tired," said Daisy, plaintively. "But it is right to wait when papa did not tell us to open it," said Mrs. Ransom. "Little girls must not be too curious." "Is it kurous to make a little hole in the paper and peek in?" asked Daisy, after a moment or two of deep reflection. "Yes, curious and very naughty," said Mrs. Ransom. "That would be meddlesome. Ask Nellie to tell you a story she knows about a meddlesome girl." Daisy obeyed, but with less alacrity than usual, lingering for three or four moments longer about the parcel; although, with the fear of being thought "curious and meddlesome," she did not venture to touch it. At last with a long sigh she departed. Meanwhile Nellie and Carrie were opening the various boxes, jars, &c., and inquiring into their contents. "I wonder what's in this," said Nellie, who was standing on a chair, and reaching down things from a shelf. "I thought I heard something rustle in it. There it is again. Why! I wonder if there's any thing alive in it," and she looked with some trepidation at a wooden box which stood on the shelf before her. The lid was not shut down quite tight, and again as she looked at it came that rustle from within. Nellie took up the box rather gingerly; raised the lid a little, just enough to peep within; then, with an exclamation, quickly closed it again. "Why! what is it?" asked Carrie, gazing up at her. "There are mice in it, and one almost jumped out," answered Nellie, crimson with the little start and excitement, although she was not in the least afraid of mice. "I'm not quite sure, I had such a little peep; but I think there's a big one, and some little tiny ones." "How do you suppose they got in?" asked Carrie. "I expect the cover has been left partly open, and then they have gnawed a place large enough to pass in," said Nellie, turning the box around in her hand. "See here," and she showed Carrie where the lid was gnawed away. "What shall we do with them?" asked Carrie. "I don't know," said Nellie, "they'll have to be killed, I s'pose. They must be put out of the way before mamma knows any thing about them, and I think it is best not to tell her, Carrie. It would only trouble her to know there had been any about the house." "Oh! it's too bad," said Carrie. "Must they be killed?" "Yes, I'm afraid so," said Nellie. "I am sorry too: they are such cunning little things." "Why couldn't we keep them, and take them down to the garden-house where Daisy's white mice are?" asked Carrie. "Oh, no!" answered Nellie: "it would never do, Carrie. I do not believe they would stay there, and they might come back to the house, and perhaps frighten mamma. They must be killed. Just take the box to Catherine before Daisy comes back: she might let it out to mamma without meaning to." "What will Catherine do with them?" said Carrie, taking the box from her sister's hand, and lingering with it. "I don't know. Drown them, I suppose. I don't like to think about it, but it can't be helped. Besides, mice _have_ to be killed, you know, they are so mischievous. Tell Catherine not to speak about them before mamma." Carrie passed slowly out of the store-room, feeling very unwilling to have the mice killed; not only from pity for the poor little creatures, but also because she had a strong desire to keep them as pets. Daisy had her white mice, and was allowed to keep them: why should she not have these little animals, so long as they were kept out of mamma's way? Belle Powers had her tame mouse: why could not she tame these as well? And rebellious thoughts and wishes began to rise in Carrie's breast as she lingered half way between the store-room and the kitchen, unable, or rather unwilling, to make up her mind to do as Nellie had told her, and carry the box to Catherine. "I don't see why mamma need be so afraid of a harmless, cunning little mouse," she said to herself. "I know grandmamma said she was frightened into convulsions once, when she was a little girl, by a bad servant-girl putting one down her back; but I should think she'd had plenty of time to grow out of being afraid of them, now she's grown up; and if she don't know it, I don't see why I can't keep them in the garden-house, or--or--somewhere else. 'Cause I s'pose if I did take them to the garden-house, there would be a fuss about it; and the other children would say I ought not to keep them, and maybe tell mamma. It's a shame to kill the dear, pretty little things. Belle Powers' papa just lets her have every thing she wants. I wish my papa and mamma did. And Daisy has her own way too, 'most always; and it's not fair. I'm older than she is. If she can have white mice, I don't see why I can't have gray ones. One isn't any more harm than the other. Besides, I don't have to mind Nellie. She needn't be telling me I _must_ take the mice to Catherine. She thinks herself so great ever since she's been mamma's housekeeper; but I'm not going to mind her when I don't choose to. I shan't let them be drowned now; and--and--I've just a good mind." Turning hastily about, Carrie ran down a short side entry which led to a dark closet where Catherine kept wood for daily use; thrust the box in a far corner; and then, with fast beating heart, returned to the store-room. "How long you stayed!" said Nellie. "I began to be afraid you were waiting to see Catherine drown the mice, and yet I didn't think you could bear to." "No, I didn't," said Carrie, in a low tone, glad that Nellie had not said any thing that would have forced her either to confess, or to tell a deliberate falsehood. She persuaded herself that she was not acting untruthfully now, but she could not make her voice as steady as usual. Nellie did not notice it. She was just then absorbed in trying to extract a small jar from one but little larger, into which it had been thrust. Succeeding in her endeavors, she took up again the low song which her words to Carrie had interrupted. "I wish Nellie would stop that everlasting singing," said Carrie to herself, feeling irritable and out of humor with every one and every thing. "I've a good mind not to help her any more." She had been pleasant, happy, and interested in her work, but a few moments since. Can you tell what had made such a change in so short a time? "Daisy has forgotten about her corks and sugar, I think," said Nellie presently, interrupting herself again in her song. "Oh, no! here she comes;" then, as Daisy's little feet pattered into the store-room, "Did you forget the corks, pet?" "No, and mamma says I can have the biggest lump of sugar, Nellie; and there's a very big bundle on the hall-table, but it's papa's." "Is it?" said Nellie. "Yes," answered the little one, settling herself to the task of sorting the corks, "but I wasn't kurous or messeltome." "Wasn't what?" asked Nellie. "Messeltome. Mamma said to touch what wasn't ours, or to peek, was messeltome; but I didn't do it. Tell me about that messeltome girl, Nellie. Mamma said you would." "Very well," said Nellie, understanding Daisy's definition. "Tell it a long, long story,--tell me till your tongue is tired, will you?" pleaded Daisy, for whom no story could ever be too long. "I'll see," said Nellie; and she began her tale, but had made but little headway in it when a servant came and told Daisy that Master Frankie Bradford was waiting to see her. "What shall I do?" said Daisy, in a state of painful indecision between the conflicting claims of business and society. "The torks are not done, and I didn't have my sugar." "You can take the corks with you, and the sugar too: perhaps Frankie would like to help you," said Nellie, dismounting from her perch, and fishing out the largest lump from the sugar-barrel. "There, I suppose you will want a lump for Frankie too." "No," said Daisy, "mamma said only one lump. If Frankie does half the torks he shall have half my sugar;" and away she ran, carrying corks and sugar with her. "What a dear, honest little thing Daisy is!" said Nellie, when she was gone. "I don't believe she could be tempted to do the least thing she thought mamma would not like, or take any thing she thought was not quite fair. And she's so sweet and thoughtful about mamma. Just see how much pains she's taken not to cry for little things since I told her it troubled her." Carrie turned away her face, feeling more uncomfortable than ever, bitterly reproached by Nellie's unconscious words, no less than by the uprightness and loving dutifulness of her almost baby sister. Daisy found Frankie in the library with her mother. Mrs. Bradford had sent her nursery maid to ask if Mrs. Ransom would drive with her in the afternoon, and Frankie had decided to accompany her. "Mamma said I could stay and play with Daisy, if you asked me," was the young gentleman's first remark, after he had greeted Mrs. Ransom. "Oh!" said Jane, the maid, much mortified, "Master Frankie, I'm ashamed of you. Mrs. Bradford never expected he'd do that, ma'am." "No, I suppose not," said Mrs. Ransom, smiling; "but Daisy will be very glad to have you stay, and so shall I." Daisy was called, as you have heard, and made her appearance in great glee, delighted to see Frankie, and at once inviting him to share her labors, and their reward. The sugar had its attractions, but Frankie privately regarded the cork business with disdain. Having come, however, with the intention of making himself especially agreeable to Daisy, he did not refuse to enter into partnership; and they were soon seated on the upper step of the piazza, and busily at work. "Frankie," said Daisy presently, luxuriating in thus having him all to herself, and in this condescending mood, "would you rafer go to heaven, or stay here and sort torks?" "Well, I don't know as I care much about either," answered Frankie. "I'd rather dig clams. But, then, I'd want you to dig them with me, Daisy," he added, sentimentally. The proposal was alluring certainly, but it had its objections in Daisy's eyes; and she said, in a corresponding tone,-- "I b'lieve I couldn't. They might think I was a boy if I digged clams. But, Frankie, if I went to heaven wifout you, would you cry?" "No," answered Frankie, indignantly, "men don't cry about things like that. Maybe I wouldn't laugh much that day, but I would not cry." Daisy was silent for a moment, then suddenly put one of those startling questions for which she was famous. "Frankie, if I went in to bafe, and Jonah's whale came and swallowed me up, how could God get my soul out of him?" Frankie considered for a little; then not seeing his way clear to a satisfactory answer, and unwilling to confess ignorance on any point, he said gravely and reprovingly,-- "That's not a proper question for you to ask, Daisy." Daisy looked abashed, and said,-- "I didn't mean to ask improper kestions." "No, I don't s'pose you did, so I thought I'd better tell you," said Frankie. "We'll talk about something else." "They're all done," said Daisy, meaning the corks, "now we'll eat the sugar." But the dividing of the sugar proved a difficult matter; for the lump was large and thick, and resisted the efforts of both pairs of little hands. "I'll crack it with this stone," said Frankie; and, suiting the action to the word, he laid it upon the step and gave it a blow with the stone. One part of the much prized morsel remained in very good condition, but the rest suffered severely under this violent treatment, and was reduced very nearly to powder. "Just see what this horrid old stone did!" said Frankie, looking at his work in much disgust. "Never mind," said Daisy, "you can have the whole piece, and I'll eat the mashed." The swain made a feeble resistance to this generous offer, feeling in duty bound to do so; but Daisy insisted, and he was so moved by the magnitude of her self-sacrifice that he said,-- "Daisy, I shall make those other girls wait till you're dead, and marry you first, 'cause you're the best of all the lot." Here Carrie joined them, for she had soon quitted Nellie, telling her that she was tired; but the true reason was that she feared her sister might say something that would force her to confess that she had not obeyed orders about the mice. But, wherever she went, it seemed somehow as if things would be said to make her feel self-reproached and uncomfortable. "Oh! but you're a help, Miss Carrie, and your mother'll be proud to see the forethought of you and Miss Nellie," said Catherine, when Carrie brought out her last load to the kitchen. "What dear, helpful little girls I have!" said mamma, with a loving smile, as Carrie paused for a moment at the open door of the library, not feeling as if she could pass it without seeming to notice her mother, and yet ashamed and afraid to go in. "It almost helps me to feel stronger to see you all so considerate and anxious to do all you can for me." Carrie smiled faintly in reply; then passed out upon the piazza. She would be safe with Daisy and Frankie, she thought, from speeches that would make her feel guilty and uncomfortable. But no. "What shall we do now?" asked Daisy, when the last crumb of sugar had been disposed of. "Where are the white mice? Let's play with them a little while," said Frankie. "Down in the garden-house," answered Daisy. "What a funny place to keep them!" said Frankie. "Let's go and bring them up here." "Oh, no! we mustn't," said Daisy: "we can go and play wif 'em; but they can't come here, 'cause mamma don't like 'em." "We won't take them in the house, Daisy, only out here on the piazza." "No, no," said Daisy, decidedly, "not out of the garden-house. Mamma might see 'em, and they would make her feel, oh! dreffully! I should fink we _wouldn't_ do any fing mamma don't like, would we, Carrie?" she added, lifting her great, innocent eyes to her sister's face. Carrie turned quickly away without an answer, and was glad when the next moment the two little things ran hand in hand down the path which led to the garden-house. Carrie was not happy,--no, indeed, how could she be? A great many uncomfortable feelings were in her young breast just then. Jealousy of her little sister, whom she chose to consider more petted and indulged than herself; envy even of her motherless little playmate, Belle Powers; irritation which she dared not show against Nellie, for bidding her take the mice to Catherine; fear that her secret would be discovered, and the doubt what she was to do with the mice now that she had them: all were making her very restless and miserable. What though she did persuade herself that Nellie had no _right_ to give her orders; what though mamma had never forbidden her to have the mice; what though she did believe she could keep them safely hidden in some place where they need never trouble her mother,--was she any the less guilty and disobedient? And where should that place be that she was to hide them, not only from mamma, but from every one else? [Illustration] [Illustration] VII. _THE BLACK CAT._ "NELLIE, dear," said Mrs. Ransom's gentle voice at the store-room door. "Yes, mamma," answered Nellie, from the top of a row of drawers where she had climbed to reach some jars from a shelf above her head. "I think you have worked long enough, my daughter; and I do not wish you to take down those jars. Hannah is at leisure now, and she may come and attend to the rest of the things." "Oh! but mamma," pleaded Nellie, "if you would just let me do it all myself. It would be so nice to tell papa that I cleared out the store-room entirely, except the very heavy things; and Hannah might be doing something else that would be a help to you." "It would be no help to me to have you make yourself ill, dear; and papa would not think it at all nice to come home and find you tired and overworked. And it is dangerous for you to be reaching up so high. I had rather you would leave the rest to the servants." Nellie was very sorry to stop; and for a moment she felt a little vexed. But it was only a fleeting cloud that passed over her face, and almost before her mother could mark it, it was gone. If she wanted to be a real help to mamma, she must do as mamma wished, even though it did not seem just the best thing to herself. It would have been delightful, she would have been proud to tell papa she had done as much in the store-room as mamma herself could have done if she had been well and strong; but it would not prove a real service if she troubled her mother, or made her feel anxious. Nellie did not herself think that she ran any danger of injury; but since mamma did, there was but one thing that was right to do. "Very well, mamma," she said cheerfully, "I'll come down," and taking the hand her mother offered for her assistance, she descended from her perch. Still it was with a little sigh that she left her task, as she thought, incomplete, and Mrs. Ransom could not help seeing that it was a disappointment to her. "You look warm and tired now, dearie," she said, pushing back the hair caressingly from her little daughter's flushed face, "go upstairs and be washed and dressed. Then if there is nothing else you prefer to do I should very much enjoy hearing you read from one of your new books. I feel tired, and should like to lie on the sofa and listen to you." Nellie brightened immediately, inwardly as well as outwardly. She could be useful to mamma still, if she must leave the store-room; and she ran away to remove the traces of her late toil, and make herself neat and nice. She was in her own room, washing her face, when she heard a short, quick step running along the hall. She thought it was Carrie's, and called aloud, meaning to tell her she was going to read to her mother, and to ask if she would like to hear the story. "Carrie!" she called from out of the folds of the towel where she had just buried her face. No answer; but the step paused for a moment, then ran on. "Carrie!" this time louder and clearer, for her voice was no longer smothered in the towel. Still no answer; but Nellie heard the door at the foot of the garret steps softly closed. "Why! how queer," she said to herself, "what can Carrie be going up to the garret all alone for? I don't believe it was Carrie, it must have been Johnny going up to his printing-press or something." For Johnny was the only one of the family who much frequented the garret, he having a printing-press, carpenter's tools and other possessions up there. Nellie did what she could for herself; then went into the nursery to have her dress fastened, and sash tied. "Would you stop a minute and mind baby while I call Carrie to be dressed?" said the nurse; "I might as well do it now, for there's Daisy to be dressed afterwards, and I suppose they'll both have to be hunted up." "Daisy is playing somewhere with Frankie Bradford," said Nellie; "but I thought I heard Carrie go up to the garret a few moments ago. But I'm not sure." "I thought I heard her run along the entry, too," said the nurse. She went to the foot of the garret-stairs, and opening the door, called Carrie three or four times. But no answer came, and closing the door again, she went away downstairs to look for her. Baby was just beginning to take notice, and as it lay in the cradle, followed with its eyes the bright-colored worsted ball which Nellie dangled in front of them, cooing softly in reply to the gentle, playful tones of its sister's voice, as she talked "baby" to it. But this did not prevent Nellie from presently hearing again the closing of the garret door, closed very softly as by a hand which did not wish that the sound should be heard. Nellie was a little startled, and it was in a tone of some trepidation that she called again. "Johnny! Carrie! who is that? Do speak." A step along the hall, and Carrie appeared at the open door of the nursery. "Where did you come from? was that you went upstairs?" questioned Nellie, looking with surprise at Carrie's crimson, rather troubled face. "Yes, I went upstairs," answered Carrie. "And didn't you hear Ruth calling you?" asked Nellie. "I'm not going to be screeched all over the house by the servants. I should think I was big enough to go where I chose," muttered Carrie, turning away. "You needn't go away. Ruth wants to dress you," said Nellie. "She'll just bring you back. Just see how cunning the baby is," for she saw Carrie was out of humor, and would have tried to soothe and interest her. "I want Daisy to be dressed first," said Carrie, who was evidently anxious to be away. "I'm going to see if she can't." "Daisy is with Frankie, and mamma won't make her come," said Nellie. "I wouldn't bother mamma about it, Carrie, she's lying down." "Oh, yes, Daisy always has to have every thing _she_ wants," said Carrie, coming reluctantly into the room, but keeping away on the other side, "and I shan't have _you_ telling me all the time what to do and what not to do. I haven't got to mind you." The parti-colored ball remained motionless in Nellie's fingers, as she gazed in surprise at her sister, who walking to the window, planted her elbow on the sill, and her chin in her hand; the very picture of a sulky, ill-humored child. Nellie could not think what she meant by her ugly speech. She had spoken very gently to Carrie, and without any undue authority, either of tone or manner, meaning only to suggest, not to command. But perhaps Carrie thought she had taken too much upon herself in the store-room. That was unreasonable, for she had come there of her own accord, begging that she might be allowed to help, and seeming quite ready to put herself under Nellie's orders. Yes, that must be it, and Nellie herself felt a little resentment at her sister's behavior. But it was not Nellie's way to speak when she was angry; she waited till she could do so without temper, and then said gently. "But, Carrie, dear, you know some one had to--" give orders she was about to say, but wise little woman that she was, changed the obnoxious word--"had to say what was to be done, and mamma put me in charge there 'cause I am her housekeeper now. I had to tell you what to do with every thing." Nellie could not help--what little girl could have helped?--a slight consciousness of authority and satisfaction in her position as mamma's right hand woman; but Carrie did not notice that so much as her words, which brought fresh cause for uneasiness to her guilty conscience. What "things" did Nellie mean? The mice? "Is Johnny upstairs?" asked Nellie, receiving no answer to her last speech, but still wishing to make peace. "I should think you'd know he hadn't come home from school," snapped Carrie. "I forgot; I really don't know at all what time it is," said Nellie. "What were you doing upstairs then?" "Let me be," was the answer Carrie gave to this; and Nellie was silent, feeling, indeed, that in such a mood she was best let alone. Little she guessed of the cause of all this ill-temper, however. For what had Carrie been doing upstairs? Can you imagine? Watching her opportunity when she thought no one was observing her, she had run to the wood-closet, seized the box containing the mice; and had actually been naughty enough to bring it upstairs, carry it away to the garret, and there hide it behind some old furniture. But now what was she to do with the mice? How was she to tame them, now that she had them? What pleasure or good could they be to her? How she wished that she had done as Nellie told her, and taken the box at once to Catherine. Now she was afraid to do it. And yet she tried to persuade herself that there was no reason she should not have the mice as long as she kept them out of mamma's way; that she had as much right to decide what was to be done with them as Nellie; that it was not fair that Daisy should keep her pets any more than herself. But why, if all this were true, did Carrie fear to betray her secret; why was she so guilty and miserable? Presently Ruth returned, rather incensed at finding Carrie in the nursery, and at having had "so much trouble for nothing." Neither nurse nor child being in a very good humor, the process of dressing Carrie was not likely to be a very pleasant one; and seeing this, and that baby was growing restless, Nellie thought she had better wait till it was accomplished. There was need for the children to be helpful and obliging in Mrs. Ransom's nursery. Pour little girls, one a young infant, who all required more or less care, to say nothing of the occasional calls of their brothers, gave enough to do; and as their now invalid mother was able to assist but little, it was necessary that the older ones should learn to help themselves and one another. Daisy, in spite of the floods of tears which had been so frequent until within the last few days since she had taken so much pains to check them, was, as Ruth said, "the blessedest child to have to do with," giving no trouble beyond what her tender age required; patient, obliging, and winsome. Nellie was generally ready to give any assistance that was needed, to tend baby awhile, put Daisy to bed, or any other little office not too hard for her; and few little girls of her age do as much for themselves as she was accustomed to do. And since she had resolved to give all the help she could to mamma, she did all this pleasantly and cheerfully; often, as in the present case, not waiting to be asked, but taking up the small duty of her own free will. "She's the wisest head of her age ever I saw, has Miss Nellie," the admiring nurse would say to Mrs. Ransom, when some little thoughtful act had lightened her labors, or put aside the necessity of calling upon her feeble mistress. But poor Carrie had neither Nellie's gentle consideration, nor Daisy's sunny temper, and when, as now, she was not in a good humor, she was a sore trial to the nurse; and seeing that there was every probability of a stormy time, Nellie decided to stay and amuse the baby till Ruth should be at leisure to take it. Mamma would rather wait for her than to be called upstairs by baby's cries. It was as she had feared. In three minutes a battle royal was raging between Carrie and the nurse. It did not call Mrs. Ransom up to the nursery, as Nellie feared it would; but it brought her to the foot of the stairs, whence she called to Carrie in a tone of more sadness than severity; and Carrie did look and feel ashamed, when Ruth remarked,-- "See there now, how you're worrying your mother. Daisy wouldn't do that." But although she now submitted to be dressed, it was still with pouting looks, and much pettish twisting and wriggling, making Ruth's task no light one, and taking far more time than it would have done if Carrie had been patient and amiable. But how could she be patient and good-humored with that uncomfortable secret weighing on her mind? Presently, Daisy came running up to the nursery. "Where's Frankie?" asked Nellie, seeing that she was alone. "Gone home. Jane came for him," answered Daisy, "and mamma told Jane to ask Maggie's and Bessie's mamma to let them come and play with you this afternoon; and Frankie said he'd just as lieve come back too; and mamma said he could. But, O Nellie! what do you fink? a great big, ugly, black cat came in the garden-house, and she was so saucy she was looking at my white mice." "Was she? Oh, dear!" said Nellie. "Is she there now, Daisy?" "No, no," said Daisy, "we wouldn't let her stay. Frankie shu'ed her way far off, and chased her wif a stick, and she put up her back at him, and was mad at him; but he wasn't 'f'aid of her, not a bit. Nellie, do black cats eat white mice?" "I don't know," said Nellie looking uneasy. "Do they, Ruth?" "You may trust any cat to do that, if she gets the chance," said Ruth. "Daisy, my pet, did you shut the door of the garden-house after you?" "Yes, always I shut it, 'fear mamma might some way see the mice," answered Daisy. "But the black cat's gone quite, quite away, Nellie." "She might come back if she has seen the mice, and try to come at them," said Nellie in a low tone to the nurse. "It is what I was thinking," said Ruth. "I'm going to take baby out for a bit when I have these two dressed, and I'll just walk down that way and see that all's right. It would just break that lamb's heart if aught happened to her mice. I'll get along nicely now if you want to go, Miss Nellie. Daisy's no trouble." Baby delighted in Daisy as a playmate, and was now crowing in the most satisfied manner as she danced back and forth before her; clapping her hands and exclaiming, "Jackins and forwis, jackins and forwis." The interpretation of these mysterious words being, "backwards and forwards." Nellie went downstairs, and explained to her mother why she had delayed, without making any complaint of Carrie. She told her also of the black cat, and said she felt uneasy about Daisy's white mice, and thought she would go and see that the creature had not returned. Mrs. Ransom herself was disturbed when she heard of the unwelcome intruder upon the premises, for she, too, feared danger to Daisy's pets. Her anxiety and Nellie's proved too well founded; for when the latter reached the garden-house, she discovered the black cat forcing her way under the door, there being quite an open space between that and the ground, as the little building was old and somewhat out of repair. Nellie drove the cat away once more, and put a board against the aperture; but she could not but feel that Daisy's pets were in much danger, and she could not bear to think of her distress if such a terrible fate befel them. "I think the mice had better be brought up to the house, Nellie," said Mrs. Ransom, when Nellie returned and made her report. Carrie heard, for she had come downstairs, meanwhile, and fresh jealousy of Daisy took possession of her. "Mamma don't care if Daisy has _her_ mice in the house," she said to herself, "so I might just as well have mine upstairs. One is no worse than the other." Carrie was doing her best to drown her remorseful feelings, and to persuade herself that she was doing nothing wrong and undutiful, trying rather to feel injured and martyr-like; but it was up-hill work with her own conscience. For although she was a little apt to be jealous of the other children, and fretful at times, she was very seldom disobedient or regardless of her mother's wishes, and she had not had one easy moment since she had hidden the mice. But for all that, she was determined to think herself hardly used, and Daisy preferred to herself. And it seemed to her as if Nellie must know and meant to reproach her, when she said in answer to her mother's last words,-- "Oh, no, mamma! it would never do to have the mice brought into the house, and you made uncomfortable. I am sure Daisy would never wish to do that, no matter what became of the white mice." "But I can't have the poor creatures destroyed by that cat," said Mrs. Ransom, uneasily. "No," said Nellie, "but perhaps we could--" she hesitated, not knowing what plan to advise. "As soon as the boys come home we will see if they can find any way to make the garden-house secure," said her mother. Ten minutes later, when Nellie had settled down to her reading, but with thoughts which would wander away to the garden-house, white mice and black cat, the boys came in from school, and were speedily made acquainted with the facts of the case. This was nuts for Johnny and Bob; and true to that aversion with which every well regulated boy-mind must regard all animals of her species, away they rushed in search of the black cat, intending to take the direst vengeance upon her, if they caught her again threatening Daisy's darlings. And there she was once more, this time forcing her way beneath the wall of the slight structure, which, never very strong even in its best days, was now fast tumbling into decay, and presented many an aperture and crack passable to cats, or other small animals. She saw the boys, however, before they could catch her; and, either knowing that she was trespassing, or instinctively aware of what would befall her if she fell into their hands, she fled before them, and was presently out of their reach. Bob and Johnny soon came to the conclusion that the garden-house was no longer a safe shelter for the white mice. Although it did present a pretty appearance from the outside, covered as it was with flowering vines, it was so thoroughly ruinous that they found it would take at least two or three days to make it at all secure against a determined and greedy pussy. They might watch and keep her away in the daytime; but what was to be done at night? No, Daisy's pets could no longer be left there, if they were to be saved from pussy's clutches. The boys went back to the house and reported; asking their mother what they should do, for there seemed to be no other proper or convenient place for the white mice. "I'll think about it," said Mrs. Ransom, who was trying to make up her mind to allow the mice to be brought into the house, "and will tell you what to do after dinner. Will they be safe till then, do you think?" "Yes, mamma," answered Johnny, "for we set Rover to watch there, and he'll see after that old beast if she comes around again, but we can't keep him there all day, and she's sure to do it some time, if we leave the mice there." "Don't trouble Daisy about it," said Mrs. Ransom, "there is no need to tell her just now." [Illustration] [Illustration] VIII. _DAISY'S SACRIFICE._ ROVER had to be released by and by after dinner, of course, but it did not seem to matter so much by that time, for Daisy went to her pets, and the cat would not dare to come near them so long as she was there. So every one believed; but this proved to be a mistake, for puss was more persistent and daring than any one would have thought possible. "Johnny," said Mrs. Ransom, when Daisy had gone, "could you not arrange some place up in the garret where Daisy could keep her mice and they need not come in my way?" "It is just what I was thinking of, mamma," said Johnny; "you need never know they were there." "There now," said Carrie to herself, "so it is no harm at all for me to have my mice up there. I shall just keep them." For repentant resolutions of giving up her hidden prize, and disposing of it in some way without betraying herself, were flitting through Carrie's mind; but now she put them from her again. "First, we'll see if we cannot knock up some sort of a support to hold a hook in the garden-house," said Johnny, "and then we'll hang the cage upon that. The roof is so old and broken it will not hold; but we may put something in the wall to keep the cage out of the cat's reach, and we'll try it before we bring them in the house, mamma." Daisy fed her mice, as she generally did at this time of the day,--the little creatures nibbled their food right out of her hand--played with and fondled them, talking to them the while in a coaxing, crooning voice of all her affairs, unconscious of the cruel, greedy eyes which were watching her every motion and those of her pets. For Rover having gone, puss had made the most of her opportunities, and came creeping slowly and stealthily beneath bushes and behind walls, till she reached the garden-house once more; and climbing to the roof sat watching the little child and her playthings through a hole in the thatch. And, by and by, this naughty _bête noir_ thought her chance had come. "Now, you ducky darlin's," said Daisy, "I b'lieve it's time for Frankie to come back to my house and play wif me. So you must go in your cage while I go and see, and we'll come back and play here where you can see us. No, you needn't want to go into the house wif me. Mamma don't like you, which is a great, great pity; but she can't help it." The mice seemed strangely reluctant to go back in their cage, whether it was that they only scented their watchful enemy, or that they had caught a glimpse of the glittering eyes looking down upon them; for one, with a squeak of terror, fled into the depths of Daisy's pocket, and the other would have followed had she not caught him in her hand and stopped him. "No, no," she said, "you'll have to go into your cage, Dot, and you too, Ditto. Peoples have to do what they don't want to sometimes, and so do mouses. I've found that out," and Daisy shook her head with the air of one who has made a novel and important discovery. She put the mice into the cage, where they speedily hid themselves beneath their bed, shut and fastened the door and set it upon the floor, believing that she would return in a moment with Frankie and let them out again. Then she ran away to the house, where, as she had expected, she found Frankie who had just arrived with his sisters, Maggie and Bessie. They had not cared to wait till their mother came to take Mrs. Ransom to drive, but had begged and received permission to walk over that they might have the longer afternoon for their visit. Daisy and Frankie were off together immediately, and the four elder children were settling the question of "what shall we do first?" when the whole household were startled by a succession of fearful shrieks from Daisy, accompanied by shouts of defiance and threats from Frankie. The sounds came from the garden-house; and Daisy's cry was not the dismal, low wail she set up at times over some minor trouble, but an unmistakable scream of terror and pain. Away ran every one to see what was the matter; mother, brothers and sisters, guests and servants; even Ruth, baby in arms, tearing down the stairs to follow the rest. The garden-house reached, the trouble proved not as serious as might have been feared; but quite enough so to warrant all the uproar from the two distressed little ones. There crouched Daisy in an ecstasy of terror, bending over her white mice, which she held cuddled up in her lap; never ceasing her screams and calls for help, while Frankie brandishing a hoe stood boldly between her and the black cat, which with glaring eyes, back erect, stood spitting and growling at the two children, determined no longer to be balked of her prey. For this was no tame puss accustomed to be fed, and having a comfortable home; but a wild, stray cat, half-starved, and now quite furious at seeing her intended prize once more rescued. Not fairly rescued, if she could help it. Long waiting for the dainty meal and many disappointments had made her desperate; and more than once she had nearly sprung past the brave little Frankie, who, resolute as the brute herself, fairly stood his ground, and faced her at every turn, calling aloud,-- "Hi! you there! you'd better be off with yourself. Now, you; you'll catch it! I'll give it to you! I'll hoe you if you don't look out! You want to be hoed, do you? I won't let her get them, Daisy. Run, Daisy, run!" But Daisy was past running; terror had taken all power from her save that of shielding her pets, as she best could, against her bosom, and shrieking aloud for help. It was well that help was so close at hand, or the situation of the two little ones might indeed have become dangerous; but at the sight of so many flocking to the rescue, the cat turned and fled, pursued by the boys with stones and sticks,--and who could blame them in such a case as this?--but escaped without much hurt from the missiles which they threw with better will than aim. The story was soon told: how, coming to the garden-house and pushing open the door, the first thing that presented itself to the eyes of Daisy and Frankie was the black cat, with one paw actually in the cage, the mice squeaking in terror, and shrinking from the cruel claws outstretched for their destruction; how Frankie had snatched the cage away, and the mice had immediately fled to the protection of Daisy's bosom, whence the cat had once tried to tear them. How the brave little knight had fought her off, and then tried to stand between his tiny lady-love and farther harm, the new-comers had seen for themselves; how devotedly Daisy herself had clung to her darlings, and how furious their enemy had been, was testified by the poor little woman's torn and scratched arm, bleeding from the adversary's claws, and the bent and twisted bars of the cage. It was plainly to be seen that the garden-house was no longer a safe place for the white mice, not even until such time as the boys could arrange some contrivance for hanging up the cage; and now Mrs. Ransom almost forgot her dread of them in her sympathy over her poor little girl's distress and bleeding arms. Poor little dimpled white arms! even now they would not relax their sheltering hold of the white mice, but held them firmly clasped. Daisy was speedily carried to the house, and once more seated, white mice and all, on her mother's lap, while her scratches were bathed and bound up. "A wag on it" was Daisy's sovereign remedy for every thing in the shape of a wound or bruise. "Let me put your mice away, darling," said Nellie, ever mindful of her mother's antipathy. "Oh, no! don't take 'em out. Mamma might see 'em, and she can't bear 'em," sobbed Daisy, holding the little skirt tighter than ever. "And oh, dear! I b'lieve I'll have to give 'em back to Frankie, 'cause I can't let 'em live in the garden-house for that black old dreadful cat to eat them up, and I s'pose mamma wouldn't want _me_ to live there all the time, even with some one to take care of me." No, indeed, mamma thought not, as she folded the darling closer in her arms, and bade her cry no more; for her white mice should come into the house, and the boys should arrange a place for them where they would be quite safe from black cats and other enemies. To see the change in Daisy's face! "Mamma! don't you mind? don't you weally mind? Won't they trouble you?" It was not possible for Mrs. Ransom to say that she would not be annoyed by the presence of the white mice in the house, even though they might never come under her own eye; and, although for Daisy's sake she put aside her own feelings, the loving heart of the little one detected the slight reluctance with which she spoke. "Mamma couldn't have your white mice destroyed, darling," she answered; "and if Daisy is so careful for mamma, mamma must be careful for Daisy. So let the mice come Suppose you let Nellie take them now." Opening her skirt, Daisy revealed the mice, still trembling and quivering with their fright; and, seeking to hide themselves, the one made for the bosom of her dress, the other unluckily ran over mamma's lap looking for some place of refuge. Johnny's hand was over him in an instant, but not before his mother had grown white to the lips, and in spite of a strong effort she could not control a shudder of disgust. This did not escape Daisy. "Better put 'em away, quick, 'way far off, Johnny," she said in a pitiful little voice, and resigning the other mouse to his care; and Johnny carried both away. Daisy was used to petting; but in consequence of her misfortunes, and the honorable wounds she had received in the skirmish, she was so overwhelmed with attentions and caresses, not only from her own family, but also from Maggie and Bessie, that she was presently consoled, and beguiled from mamma's lap to the piazza, where she was seated in state among her admirers, and continued to be made much of. Frankie also came in for a share of the honors he had so fairly won by his heroic defence of his little lady-love and her property; but he presently concluded he had had enough of them, and would like to go upstairs with the older boys and watch them at their work. He would fain have persuaded Daisy to go with him, but she still remained mournful and subdued, and preferred to stay with the little girls and be petted. For there was a great weight on Daisy's little mind, and a great purpose working there,--a purpose which required much resolution and much self-sacrifice; and it was hard to bring her courage to the point. She had small thought for what the other children were saying, as she sat nestled close to Nellie's side, with her sister's arm about her, and one of Bessie's hands clasped in her own. Carrie's thoughts were not more easy than Daisy's, and they were far less innocent. She was in an agony lest the boys, who were now in the garret, should discover her secret. And there was Frankie with them! Frankie, who had a faculty for finding that which he was not intended to find, for seeing that which he was not intended to see, for hearing that which he was not intended to hear; who, full of mischief and curiosity, went poking and prying everywhere, and whose bright eyes and busy fingers would, she feared, be sure to fasten themselves upon the hidden box. But she dared not follow the boys upstairs, for it would seem strange if she left Maggie and Bessie, and her doing so might excite questions. Oh that she had never touched the mice, or had at once obeyed Nellie's directions respecting them, which Carrie's conscience told her now, as it had at the time, was the same as if her mother had given them! "Nellie and Carrie," said Maggie, "what do you think we are doing, Bessie and I?" "We don't know. What?" said Nellie. "Guess," answered Maggie. "Oh! I'm not good at guessing," said Nellie, smiling. "I never guessed any thing or answered a conundrum in my life, except some of Daisy's;" and she drew her arm closer about the pensive little mortal at her side. Daisy's conundrums were many and various, some so very transparent that she might as well have given the answer with the question, others so extremely bewildering that Oedipus himself could scarcely have unravelled their meaning; and it was in these last that she gloried, always feeling rather aggrieved if any one gave the right answer. "She gave a conundrum last night that none of us could guess," continued Nellie, wishing to amuse and interest her little sister. "See if Maggie and Bessie can guess it now, Daisy." Daisy aroused a little from her melancholy, and said in a plaintive voice,-- "Why don't a pig wif a ni'gown on him want to go to the kitchen fire?" Maggie and Bessie gave up at once, knowing that this would be Daisy's preference; besides being really quite at a loss to understand why a pig in such unusual attire should shun that particular spot, "the kitchen fire." "Because he's af'aid he'll burn his ni'gown," said Daisy, when she was called upon for the answer, which Maggie and Bessie pronounced "very good;" and, being encouraged by her success, the pitiful little damsel put forth another conundrum, having reference to the subject which was weighing so heavily on her mind. "Here's anofer one," she said: "Why don't white mice like to live in the garden-house?" "Because they are afraid the black cat will eat them," said Carrie, less mindful of her sister's prejudices than Maggie and Bessie had been. "Now, why did you guess it so soon?" said the affronted Daisy; and this proving the drop too much in the already overflowing cup, her head went down in Nellie's lap, and she resigned herself to tears once more. None of the other children dreamed of the chief trouble which was weighing on her little heart; but her misfortunes of the afternoon were considered so serious that no one thought it at all strange that she should be in a melancholy state of mind. Still, silent sympathy, at present, seemed the best to Nellie, and she contented herself with softly caressing the bent head, and checked the others with uplifted finger when they would have cheered Daisy with spoken words. "Talk about something else," she spelled out in the sign alphabet, and then asked aloud,-- "What is it you and Bessie are doing, Maggie?" "Making such lovely Christmas presents for mamma," answered Maggie. "What! already?" said Carrie. "Yes," said Maggie, "because it will take us so long to work it, and we have lots besides to do. And then some dreadful accident might happen to us to prevent our finishing it, you know, like Sir Percy nearly putting out Lily Norris' eye; so it's best to take time by the forelock at once, even if it is only July." "What are you making?" asked Nellie. "A pair of brackets, the loveliest things," answered Maggie, with emphasis. "Bessie is filling up one, and I the other." "And we are going to have them made up ourselves, quite ourselves, out of our own money," said Bessie. "Nellie, why wouldn't you like to make something for your mamma of your own work? You can do worsted work so very nicely." "I would like to very much," said Nellie. "And I have some money of my own that I could use." "I shall do it too," said Carrie. "If you would like to do the same thing that we are doing," said Maggie, "Mrs. Finkenstadt has another pair of brackets nearly like ours, and at the same price. They are very pretty." "But I'm afraid"--began Nellie, then paused. "Not that you don't know how," said Maggie; "why, Nellie, every one knows you work better than any of us." "I was thinking if I would have time enough," said Nellie, "now that I am mamma's housekeeper. It takes up a good deal of time; and then--and then"-- "Oh! it's your old books," said Carrie. "I should think you might be willing to give them up to make something pretty for mamma. If you didn't study so much more than any of the other girls, you could do it very well. I think you might make one; for then I could do the other, if you would show me how." "I'll show you how and help you all I can," said Nellie, "but I do not think I shall try to do one myself. And it's not because of my studies, Carrie, but for another reason that I'd rather not tell." "Mamma would just as lief let you give up being her housekeeper if you want to do something else for her," said Carrie. "I don't want her to," answered Nellie, "for--I do believe I am of use to mamma, and I would not like to put that off for something that is not necessary. Besides, I have still another reason." "I'm sure I think it seems a great deal more to make a lovely Christmas present for mamma than to do housekeeping for her. I believe she'd rather," said Carrie. "I don't believe so," answered Nellie. "And, Carrie," said Maggie, "very often in this world we have to put up with appearances being deceitful, and with knowing not only that 'all is not gold that glitters,' but also that some very true gold does not glitter at all; and Nellie's private reason may be very true gold, indeed, without our seeing it glitter. Besides, mamma says Nellie is one of the most sensible little girls she ever saw; and I believe she is a case of 'old head on young shoulders,' so we may as well think that she is wise and right until we know differently." Maggie's fine speech, overflowing as it was with proverbs, silenced Carrie, as her wise sayings did usually silence her companions, who did not command such a flow of ideas and language; and Nellie gave her a grateful look. "Here's mamma in the carriage to take out your mamma," said Bessie; and the attention of the children was for the moment diverted from their own affairs. "Will you go and drive too, Daisy?" said Mrs. Bradford. "No, fank you, ma'am," answered Daisy, much to the astonishment of the other children, as she raised her woe-begone little face from its resting-place. For Daisy was generally very ready for a drive, or for an outing of any kind. But now to all their persuasions, to all their expressions of surprise, she remained perfectly immovable, only blinking her eyes very hard, pursing up her rosy lips, and shaking her head, in the most deplorable manner possible. But the cause of this came out when Mrs. Bradford and Mrs. Ransom had gone; for as the carriage drove away the boys came running downstairs and out upon the piazza. "Now your white mice will be all safe, Daisy," said Frankie; "me and Johnny and Bob have made the first-ratest place for them up in the garret. I'd like to see that old cat finding them up there. Come and see how nice it is." "It's no matter about it," said Daisy. "You're all very good, and I'm very obliged to you; but I wouldn't feel to keep my mice up in the garret." "What are you going to do with them then?" asked Johnny. "I couldn't have 'em in the house when mamma feels so about it," said Daisy, choking back a sob, and trying to be very brave. "She said you could," said Bob. "Yes, I know she did," answered Daisy; "but she don't like it, I know she don't, and so I'm going to give 'em back to Frankie." "But, Daisy"--began Johnny. "No, no," said Daisy, putting out a little hand to stop him, "don't speak to me about it, Johnny, 'cause I do feel so very bad, then maybe I wouldn't; and I should fink a little girl who wouldn't rafer please her mamma than to have white mice must be the naughtiest little girl in the world." "You dear little thing!" exclaimed Maggie. "I don't believe mamma would care at all so long as she never saw them," said Bob; "do you, Nellie?" Nellie hesitated. "I do think she would _care_," she answered reluctantly, for Daisy's wistful eyes were raised to her face, as if hoping for an encouraging answer; "but she has made up her mind to bear it for Daisy's sake." "But I don't want her to do any more sake for me," sighed Daisy. "I'd better do sake for her, I should fink; and please don't speak any more about it, children. I'd like to have 'em to play wif down here till mamma comes home; and then I'll give 'em back to Frankie for ever an' ever an' ever. That was why I wouldn't go and drive, so I could say good by to 'em." Nellie did not oppose her self-sacrificing resolution, hard as she knew it was for the child; for she was sure that her mamma would never feel easy while the creatures were in the house, and she was sure also that in some way she would make it up to Daisy. Not that Daisy had any such idea. No, in giving up her mice she did it without any thought of payment, only to save mamma from annoyance and discomfort, a great and generous sacrifice for such a little child; for Daisy was but five years old, you must remember; and this showed thought and consideration worthy of a much older person. But then Daisy always had been remarkable for her tender, clinging love for her mother, and her earnest desire to please her in all things. It struck all the other children; and they overwhelmed her with caresses and expressions of admiration and affection; even bluff Bob, who seldom condescended to bestow much flattering notice upon his sisters, declaring,-- "Well, you are a little brick, Daisy." It was pleasant to be so petted and admired, for Daisy dearly loved praise, and in all this she found consolation, and began to put on little airs and graces befitting a heroine. Dear little lamb! who would quarrel with her if she did? How hard it went with her might be seen by the working of the sweet face, the pitiful pressure of the tiny hands one against the other, the swimming eyes and choking voice. It was too much for Carrie. The contrast between her own conduct and that of her little sister was more than her uneasy conscience could bear; secret remorse and shame overwhelmed her, and with a quick resolve to be "as good as Daisy," and sacrifice her own wishes to her mother's prejudices, she slipped away from the other children, and ran upstairs, determined to put the gray mice out of the way. [Illustration] [Illustration] IX. _MAKING GINGER-CAKES._ BUT how? Ah! there it was. That which would have been easy and simple enough in the beginning, had she but done as she should, and taken the mice at once to the cook, was now a great trouble and difficulty. For if she took them to Catherine now, the cook would ask where she had found them, and put other questions which she would not wish to answer; for that would involve a confession she had no mind to make, penitent though she was, or thought herself. And how was she to put the mice out of the way herself? She could not tell what to do with them. Should she carry the box off somewhere, away to the woods or down on the shore, and let the mice out there? But then again, if she did this, she must leave the other children, her little guests Maggie and Bessie, too; and this would excite wonder and curiosity; more than that, she was not allowed to go out of their own grounds alone. She might perhaps hide them in the garden-house if she could but contrive to escape the eyes of her companions for a few moments, but no, the black cat might return in search of Daisy's pets, and her own fall victims to the creature. No, that plan would never answer; but what should she do? Oh! if she only had known beforehand what trouble and unhappiness her momentary disobedience and deceit would bring upon her, she would never, never have yielded to temptation, and hidden the mice. Why had she not taken time to think about all this? Ah, Carrie, there it is. If we only knew beforehand, if we only could foresee the consequences of our wrong-doing, the misery and punishment we shall bring upon ourselves, perhaps upon others, how careful it would make us to avoid the sin! But the pleasure comes first, the punishment after, when it is too late; and nothing is left but repentance and regret. Carrie had run up to the garret once more, hastily taken the box from its hiding-place, and brought it down to the room next her mother's, which she and Nellie shared. There she stood now, a most unhappy little girl, as such thoughts as these chased one another through her mind, trying to think of some plan for ridding herself of the mice, but obliged to reject first one and then another. What was she to do? She was in dread this very moment lest the other children should come upstairs and find her there with her dreadful secret; yes, it was dreadful to Carrie now; and she felt almost angry at the innocent little mice. You have all heard of the unhappy man who was very anxious to have an elephant, and at last won one in a raffle; but the moment it was his own he did not know what to do with it, and would have been glad to have some one take it off his hands. Those mice were as bad as so many elephants to poor Carrie, and oh, how she wished that she had never seen them! _Seen_ them! She had not even done that! Only _heard_ them as they rustled in their prison-house; not very satisfactory payment certainly for all the pain and trouble she had gone through ever since she had taken them. The man at least could _see_ his elephant, but her mice she had only _heard_. And what a rustling and scratching and gnawing they were making now within the box which stood on the table before her, where she regarded it with puzzled, troubled face, wishing it and its occupants a thousand miles away! There was a little hole near the bottom of the box: had the mice gnawed it, trying to make their escape? And how had they come in the box, and how many were there? What a noise they made! Forgetting her anxieties for one moment, Carrie took up the box again, put her eye to the hole, and tried to peep within. But it was useless, she could see nothing; and now the mice, frightened by her movements, were as quiet,--well, as quiet as only mice can be under such circumstances. Carrie thought she would open the lid of the box a little and peep within, just a very little bit, not far enough for the mice to escape, but so she could see how many were there, and what they looked like. Mice were such dear little things! No sooner said than done. She raised the lid, cautiously and very slightly at first, then a little farther, when, quick as thought, a mouse sprang through the opening, and in a second of time was gone. Carrie gave a start as sudden; the box fell from her hands, the cover rolled off, and there were four or five little mice tearing wildly about the room, seeking each one for a hiding-place, but rather bewildered by finding themselves so abruptly turned out from their old home, and scattered abroad upon the wide world. But perhaps you would like to hear how the mice had come to be in the box, and I will let you know. The mice never told _me_; but I know for all that, and this was the way. Mother Nibble, having strayed into the house one day, made her way into the store-room, and there found this box with the lid partly open, a fine stock of chocolate and barley within, and plenty of soft, tender paper; and made up her mind that here would be a quiet, well-provisioned house in which to bring up her young family. And here they had remained undisturbed until that very morning, when Nellie, putting her store-room to rights, had chanced to discover them, and, closing them down in sudden imprisonment, had sent them to a fate from which Carrie's naughtiness had saved them. And they had escaped now, every one of them, and were scampering here and there before Carrie's startled eyes. Another moment, and they were gone, hidden safely away in nooks and crannies such as only mice could find. But they were out at large. Here in this very room next to mamma's; even worse, Carrie had seen one run through the open door into mamma's own bedroom! What was she to do? Suppose her mother should see him, find him anywhere, even hear him scratching and nibbling on her own premises! She had seen enough of her mother's nervous terror of a mouse, strange, even needless it might seem to herself; but she knew too well what a torment it was; and now! She felt as though it was rather hard that the mice should have escaped, and here in this very place, just at the moment when she had been going to sacrifice her own pleasure to her mother's comfort, and to be "as good as Daisy." Ah! but, Carrie, there was a great difference between you and Daisy. Your little sister had never yielded to temptation, had put aside her own wishes at once for the sake of her mother's feelings,--put them aside as a matter of course, and without a thought that it could or should be otherwise. Dear, unselfish little Daisy! But it would not do for her to stand here, idly gazing about her. There were the other children expecting her, perhaps looking for her; she heard their voices even now in the hall below. Hastily gathering up the scattered fragments of paper, tin-foil, and crumbs of chocolate and barley which had fallen to the floor, she collected them within the box, put the cover upon that, opened a drawer belonging especially to herself, and thrust all beneath some other things. Some other time, she thought, she would throw the box away; for the present it was safe there. This done, she ran downstairs and rejoined her sisters and brothers and young friends, who were all still so occupied with Daisy and her pathetic sorrow over the parting from the white mice, that they had scarcely noticed Carrie's absence, and did not annoy her with the questions she had dreaded. But it was a miserable afternoon to Carrie. She felt that repentance had come too late, and that now at any time her mother might encounter a mouse. She was not sorry when it came to an end, and Mrs. Bradford, returning with Mrs. Ransom from their drive, took away her own little flock with her; Frankie carrying the white mice, which he assured Daisy he was "only keeping" for her till he and she were married, when he would "build her a gold house for them;" and that they were just as much hers if they did live in his house. Daisy watched the departure of her pets with the most pitiful of little faces, striving with all her might to smile and look cheerful, but failing distressingly. Mrs. Ransom hardly understood what it was all about till Mrs. Bradford's carriage had gone, the white mice with it; but, when she did, she overwhelmed her unselfish little darling with so many thanks and caresses that Daisy felt repaid for her sacrifice. Nellie wondered what it could be that made Carrie continue so out of spirits and almost fretful all the evening; but, having been repulsed once or twice when she would have attempted to give sympathy or ask questions, she found it best to let Carrie alone, even when she heard her crying quietly to herself after they had both gone to rest, and her sister believed her to be asleep. But when the next morning came, and nothing had yet been seen or heard, so far as she knew, of the escaped prisoners, Carrie's spirits rose once more, and she believed that she should have no farther trouble from them. Papa was expected home upon the evening of this day, and Nellie was to be allowed to try her hand upon his favorite ginger-cakes. Nellie had something of a turn for cooking, and was always so careful about rules and proportions, steady little woman that she was, that mamma was not much afraid that she would fail, especially with good-natured Catherine to keep an eye upon her. Of course the making of the ginger-cakes was a very important business, the grand event of the day to Nellie, Carrie, and Daisy; for the two last must have a hand in them, and "help" Nellie in her operations. More than this, they were to be allowed to roll out some "teenty taunty" cakes for their own eating and that of their dolls. They would have had Nellie go to her cake-making the first thing in the morning, and leave all else till this was accomplished; but that was not Nellie's way. "Duty before pleasure" was generally her motto; and of late she had kept it steadily before her, and tried also to be very sure which was the _duty_ and which the _pleasure_, feeling that she had too often mistaken the one for the other. But at last all the regular small housekeeping tasks were done, and, with a pleasant consciousness of duty fulfilled, Nellie signified to the other children that she was ready to begin her cookery. Catherine had every thing ready for her; and Nellie with a long apron tied about her neck and covering all her dress, her sleeves rolled up to her shoulders, and her receipt-book lying open beside her, was soon deep in the mysteries of mixing, while Carrie stood on the other side of the table, sifting sugar; and Daisy, mounted on a chair beside Nellie, ladled spoonful after spoonful of flour into the stone bowl wherein Nellie was stirring her mixture. Nor did she spill more than a quarter of each spoonful on the way, which, on the whole, is saying a good deal. Daisy's face was radiant, and her troubles of yesterday were for the time quite forgotten in the interest of her occupation. "Carrie," said Nellie presently, trying to be mysterious, so that Daisy might not know she was the subject of remark, "Carrie, don't you think a certain person of our acquaintance has pretty well recovered?" "Yes," answered Carrie, "you mean the youngest person in the k-i-c-h-u-n, don't you? Oh! quite recovered." But Daisy was too quick for them, and, immediately understanding that she was the individual alluded to, thought herself called upon to return to the mournful demeanor which she considered proper under her bereavement, and, banishing the smiles from her face, she said, dolefully,-- "You mean me! I know you mean me; and I'm not recoveryed at all, not one bit." "But I would if I were you," said Nellie. "When we do a kind thing for any one, like your giving up your mice for mamma, it is better not to let them see we feel very badly about it. That is, if we can help it; and I think you could feel a little glad and happy now if you chose: couldn't you?" "Well, I don't know, I b'ieve not," answered Daisy, closing her eyes with an expression of the most hopeless resignation. "There now!" continued this unappreciated little mortal, opening them again, "just look how that old flour went and spilled itself! There's only a little speck left in the spoon!" "Because you didn't look what you were doing," said Nellie, laughing; "better keep your eyes open, Daisy, when you are carrying flour." "I fink I could recovery a little if I only knew what was in that big parcel," said Daisy, taking up another spoonful of flour, this time with her eyes open. "What parcel?" asked Carrie. "That large parcel that came home yesterday," said Daisy. "It is for papa, so mamma said it wasn't right for me to peek; and now it's in the hall-closet where I can't even see the outside of it. I asked mamma if I couldn't just open the closet door and look at it, but she told me I'd better not, 'cause, if I did, it might be a temp-ta-tion," repeated Daisy with a justifiable pride in the long word and her correct pronunciation of it. "Yes, I know," said Nellie, turning to kiss the chubby, befloured little face at her side. "I know, darling; and you were a wise girl to keep away; you've been very good yesterday and to-day. Don't put in any more flour till I come back. I am going into the store-room for another paper of ginger." "Carrie," said Daisy, when Nellie had gone, "did you ever have a temp-ta-tion?" Carrie did not like this question; innocently as her little sister put it, it brought back to her too plainly that yielding to temptation of which she had so lately been guilty. "Of course, child," she answered pettishly, "everybody does." "Did it make you do somefing naughty?" was Daisy's still more unwelcome question. "Mind your own business," snapped Carrie. "Daisy, I never did see a child who talked so much." Daisy ventured no further remark, but stood gravely regarding Carrie with reproving displeasure till Nellie returned, when she turned to her and said,-- "Nellie, isn't it more politer to say, 'Please wait and talk a little more anofer time,' than to say, 'Mind your own business, you talk too much!'" "I should think it was. O Daisy, what a funny child you are!" said Nellie, much amused, and without the least suspicion that Carrie was the offender in question. "Who has been so rude to you, darling?" "Never mind," said Daisy. "Carrie, I won't tell tales 'bout you, if you was rude to me,--oh, so rude!" Nellie laughed merrily again over Daisy's fancied concealment of Carrie's sins against her. "I don't see what there is to laugh about," said Carrie, angrily. "You think Daisy is so smart." Nellie was grave in a moment, wondering, as she had had occasion to do many times during the last twenty-four hours, what could make Carrie so cross and ready to take offence. "Any more flour, Nellie?" asked Daisy. "No more now," answered her sister. "Catherine, the receipt don't _say_ cinnamon, but papa likes it so much, I think I will put some in. It can't do any harm, can it?" "Not at all; I'm thinking it would be an improvement myself, Miss Nellie," answered the cook. "But then I've not a pinch of powdered cinnamon. I used the last yesterday for the rusks." "There's some in the dining-room," said Nellie. "Daisy, dear, you can do that. Go to the sideboard, open the right-hand door, and bring sister the spice-box you will see on the first shelf. Bring it very carefully." "Yes, I know it," said Daisy, scrambling down from her chair, and feeling rather important in her errand. "Cafarine, don't I help a whole lot?" "Oh! a wonderful lot! I never saw a darlin' that made herself so useful;" and with these words of praise sounding in her ears, Daisy went off happy. In two minutes she was back again, breathless, with wide-open eyes, the crimson deepening in her cheeks, but with the spice-box safely in her clasp. "Nellie! and Carrie! and Cafarine! all of yous! what do you fink?" she cried. "Oh! such a fing!" "What is the matter?" said all three at once. "A mouse! a weally mouse in the dinin'-room. Not a white mouse, but a nigger mouse,--oh! I forgot again,--I mean a colored person mouse, right in the dinin'-room! What will mamma say?" "Oh! you must be mistaken, Daisy," said Nellie, while Carrie heard the words of her youngest sister with a sinking heart. "No, I'm not, I'm not," persisted Daisy. "It was just as weally a mouse as it could be. He was under the sideboard, and he ran out and under the sofa." "Oh dear!" said Nellie, in dismay at the news. "Catherine, there must be mice in this house. A good many too." "Well, no, miss, I think not," said the cook. "This is the first one"-- Down went the bowl into which Carrie was sifting her sugar, not purposely, though she was only too thankful for the diversion it afforded, but because she had given a violent start and knocked the bowl with her elbow in her alarm at Catherine's words. How nearly her secret had been discovered! But now it was safe at least for the time, for the bowl was broken, the sugar scattered over the floor, and it was some moments before order was restored; by which time Nellie was intent upon cutting out her cakes, marking them with the "jigging iron," and laying them in the bake-pans, so that she had no thought for mice, white or gray. Declaring herself "tired of helping," and feeling that her labors had brought no very satisfactory result to herself or others, Carrie left the kitchen and wandered into the dining-room, possibly to see if she could spy the mouse Daisy had discovered. But no, there was no mouse there, at least she could find none; and she began to hope that, after all, the little one had been mistaken. Oh dear! how wretched and unhappy she felt! She began to think she would feel better if she went and told mamma, making honest confession of what she had done, and begging her forgiveness. Just then Daisy came into the room, and began peeping around in every corner and under each article of furniture. "You needn't be looking for that mouse," said Carrie, "he's gone; and, any way, I don't believe there was any mouse there." "There was, oh! there was," cried Daisy. "I saw him wif my own eyes running fast, fast. But, Carrie, Nellie says we'd better not speak about it 'fore mamma, 'cause it would trouble her." "I don't believe it. You just thought you saw him," persisted Carrie. "Now you've said a great many bad fings to me, but that's the baddest one of all, and I shall leave you alone wif your own se'f," said the offended Daisy, and walked away with her head held high. Now it might almost have been imagined that Daisy knew that Carrie's "own se'f" was no very pleasant company just at this time, and that she wished to punish her by leaving her "alone wif" it; and, innocent as she was of any such intention, she certainly had her revenge. Carrie's own thoughts were not agreeable companions; even less so now than they had been before Daisy came in, for her half-formed resolution of telling all to her mother seemed less difficult than it had done before her little sister had said that Nellie thought it best not to speak of the mouse to mamma. If mamma was not to hear of one mouse, it would not do to tell her that several were running at large about the house; and Carrie could not help feeling and believing that this was one of the escaped captives. Mice could come downstairs, that she knew; for once, when she and Nellie had been spending the day with Lily Norris, they had seen a little mouse hopping down from stair to stair, and had stood motionless and silent, watching till he reached the bottom of the flight, when his quick, bright eyes caught sight of them, and he scampered away in a fright. And now that it was forbidden, she was seized with a strong desire to relieve her mind by a full confession to mamma. Then at least she would be free from the burden of carrying about with her such a guilty _secret_. "Oh dear! oh dear!" she said to herself, "whenever I've done anything naughty before, I could always go and tell mamma, and then she forgave me, and I felt better; but now it seems as if I did not dare to tell her this. I'd dare for myself, even if she was very much displeased and punished me; but I suppose I mustn't dare for her. It is _too_ hard." Ah, Carrie! so, sooner or later, we always find the way of transgression; and oftentimes the sharpest thorns in the road are those which we have planted with our own hands, not knowing that they will wound our feet, and hold us back when we would retrace our steps. [Illustration] [Illustration] X. _FRESH TROUBLES._ THE ginger-cakes were a great success. It is true that one's tongue was bitten, now and then, by a lump of ginger or other spice, not quite as thoroughly mixed in by Nellie's unaccustomed fingers as it might have been by those which were stronger and more used to such business; but who minded such trifles as that, or would refuse to give the little workwoman the meed of praise she so richly deserved? Not her papa certainly, who found no fault whatever, and eat enough of the ginger-cakes to satisfy even his Nellie. Not even Daisy, who met with such a misfortune as that spoken of above, while at the tea-table, and who was perceived first by Nellie holding her tongue with one thumb and finger, while in the other hand she held out the ginger-cake, regarding it with a puzzled and disturbed expression. "What's the matter, Daisy?" asked Nellie. "Somefing stinged my tongue. I b'ieve it was a bee, and I eat him up," said Daisy, the ever ready tears starting to her eyes. They were excusable under the circumstances certainly. "It has been a little bit of ginger," said Mrs. Ransom, who had suffered in a similar manner, but in silence. "Take some milk, my darling." "O Daisy, I'm so sorry! I suppose I haven't mixed it well," said Nellie, looking horrified. Daisy obeyed her mother's command, which brought relief to her smarting tongue, and then, turning to Nellie with a most benignant smile, said,-- "You needn't mind, Nellie. I'd just as lieve have my tongue bited for your ginger-cakes. Papa," she added, turning to her father, "I s'pose you're going to be busy after tea, ar'n't you?" "No, papa has nothing to do but to rest himself this evening," answered Mr. Ransom. "Oh dear!" sighed Daisy, taking her tongue between thumb and finger again. "Do you want papa to be busy?" asked Mr. Ransom. "I fought you would be," said Daisy, who found it extremely inconvenient not to be able to pet the injured member and to talk at the same moment. "I s'posed you'd have to undo that big parcel that's in the hall closet; and I fought my tongue would feel a good deal better to know what's inside of it." "Oh! that is it, is it?" said Mr. Ransom. "Well, yes, I believe I _have_ that little business to attend to, so your tongue may get well right away, Daisy." Having finished his tea, Mr. Ransom now rose and went out into the hall, returning with the great parcel which had so excited the curiosity of his little daughter. This he put down upon the floor beside his chair, went out once more, and came back again with two smaller parcels. These he put upon the table, and took his seat before all three. Daisy's excitement hardly knew bounds now, especially when there came from within one of the smaller parcels a little rustle, as though something alive was inside. Still, her attention was principally taken up with the "biggest one of all;" and, to her great delight, this was the first papa opened. Paper and string removed, two bird-cages, _empty_ cages, presented themselves to the eyes of the children. What could they be for? "Papa," said Daisy, "you _couldn't_ be going to catch the little birdies out the trees, and put them in there, could you?" "Wait a moment," said her father, taking up the parcel whence the rustling had come. This, opened, revealed another bird-cage, this a tiny wooden one, but oh! delight! containing two beautiful canaries. They looked rather uncomfortable and astonished, it is true, and as if they might be thoroughly tired of their narrow quarters, from which Mr. Ransom now speedily released them, putting one bird in each large cage, which was soon furnished with fresh seed and water, sugar, and all that birds love. "What little beauties! Who are they for, papa?" asked Carrie. "For little girls who have been helpful and kind to mamma during the past week," said Mr. Ransom, smiling. "I sent up the cages by express, but brought on the birds myself. Poor little fellows! they are glad to have reached their journey's end, I think." "But there's only two, and there are fee girls," said Daisy,--"one, two, fee girls," pointing by turns to her sisters and herself, "and one, two birds. That's not enough, papa." "Papa thought his Daisy too young to have the care of a bird yet," said Mr. Ransom, "but here is what he brought for her; for mamma wrote to him what a good girl she was, and what pains she was taking to cure herself of that foolish habit of crying for trifles." And, unwrapping the last parcel, Mr. Ransom disclosed a box containing a pretty little dinner-set. At another time Daisy would have been delighted; but what was a dinner-set to a bird? She stood looking from one to the other without the slightest expression of pleasure or satisfaction in her own pretty gift. "Don't you like it, Daisy?" asked her father. "Papa, I--I--I would if I could, but--but the birdies are 'live, and the dinner-set is dead; but I wouldn't cry about it, would I, mamma?" With which she ran to her mother, and buried her face in her lap. Poor little woman! it was almost touching to see how hard she struggled with her too ready tears, which had been so long accustomed to have their way upon small occasion. There was no mistaking the good-will and resolution with which she was striving to cure herself of a rather vexatious and foolish habit; but it was such hard work as can only be imagined by little girls who have been troubled with a similar failing. Mamma's praises and caresses helped her to conquer it this time again, though it was a harder trial than usual, and she altogether declined to look at the dinner-set, or to take any comfort therein. "Papa," said Nellie to her father in a low tone, as she and Carrie stood beside him, their attention divided between the birds and Daisy, "papa, if you will buy Daisy a bird, I will take care of it for her. I suppose she is too little to do it herself; but she likes pets so much, and she was so very sweet and unselfish about her white mice, that I think she deserves a reward." Mr. Ransom had not heard the story of the white mice; but he now made inquiries which Nellie soon answered, Daisy's sacrifice losing nothing of its merit in her telling; while Carrie, feeling more and more uncomfortable, but neither caring nor daring to run out of hearing, and so excite questions, stood idly rubbing her finger over the bars of her bird's cage. The contrast between her own conduct and that of her almost baby sister was making itself felt more and more to her own heart and conscience. If Daisy deserved a bird because she had been loving and considerate for mamma, surely she did not deserve the same. How she hoped that papa would give Daisy one! But no; papa plainly showed that he had no such intention, for when Nellie concluded with these words,-- "Don't you think you will give Daisy a bird of her own, papa?" he answered,-- "I think not at present, Nellie. I have spent as much as I can afford at this time on trifles, and Daisy must wait for her bird till Christmas, or some other holiday. But she is a darling, blessed, little child, with a heart full of loving, generous feeling, and I do not think the less of her sacrifice because I do not find it best to give her a bird just now. I shall try to give her some other pleasure which may make up to her for the loss of her white mice." But it did not seem to Nellie or Carrie, any more than it did to Daisy herself, that any thing could do this so well as a canary-bird; and, although they knew that it was of no use to try and persuade papa to change his mind when he had once resolved upon a thing, they felt as if they could hardly let the matter drop here. Daisy had heard nothing of all this, for she was cuddled up in her mother's lap on the other side of the room, where mamma had taken her away from birds and dinner-set, till she should be petted and comforted into happiness once more. And now papa left the other children, and, going over to mamma and Daisy, sat down beside them, and gave his share of praise to his little daughter, not only for the giving up of the white mice, but also for that other matter concerning the tears, which she was so bravely learning to control, with the idea of "helping mamma." So at last a calm, though mournful resignation returned to the bosom of the little one, and she was farther consoled by mamma insisting upon putting her to bed herself, a treat which Daisy had not enjoyed since Nellie had taken up the character of mamma's housekeeper; for, when Ruth could not leave baby, Nellie now always considered this a part of her duty. Still Daisy could not refrain from saying, as her mother led her from the room,-- "Mamma, I fink I never heard of a little girl who had so many _sorrys_ as me; did you?" When Mrs. Ransom came downstairs, however, she reported Daisy as restored to a more cheerful frame of spirits, and as singing herself to sleep with her own version of the popular melody of "One little, two little, three little nigger boys,"--namely, "One little, two little, fee little _colored person_ boys;" so careful was she in all things to heed mamma's wishes, and not at all disturbed by the fact that the words of her rhyme did not exactly fit the tune. It was all the same to Daisy. Rules of music and measure were nothing to her, so long as her conscience was at rest. The family had all gone out upon the piazza. The father and mother sat a little apart, talking; the boys were amusing themselves with old Rover upon the lower step; while Nellie and Carrie were seated above at the head of the flight. "What makes you so quiet, Carrie?" asked Nellie. "I don't know," answered Carrie, though she said "don't know" more from that way we all have of saying it at times when we are not prepared with an answer, than from an intention to speak an untruth. Then, after another silence of a moment or two, she spoke again,-- "Nellie, why won't you make one of those brackets for mamma?" "For the reason I told you. Because I don't think I shall have time. I think I'd better take my money to buy her some other Christmas present all ready made. Mamma will like it just as well if she sees I try to help and please her in the mean time," said sensible Nellie. "But you could give her something a great deal prettier if you made it yourself," said Carrie. "I know it," answered Nellie, quietly; "but I cannot do it, and have any play-time, and mamma says she does not wish me to be busy all the time." "Pshaw!" said Carrie, whose mind was quite set upon the pair of brackets to be worked by herself and her sister, "your housekeeping don't take you so long, and you never study so _very_ much now, so you have a good deal of time, and I should think you might be willing to use some of it to make a pretty thing for mamma. You think yourself so great with the housekeeping." "I have some other work I want to do," said Nellie. "I would do it if I could, but I cannot, Carrie." "That's real selfish," said Carrie. "You'd rather do something for yourself than please mamma." Nellie made no answer. If our quiet, gentle "little sunbeam" could not disperse the clouds of Carrie's ill-temper, she would at least not make them darker and heavier by an angry retort or provoking sneer. Carrie was very unjust and unreasonable, it was true; but Nellie knew that she would feel ashamed and sorry far sooner, if she were let alone, than she would if she were answered back. And Nellie felt that it was not so long since she herself had been "cross" and fretful at trifles. She believed, too, that "something ailed Carrie," making her unusually captious and irritable at this time. It was not over-study certainly: Carrie was not likely to be at fault in that; but Nellie could not help thinking either that she was not well, or that some trouble was on her mind. What that was, of course, she had not the slightest suspicion. "After all, Nellie don't think so very much about pleasing mamma," said Carrie to herself, with rather a feeling of satisfaction in the thought. It was not pleasant to feel that, while both her sisters were trying so hard to be useful and good to mamma, that she alone had done that which was likely to bring annoyance and trouble upon her. There is an old adage that "misery loves company." I am not so sure about that, for I do not see what comfort there can be in knowing that others are unhappy; but I fear that sin often "loves company," and that there is a certain satisfaction in being able to feel that some other person is as naughty as ourselves. _Then_ we need not draw comparisons to our own disadvantage. Such was Carrie's state of mind just now; and there is no denying that she was somewhat pleased to believe that Nellie was seeking her own happiness rather than mamma's. But still she did not feel that she could so easily give up the idea of the pair of brackets. To make mamma such a grand present as that seemed in some sort a kind of amends for her past undutifulness, and she could not bear that she and Nellie should fall behind Maggie and Bessie in a Christmas present to their mother. So she went on to urge Nellie farther, but in a pleasanter tone. "I think it would be perfectly splendid to give mamma such a lovely present," she said, "and it would be so nice to tell all the girls in school that we are going to do it. Don't you think it would?" "I don't care about telling the girls," answered Nellie, "but I would be very glad to make such a lovely thing for mamma." "And you will do it then?" "No," said Nellie, reluctantly, but decidedly: "I tell you I cannot, Carrie. I have something else to do, and I know mamma would not wish me to take any more work. Don't ask me any more." "What are you going to do?" asked Carrie. "I'll tell you another time," said Nellie, lowering her voice still more. "I don't want mamma to hear. Please don't talk about it." Carrie pouted again, and, to one or two proposals from Nellie that they should amuse themselves with some game, returned short and sullen refusals. Presently she rose, and, going to her father and mother, bade them good-night. "What! so early, dear?" said her mother in surprise, for it was something very unusual for Carrie to wish to go to rest before her ordinary bed-time. "Yes'm," said Carrie: "I've nothing to do, and it's so stupid; and Nellie's cross and won't talk to me." O Carrie, Carrie! "I am afraid it is Carrie who is a little cross and fretful," said Mrs. Ransom, who had noticed that this had been Carrie's condition all day. "Well, perhaps bed is the best place for you. Try to sleep it off, and be pleasant and good-natured in the morning." "Everybody seems to think Nellie and Daisy are quite perfect," murmured Carrie to herself, as she sauntered slowly through the hall and up the stairs. "No one ever says they do any thing wrong; but always say I am cross, and every thing else that is horrid. I've a good mind--I mean I'd just like to go 'way far off in a steamboat or the cars or something, and stay for a great many years, and then how sorry they'd be when they'd lost me, and didn't know where I was. They'd be glad enough when I came back; and wouldn't they wish they'd never been cross to me!" Drawing such solace as she could from thoughts like these, after the manner of too many little children when they have been cross and discontented, and brought trouble upon themselves, she went on to the nursery. "I want my clothes unfastened," she said imperiously to Ruth, who held the ever-wakeful baby across her knees, having just succeeded in hushing it to sleep. Ruth would probably at another time have declined the service demanded from her, until Carrie spoke in a more civil way; but now she preferred submission to having the baby roused, which would be the probable result of any contention between Carrie and herself. So she did as she was _ordered_ without answering, and thereby secured the quiet she desired. At least so she thought, as Carrie stood perfectly silent till the task was nearly completed. But Ruth had reckoned without her host. Carrie had fully expected that Ruth would reprove her for her disagreeable way of speaking, perhaps even refuse to do what she wanted; and she felt ashamed and rather subdued as she stood quietly before the nurse while she unfastened sash, buttons, and strings. She had resolved that she would give no more trouble to-night, would not make any noise that could disturb baby, and was even trying to make up her mind to tell Ruth she was sorry that she had been so troublesome and rebellious all day, when she saw--what? There, secure in the silence of the quiet nursery, was a little mouse darting here and there, seeking, probably, for what he might find in the shape of food. Carrie gave a start, a start as violent as though she herself had been afraid of the harmless little animals her mother held in such nervous dread, causing Ruth to start also in involuntary sympathy, and thus waking the baby upon her lap. Ruth scolded Carrie, of course: she was more apt to blame her than she was either of the other children, and to believe that she did a vexatious thing "on purpose." Probably this was Carrie's own fault, because she really gave more trouble than her sisters; but it was none the pleasanter, and perhaps there was some truth in her oft repeated complaint that she had "a hard time in the nursery." Be that as it may, Ruth's harsh words were the last drop in Carrie's brimming cup; and, wrenching herself out of the nurse's hands, she declared she would finish undressing herself, and ran away to her own room. [Illustration] [Illustration] XI. _A NIGHT OF IT._ SCARCELY was she there when she repented that she had come, until she found out what became of the mouse; but she was too much offended with Ruth to go back, and with some difficulty succeeded in taking off the rest of her clothes without help, tears slowly dropping from her eyes the while. Poor Carrie! how miserable she did feel; and to her troubled little mind there was no way out of her difficulties. She would have confessed all, if there had seemed to be any one to confess to; but, remembering Nellie's charge to Daisy and herself that morning, it did not seem wise or right to tell mamma that there were mice in the house when she might possibly escape the knowledge; she was afraid to tell her father, for all Mr. Ransom's children stood a good deal in awe of him; and she did not feel as if there would be much satisfaction or relief in telling Nellie. Nellie could not know how to advise her or tell her what to do. And yet--perhaps she could. Nellie was such a wise, thoughtful, well-judging little girl. Perhaps Carrie would not have put her thoughts into just such words; but this was the feeling in her heart at this moment, and it was no more than justice to Nellie. She knew she could depend on Nellie's sympathy, however much shocked her sister might be at her naughtiness, and she half believed that she could help her. How she wished now that she had not been so pettish and disagreeable to her! "Nellie wasn't cross at all, it was old me that was cross and hateful and horrid; and I have been ever since I took the mice," she said to herself, the tears rolling over her cheeks. "I wish she'd come up, and I'd tell her I'm sorry; and if she asks me what's the matter, I b'lieve I've a good mind to tell her. Oh dear! I wish I'd never seen those mice. S'pose that one should run out of the nursery into mamma's room. I wish the door was shut between her room and the nursery." Then when she knelt down to say her prayers, and came to the words of our Lord's Prayer, "Lead us not into temptation," she remembered how Daisy had asked her what she would do if she "had a temptation;" and she buried her face in the bed-clothes as if she wished to shut out the remorseful recollection of how she had acted yesterday in that moment of temptation; and more and more bitter became her self-reproaches as she thought how sweetly Daisy had acted in the matter of the white mice. Yes: Daisy had shown true love and tenderness for her mother; but how far had she been from doing the same? Perhaps never in all her little life had Carrie sent heavenward as true and sincere a prayer as that she added to-night to her usual petitions: "And lead me out of this temptation, and show me what to do, O God!" Then when she was, with considerable trouble to herself, all ready for bed, she lay down, but not without another anxious glance at the door between her mother's room and the nursery. If she could but have that door closed! Having soothed the baby to sleep once more, Ruth brought her into her mother's room, and put her into the cradle. This done, she passed on into Carrie's room to see that all was right there, and the little girl safely in bed. She did not speak,--perhaps she thought Carrie was already asleep,--but moved quietly around, picking up the articles of dress which her little charge had left strewn about, arranging the windows and doors properly, and turning down the light. Then she went away. And now to have the door closed between her mother's room and the closet which led into the nursery became the great desire of Carrie's mind as she lay in her little bed,--closed so that the mouse should not find its way through. She did not dream that mousie had done that already, and hoped to be able to close the door this way without attracting Ruth's attention. Slipping from her bed, she went softly, so that Ruth might not hear her, over her own floor, and through her mother's room to the closet door, and stretching out her hand was about to push it to, when Ruth caught sight of her through the closet door. "What's the matter, child? What do you want?" she asked in much surprise, coming forward. "I want this door shut, and I'm going to have it, too," said Carrie, preparing for battle at once, for she saw that Ruth would object. "Well, what whim has taken you now?" said Ruth, pushing back the door. "Indeed, and you can't have it shut till your mother comes up. How would I hear the baby if it cries?" Carrie persisted in her purpose. Ruth would have been firm, but finding the child would not yield, and fearing to wake the baby once more if an uproar were raised, she let her take her way, and immediately went down with a complaint to Mrs. Ransom. Papa heard as well as mamma, and took the matter into his own hands; and scarcely had Carrie climbed into bed again, glorying, partly in having attained her purpose, partly in the supposed victory over Ruth, when papa appeared, and, with a few stern words to the wilful little girl, set it open again, forbidding her to touch it, and leaving her in a more unhappy state of mind than ever. She lay there and cried till Nellie came up; Johnny accompanying her, and each carrying a bird. No hooks were in readiness for hanging the cages; and it was decided that, for to-night, they should be placed upon chairs, Nellie's bird by her side of the bed, Carrie's by hers. Carrie, whose heart and conscience were so uneasy, was very wakeful; and, long after Nellie was asleep, she lay tossing restlessly from side to side. Even after mamma came up to her room, she could not go to sleep for a long while. In the night, far into the night it seemed to her that it must be, she was wakened by a sound at her side,--a rustling, scratching sound. What could it be? Carrie was not so foolish as to be afraid of the dark, indeed she was rather a brave child; but now she felt as if she would have given any thing to have had a light in the room, to see what made that strange sound. She bore it as long as she could, then woke Nellie. "What can it be, Nellie?" she whispered, as Nellie listened. "I don't know: I'm afraid there's somebody here," said Nellie, in the same tone, but very much alarmed. "What shall we do?" said Carrie, clinging to her sister. "'Thou shalt not steal,' 'Thou God seest me,' 'The way of transgressors is hard,' if you are a robber," said Nellie, raising her voice as she addressed the supposed intruder with all the Scripture texts she could muster for the occasion, and which might be imagined to influence him. No answer, but the rustling ceased for a moment, then began again; and it was more than the children could bear. "Papa! papa!" shrieked Nellie, "there's some one in our room! Please come, do come, papa!" And Carrie joined her cries to her sister's. Papa heard, and came; and so did mamma, very much startled. "There's a noise, a robber, here, by my bed!" exclaimed Carrie all in a flutter, though the noise had again ceased. Papa struck a light, there was a faint rustle, a sound of some small body jumping or falling from a height, and Mr. Ransom exclaimed,-- "A mouse! Nothing but a mouse in the bird's cage!" If there had been a veritable robber there, doubtless Mrs. Ransom would have stayed to confront him, and defend her children; but at the sound of "a mouse," a harmless little mouse, she turned about, and ran back to her own room, closing the door in no small haste. If the children had not felt too much sympathy for her, they could have laughed to see how she rushed away. But Carrie did not feel like laughing, you may be sure, relieved though she might have been to find that it was nothing worse than a mouse that had caused her own and Nellie's alarm. I do not know but that she would almost have preferred the "robber," or some wild monster, now that papa was there to defend them, to the pretty, innocent little creature which had been the real cause of the disturbance. Mr. Ransom hunted about for the mouse, but all in vain: he had hidden himself somewhere quite safely and was not to be found. The bird-cages were put upon the mantel-piece where he could not reach them again, for mousie had found the bird-seed an excellent supper, and Mr. Ransom thought he might return to his repast. Return he did in search of it, as soon as papa had gone and the room was quiet once more; but this time the children knew what it was, and although, when he found his supper placed beyond his reach, he made considerable disturbance, they were not frightened. But they found it impossible to sleep, such a noise did he make, tearing about over the straw matting which covered the floor, nibbling now at this, now at that, and altogether making himself as much of a nuisance as only a mouse in one's bed-room at night can do. At last he was quiet, and the two weary children were just sinking off to sleep, when Nellie started up with,-- "Carrie! I do believe that mouse is in the bed!" This was too much, not to be borne by any one, however much they might like mice; and both Nellie and Carrie were speedily out of bed, the former hastily turning up the light which papa had left burning for their comfort. Carrie was about to run to the door and call papa to come, but Nellie stopped her. "Don't, Carrie," she said: "it will just frighten mamma again. Let's see if we can't find him. I'm not afraid of him, are you? Only, I don't like to have him in the bed." Rather enjoying the fun, Nellie pulled off the covers and pillows, and even, exerting all her little strength, contrived to turn up one end of the mattress; but this, even with Carrie's help, she found hard work, and, nothing being discovered of the little nuisance, they were content to believe that Nellie had been mistaken, to put on the bed-clothes as well as they could, and lie down again. But Carrie did not enjoy all this, if Nellie did. At another time she, too, might have thought that it was "fun" to have such a good and sufficient excuse for being up and busy when the clock was striking--could it be?--yes, it was twelve o'clock, midnight! and she and Nellie frisking there about the room, as wide awake as if it were noon. But there was a weight on Carrie's mind, she felt too guilty to enjoy the novelty, and she was almost vexed at Nellie's glee over it. Oh dear! how she did wish that she had never seen the mice, that "such things as mice had never been made." And when at last she fell into a troubled slumber, for they heard nothing more of mousie, it was not the calm, peaceful sleep of her sister who lay beside her, but filled with uncomfortable dreams, and many a start and moan. [Illustration] [Illustration] XII. _AN ALARM._ NOR did she feel lighter-hearted in the morning, especially when Nellie began to lament the too plain fact that there must be a good many mice in the house, and that they seemed to have come so suddenly. First discovered but two days ago in the store-room, and never seen or heard before since the family had occupied this house, they now appeared to be running wild, all over. It was very singular, certainly. So thought Nellie, adding that mamma would now "have no peace of her life," so long as the mice were free, and she should ask papa to buy a lot of mouse-traps and set them in every room. Carrie knew only too well how this had come about; but now that mamma did know that there were mice in the house, she did not feel as if she could confess that it was through her fault that they had been brought upstairs. It seemed so horribly unkind, such a dreadful thing to have done to mamma now. So, although she was not cross and fretful as she had been last night, she went about listlessly, and with a subdued and melancholy manner that was worthy of Daisy herself when she was at the very lowest depths of despondency, but with far better reason than Daisy usually had. Even when Ruth, who felt a little grudge against her for her naughty conduct of the last few days, snubbed her and pulled her about rather more than was necessary when she was dressing her, Carrie bore it meekly, not having spirit to answer back, and so softening the nurse by her silent submission that she gave her a kindly pat on the shoulder, saying that she saw she was "tired of being naughty and was going to be good to-day." Which small encouragement Carrie received as she left the nursery with as great a want of interest or animation as she had shown for every thing that morning; and Ruth, shaking her head, privately confided to baby her opinion that that child was "going to be sick, or she never in the world would be so good." When Mr. Ransom came down to breakfast, he said that Mamma would not be down right away; but sent word that Nellie might "pour out" for her this morning. She had had a restless, wakeful night, having been made nervous and uncomfortable by the knowledge that a mouse was around, and could not compose herself to sleep after the little excitement in the children's room. Were Carrie's troubles never coming to an end? "Pouring out" was not new to Nellie, for she had made tea and coffee for her father and brothers many a morning before when mamma was not well enough to come downstairs; but still it was an important business, and one to which she felt obliged to bend every energy, till all were served according to their liking. Then she felt at leisure for conversation, and for observing what was going on about the table. "Are you not going to eat your breakfast, Carrie?" she asked, seeing that her sister sat idly playing with her spoon, as if she had no appetite. "I'm not hungry," answered Carrie, not altogether pleased at having notice drawn upon her. "Did the mouse frighten your appetite away, Carrie?" asked Mr. Ransom, looking at her. "No, papa,--I--I think not. I'm not afraid of mice," said Carrie. "But he frightened us very much before we knew what it was," said Nellie; "and afterwards we thought he was in the bed, papa." "What was it? Tell us all about it," said Johnny. "A mouse! Won't mamma be in a taking, though?" "Poor mamma!" said Nellie; and then she related the whole story, seeming to think her own experience and Carrie's rather a good joke, though she was sadly troubled about mamma's nervousness over the matter. "That's worse than white mice," said Daisy, who had listened with wide open eyes, in such intense interest that she quite forgot to eat her breakfast. "But that's awful for mamma," said Bob. "What will she do?" "It is a great pity," said Mr. Ransom. "I had hoped mamma would not be troubled in that way." "They seem to be appearing all over the house at once," said Nellie, "and only since day before yesterday when I found the first in the store-room." "Did you find one in the store-room too?" asked Johnny. "Ever so many in a box; but Catherine killed them," said Nellie, never doubting, of course, that she was stating the truth. Carrie raised her downcast eyes in terror; but, to her relief, the servant in waiting had left the breakfast-room for one moment, and there was no contradiction of Nellie's words. "Why, Cad?" said Johnny, "what ails you? you seem to take the mouse almost as hard as mamma would. You needn't be afraid for your bird, if that's it; for he was only after the seed." Mr. Ransom looked at Carrie again. "Don't be troubled, little daughter," he said. "Johnny is right: the mice will not hurt your birds. But you are quite upset with being so disturbed last night, are you not? Come here to papa." Dreading questions which she would not care to answer, and wishing that she could creep under the table, run out of the room, or hide herself anywhere, Carrie was about to obey; but, before she could rise from her chair, there was heard a commotion overhead, a smothered scream in Mrs. Ransom's voice, a running and scuffling, and then Ruth calling to her master to "come quick." Mr. Ransom sprang from his chair, and rushed upstairs, followed by every one of his boys and girls, fearing they knew not what, save that something dreadful had happened. Something dreadful, indeed, all the children thought, when, running into mamma's room, she was seen, pale, with closed eyes and quite senseless, lying back in the arms of Ruth; while the baby, resenting being placed suddenly face downwards upon the bed, was shrieking with all its little might. The younger children, not unnaturally, thought that she was dead, and were terrified half out of their senses; but Nellie had seen mamma in a fainting fit before, and, though frightened, knew that she would be better by and by. So she gave the best help she could by taking up the screaming baby and hushing its cries, and encouraging her sisters--although her own lips were trembling and eyes filling with tears--with hopeful words. "What happened? What caused this?" asked Mr. Ransom, when he had laid his wife upon the couch, and was engaged with the assistance of the servant women in restoring her. "Indeed, sir, and it was just a mouse, nasty thing!" said Ruth. "I came in with the baby to ask Mrs. Ransom for some ribbon for its sleeves, and she went to the bureau drawer for them, and as she opened it what did a mouse do but jump right out on her. 'Twas enough to scare a body that wasn't afraid of mice; but, for her, it's no wonder it's half killed her, poor dear! We're just getting overrun with mice. There! she's coming to now. That's all right, dear lady!" Carrie heard, saw mamma's eyes slowly unclosing and looking up at papa; but oh! how white and very ill she looked still. She heard and ran, anxious to shut out sight and hearing,--ran out of the room upstairs to the garret, and, squeezing herself behind the old furniture in the place where she had hidden the mice, sobbed and cried as if her heart would break. What if mamma was not dead, as she had thought at first: she might be dying still, must be very ill to look like that, and she had done it. It was all her fault. [Illustration] [Illustration] XIII. _AND LAST OF THE SUNBEAMS._ HOW long she stayed there she did not know, now crying, now ceasing, and crouched there in a kind of dumb remorse and misery which would have been a severe punishment for even a worse fault than that of which she had been guilty. She wanted to come out and learn what was going on downstairs, and yet she did not dare to: she felt as if she could not bear to see that look upon mamma's face again. Then she would shed more bitter tears. She imagined and wondered over many things. If mamma died and went to heaven, would she know what she had done, and be so grieved and displeased at her unkindness that she would love her no longer? Were people in heaven ever troubled about the naughty things their loved ones did or had done upon the earth? So she sat all in a heap, behind the old chairs and tables, perplexing her poor little brain, and racking her heart with all kind of imaginary consequences to this morning's occurrence. By and by she heard the servants calling her, but would not answer; then her father's voice, but now she believed that he must know all; "it had come out in some way," and she was afraid to face him and did not stir. Ruth opened the door at the foot of the garret stairs and called her name, even came up and looked about the open space, but did not see Carrie crouched in her far corner, and the little girl never stirred till she was gone. Next she heard Nellie calling her from the garden below, her voice troubled and anxious. "Carrie," she said, "Carrie, dear! where are you? Do answer if you can hear me. Mamma is growing so troubled because we can't find you." Here was a scrap of comfort. Mamma was at least alive enough to inquire for, and be anxious about her. She crept to the window and looked down to where Nellie stood, calling still, and turning her eyes in every direction. "Here I am, Nellie, I'll come down," she answered, ran down the stairs, opened the door, and then, her courage failing her once more, stood still and peeped out. Papa stood at the door of mamma's room, and saw her at once. A pale, tear-stained, miserable little face it was that met his eye, and stirred his pity. "My poor little woman!" he said, holding out his hand to her: "why, how woe-begone you look. Have you been hiding because you were frightened about mamma? That was not worth while, and mamma has been asking for you, and every one looking for you this ever so long. Come and see mamma, she is better now, and looks like herself again." Carrie came forward, still with hesitating steps and hanging head; and her father, taking her hand, led her into mamma's room. Mrs. Ransom lay upon the sofa, looking very white still, but with a smile upon her lips, and her eyes bright and life-like as usual; and the timid glance which Carrie gave to her mother's face reassured her very much. Still she felt so guilty and conscious, such a longing to confess all, and yet so ashamed and afraid to do it, that her manner remained as confused and downcast as ever. Nellie stood behind her mother, leaning over the head of the couch, and looking troubled and anxious, but her face brightened when she saw Carrie. Daisy, with the most solemn of faces, was seated in a little chair at mamma's feet, gazing silently at the pages of "Baxter's Saint's Rest," held upside down. Not one word could Daisy read, she barely knew her letters; but she had found Baxter in the little rack which held mamma's books of devotional reading, her "prayers books," Daisy called them; and believing any work she found there must be suitable to the day, and the state of mind she considered it proper to maintain while mamma was ill, she had possessed herself of it, and was now fully persuaded that she was deriving great benefit from the contents thereof. "So you ran away from mamma," said Mrs. Ransom, caressing Carrie's hand as she buried her face in the sofa-pillows beside her mother's. "Did she frighten you so? What a poor foolish mamma it is to be so startled at such a harmless little thing as a mouse, is it not, dearie? I hope I should not have been quite so foolish if I had been well and strong. My poor Carrie!" Worse and worse! Here was mamma blaming herself and pitying her! She could say nothing, only nestle closer to her mother, and try to keep back the sobs which were struggling to find way. Mrs. Ransom was quite well again by afternoon, and able to join the family at the dinner-table; but although the spirits of the other children rose with her recovery, Carrie still continued dull and dispirited. She accompanied her father and Nellie to church in the afternoon. Happening to turn his eyes towards her during the service, Mr. Ransom saw her leaning her head listlessly against the back of the pew, while her lips were quivering and tears slowly coursing one another down her cheeks. He wondered what could cause it. There was nothing in the sermon to touch her feelings, indeed she probably did not understand one word of it. He drew her towards him, and passing his arm about her let her rest her head against his shoulder where she cried quietly for a few moments, and then, as if this had relieved her, dried her eyes and sat up. Carrie had taken a resolution, and the very taking of it had done her good, and made her feel less guilty and unhappy. Papa was so kind and good that she began to think that after all perhaps it would not be so very hard to tell him all, and confess how naughty she had been. Even if he punished her very much, the punishment could not be worse to bear than this, she thought. She would tell him as soon as they reached home, and she could find an opportunity to talk to him alone. But alas for poor Carrie's hopes of unburdening her mind at once! On the way home from church a gentleman joined her father and went to the house with him, came in, stayed to tea, and actually remained all the evening, even long after her bedtime and Nellie's. Nor was this the last drop in Carrie's cup. Daisy met them at the gate when they returned from church, brimming over with excitement, which was speedily taken down when the strange gentleman, laying his hand on her little round head, turned to her father and said,-- "Your youngest son, Mr. Ransom?" "My daughter,--another little daughter," said Mr. Ransom, quickly, knowing Daisy's sensitiveness on this point; but the wound was given past recall, and the stranger was henceforth looked upon as a man capable of breaking any and every commandment among the ten. "I s'pect that man never ermembers the Sabbaf day to keep it holy; and I don't b'lieve he ever says his p'ayers," said Daisy, severely, regarding him with an air of great offence as he walked on with her father to the house. "I think he does. I believe he's a very nice gentleman," said Nellie, much amused. "No, I fink not," said Daisy, decidedly. "I b'ieve he slaps his wife fee times ev'y day. He has the look of it." Nellie laughed outright. "He hasn't any wife," she said. "He'd do it if he had one then," persisted Daisy, who, in general the most forgiving and soft-hearted of little mortals, could not overlook the offence of the visitor, "'cause he calls people sons. Augh! People that slap their wives so much that they kill 'em have to be took to prison," she added reflectively, and as if she found some consolation in the thought. "Hannah told me so. She knew a man that was." "Hannah had no business to tell you such stories as that," said Nellie. "Mamma wouldn't like it at all, Daisy." "Then I'll tell her she mustn't do it," said Daisy; "but, Nellie, do people that kill mice have to be took to prison?" "No," said Nellie, "mice are very troublesome and mischievous, so it is not wrong to kill them. But it would be very wicked to tease them or hurt them more than we can help." "I'm glad of that," said Daisy, "'cause I wouldn't like you and Carrie to go to prison." "No, I should think not," said Nellie, "but Carrie and I did not kill a mouse." "Oh, yes! you did," said Daisy, "least you squeezed him up in the bed so he had to kill hisse'f afterwards." "O Daisy!" said Nellie. "It's the truf," answered Daisy, as one who knows. "Hannah found him 'most dead in your bed this morning, 'tween the mattresses, and she said you must have put him there last night, but you didn't know it, and afterwards he killed hisse'f about it. I saw him when he was dead, and going to be frowed away." Nellie shuddered, the thought was very painful to her that the mouse should have come to his death in such a way; but Carrie felt worse still, and turning round and resting her arm upon the back of a rustic chair which stood beneath a tree, she laid her head upon it, and cried as she had done in the morning when she was hiding in the garret. Nellie comforted her as well as she could, but Carrie was hard to be consoled; and felt as if she was never to hear the last of those unlucky mice, and the consequences of her own naughtiness. Mr. Ransom sat up late that night, long after his visitor had left, and the family gone to rest. All his little children he supposed to be long since fast asleep; and he was just preparing to turn out the lights and go upstairs himself, when a slight sound in the hall without attracted his attention. The patter of small bare feet it sounded like, and the patter of small bare feet it was, as he was assured a moment later when a little white-clad figure presented itself at the open door, and looked wistfully at him with pitiful, beseeching eyes. "Carrie! my child! are you ill? What is wrong?" he asked in much surprise. "No, papa, not ill, but,--but"--Tears choked her voice, the little feet ran over the floor, and she had clambered upon his knee, and with her face hidden in his bosom sobbed out her confession. "I've been awake so long, papa," she said, "and I thought I never could go to sleep till I had told you, and I could not wait till morning, so I came out of my bed down here to find you. Oh! please forgive me, and do you think mamma can ever forgive me for being so cruel to her, and trying to think it was all nonsense about her being so afraid of mice? And then to think that poor little mouse was killed just for me! Nellie and I never knew he was there when we turned the bed over, but he wouldn't have been in our room if I had not brought the mice upstairs; and now Ruth says she don't know when we'll be rid of them, and mamma will be troubled and frightened with them for ever so long. And Nellie and Daisy have been real helps to mamma, and I talked so much about helping her too, but I've only been a bother and trouble to her, and never did a thing for her after all." All this, and much more, the sorrowful little penitent poured into her father's ear. Mr. Ransom had no mind to punish or scold her: he saw that she was already sufficiently punished by the remorse and anxiety she had brought upon herself, and he thought that this was likely to prove a lasting lesson to her. Besides, the thing was quite a new offence of its kind; for Carrie was generally not only obedient, but also regardful of what she believed to be her mother's wishes, whether expressed or not; and he did not desire to be hard with her now that she saw her fault so plainly, and was in such a humble, repentant frame of mind. So although he talked seriously to her, he did so very kindly and quietly,--poor Carrie thought she had never known her father so kind,--nor did he talk very long that night, but soon carried her up to bed in his arms, quite soothed and comforted; and so great was the relief of the confession, that the poor little weary head was scarcely on the pillow before she was fast asleep. No sooner were she and Nellie awake in the morning than she told her sister the whole story, feeling that she could no longer keep the secret from her, but making her promise not to tell the boys, lest they should tease her, which Carrie felt she could not bear. The hardest of all was yet to come, the confession to her dear, gentle, tender mother. Mamma would look so surprised and grieved, would be so shocked to think she could be so cruelly thoughtless. But it was gone through with bravely, not very steadily it is true, for Carrie's voice failed her more than once, but she did not attempt to hide or excuse any thing. And oh! how much lighter her heart was when it was over, and mamma knew the worst. Perhaps Mrs. Ransom was not as much surprised as Carrie had expected she would be: it may be that she was prepared to hear the story which Carrie had believed would shock and distress her so much; and the readiness with which she granted her forgiveness but made her little daughter feel all the more repentant for having been so heedless of her comfort. It was a healing repentance now, though, with the sting and bitterness gone from it; and Carrie felt as if she should never be fretful and cross again; no, not even with Ruth She would try to be so helpful, so considerate and good now, she thought; but she would make no "fuss" about it, or talk as though she meant to do such very fine things, only to fail after all perhaps. Nellie and Daisy had said and promised far less than she had done, but their actions had spoken for them. "What is that you are doing, Nellie?" she asked, when all the little housekeeping tasks accomplished, her reading and practising finished, Nellie brought her workbox and sat down to sew. "Why! those are the slippers mamma was going to work for Johnny, are they not?" "Yes," said Nellie. "And are you going to help her with them?" "I am going to work them all," answered Nellie. "Mamma began them, but she found it tired her eyes, and she was anxious that Johnny should not be disappointed, so I told her I would work them." Carrie sat a moment silent. "And I suppose," she said at length, "that that was the reason you said you would not have time to make the bracket for mamma?" "Yes," said Nellie, quietly. "O Nellie!" said Carrie, "how much better you are than I am. You are a real, true help to mamma: you think of and you do what is really useful to her, but you don't talk about doing such great things. And Daisy, too; when I think about her giving up her white mice that she really had a right to keep, 'cause mamma said she could, I do feel too ashamed and mean for any thing. Nellie,"--after another little thoughtful pause,--"do you think a good way to show mamma how sorry I am would be to spend all my saved-up money for mouse-traps?" "Well, no, I don't," said Nellie. "I do not think that would do any good, for papa has bought several this morning; and there is one set in every room in the house, so that we hope the mice will soon all be caught." "Then what can I do to show mamma how sorry I am?" asked Carrie. "I think mamma knows it already, dear; and the best way is just to be careful to think about what she would like, and then to be very sure to do it;--and--and I think one good way would be not to quarrel with Ruth, and not to make trouble in the nursery." "Ruth is so hateful," murmured Carrie. "I don't think Ruth would be cross to you if you would be a little more patient and good in the nursery," said Nellie. "You know, Carrie, dear, how often poor mamma has to go to the nursery to make peace, or to take the baby, because you will not wait for what you want, or will not stand quiet to be dressed, or something like that." "Yes," owned Carrie, half reluctantly, "and Ruth never does be cross to you or Daisy; and when I am good she is pretty decent. But, Nellie, such things as that do not seem like a real help." "But they _are_ the best help: mamma says so, and I've found it out for myself, Carrie," said Nellie. "Nellie, would you ever have believed that I could do such a thing as to keep those mice?" "I was surprised when you told me," answered her sister, "but I was just thinking, Carrie, that it was really not so very much worse than the way I behaved while I was studying so much and tiring myself out over those 'Bible subjects.' I think I was horrid to mamma and to all of you then." "Yes, you were," said tactless Carrie. "I was thinking so much more about being wise and knowing a great deal than about being good and a help to mamma," continued Nellie, not offended, though she had winced a little at Carrie's plain speaking, "that it seems to me now that I was almost as naughty as--as"-- "As I was to keep the mice?" said Carrie. "Yes, as you were to keep the mice. I don't think I thought any more about mamma than you did, and I know several times I made a good deal of trouble for her which might have been helped if I had been more careful." "You've quite given up your Bible subjects, haven't you?" asked Carrie. "Yes, I made up my mind to be contented with those I had. They would show Miss Ashton I had thought of what she said, but I know she would think it was right for me to leave them. I've made up my mind too, Carrie, not to be so very anxious about my books and studies." Here Daisy came running up to them. "Nellie, what'll make me grow very fast?" "I don't know," said Nellie: "what do you want to grow very fast for?" "So I can have a birdie," said Daisy. "Papa said I was too little now, least he said he would give me one when I was bigger. If I was to plant myse'f and then pour water on my foots like they do on the flowers' foots, then wouldn't I grow pretty fast?" "No," said Nellie, "you'd only be all wet and muddy, and then you'd be sick." Daisy sighed. "Oh, I do want a birdie so," she said. "I'd love my birdie more'n my white mice; oh! a great deal more. Nellie, if I was a birdie, or a white mouse, would you love me the most?" "I'd love you whatever you were," said Nellie, turning to kiss the sweet, dimpled cheek beside her: "I couldn't help it." "If I was an ugly bug crawling about, would you love me?" questioned Daisy. Nellie laughed. "Yes, I'd try to," she answered. "Nellie, if I was that ugly bug crawling about, would you smash me?" "Not if you were not doing any harm," said Nellie. "That would be cruel." "I'm glad," said Daisy, with unmistakable signs of relief in the assurance. "I wouldn't like my sister to smash me even if I was a bug. Nellie, mamma said God sometimes made people sorry 'cause He thought it was good for 'em to make 'em better: does He send bugs and spiders 'cause it is good for 'em too, and birdies just to make 'em glad?" Daisy's questions were sometimes quite beyond Nellie's powers of answering: indeed they often puzzled older and wiser people. But she tried to explain to her little sister that even bugs and spiders were made for some good purpose; and after this Daisy looked with more respect upon those obnoxious creatures, and was even upon one occasion heard to say,-- "Good, little, very ugly spider, maybe God has some work for you to do, so I won't smash you, but let you do it." While Nellie was talking to Daisy, Carrie rose and went in search of her father. She found him in the library. "Papa," she said, going close to him, "I think I ought to ask you to give my bird to Daisy. She deserves it a great deal more than I do for giving up her white mice, and I do not think I ought to have it. Nellie will take care of it for her, and she does want a bird so much." Mr. Ransom lifted her upon his knee. "You really think this, Carrie? You really wish that Daisy should have your bird?" "Yes, papa, it really seems the most right for her to have it. I thought so ever since you brought the birds home and she wanted one so much, but I felt as if I could not tell you to give her mine; but now I think I would feel better if you let her have it instead of me." "Do as you please, my dear child," said her father, kissing her. "Daisy certainly does deserve a reward for her self-sacrifice." To describe Daisy's delight when Carrie took her up stairs, and leading her up to the bird said that it was hers, would be quite impossible. "Are you sure you don't mind, Carrie? Would you just as lieve I'd have him, for my own?" she exclaimed. "Oh! I am so glad, so glad! When I have a camel wif two humps on his back, I'll give him to you, Carrie,--I really will." The bird was henceforth called Daisy's, but I believe that he afforded quite as much satisfaction to the former little owner as he did to the present one; for she had the care of him as much as if she had kept him for her own; and it was thought best that he should still hang in her room so that he might not be separated from Nellie's bird. * * * * * And now good-by to my "Little Sunbeams." If they have shed light in any shady places, brightened any youthful eyes, or cheered any innocent hearts; if they have poured even the faintest ray upon the safe and narrow path which leadeth upward to Eternal Light,--the recompense is great; and may the blessing of the Master go with them, and prosper them, it may be, for His glory. * * * * * Transcriber's Notes: Punctuation errors repaired. Page 17, "Neilie" changed to "Nellie" (Nellie ran down to meet) Page 64, "reponsibility" changed to "responsibility" (of all this responsibility) Page 74, "oppsite" changed to "opposite" (into the opposite) 
55314	----	Transcriber's note: Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). Page numbers enclosed by curly braces (example: {25}) have been incorporated to facilitate the use of the Index. * * * * * [Illustration: THE LARDER.] [Illustration] THE ENGLISH HOUSEKEEPER: OR, MANUAL OF DOMESTIC MANAGEMENT: CONTAINING ADVICE ON THE CONDUCT OF HOUSEHOLD AFFAIRS, AND Practical Instructions CONCERNING THE STORE-ROOM, THE PANTRY, THE LARDER, THE KITCHEN, THE CELLAR, THE DAIRY. THE WHOLE BEING INTENDED FOR THE USE OF YOUNG LADIES WHO UNDERTAKE THE SUPERINTENDENCE OF THEIR OWN HOUSEKEEPING. _SIXTH EDITION._ (IMPROVED BY THE INTRODUCTION OF MANY NEW RECEIPTS.) BY ANNE COBBETT. LONDON: PUBLISHED BY A. COBBETT, 137, STRAND. 1851. [_Price Six Shillings._] LONDON: GEO. PEIRCE, PRINTER, 310, STRAND. {iii}INTRODUCTION. "She looketh well to the ways of her _Household_, and eateth not the bread of idleness. Her children arise up, and call her blessed: her husband also, and he praiseth her. Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all."--PROVERBS, Chap. xxxi., vs. 27, 28, & 29. I HAVE taken so much pains to make the following work deserving of the title it bears, that I could not, without affectation, pretend to undervalue my own performance, by anticipating doubts of its utility, or by expressing any fear lest my friends should be disappointed when they look into it. Every publication of this description is necessarily calculated to be of some essential service; for it must not only be practical in its descriptions and directions, but must relate to matters touching the daily and hourly wants of all mankind; and it will, of course, be approved according as it may happen to meet those wants. As a mere Cookery-book, mine must submit to be placed in a lower rank than some others, because I do not profess to bring to light discoveries in the culinary art, neither do I design to favour epicurism. I have no pretension beyond that of advising young ladies who are their own housekeepers; and the receipts which will be found in my selection, are such as appeared to me suitable to any family of moderate style in living, and such as may be easily comprehended and put in practice. These have been carefully {iv}revised and amended in the present edition, and some others added. While I am offering advice with respect to the manner of conducting domestic affairs, I cannot refrain from expressing my regret that so large a proportion of the young ladies of England are sadly deficient in that information, and in those practices of economy which are the most essentially necessary to their welfare as persons of influence and authority in a house. I am by no means singular in lamenting that the advantages of a knowledge of housekeeping seem to be so entirely lost sight of by those who have the responsibility of bringing up either their own or other people's daughters; and I find it frequently the subject of remark that the ladies of the present day have become incapable of being so skilful in the discharge of their domestic duties as the ladies of a former period were, in proportion as they have become more cultivated and more accomplished. But is it so? Are there now a greater proportion of women whose minds are really cultivated than there were formerly? Is there not rather a greater pretence of learning with less of it in reality? It is erroneous to suppose that persons of real learning look upon the minor duties of life with contempt, because of their learning; for, though learning does not, perhaps, give sense, it surely does not destroy it, and there is not only a want of sense, but a positive folly, in that affectation of refinement, and that assumption of superiority, which has led to the result now complained of. But the system of education which has prevailed of late years is certainly in fault; a system which assigns the same species of learning, indiscriminately, to young persons of every rank and degree, without distinction even as to ability. Such a method of bringing up has unavoidably been productive of very injurious effects; for, while it withdraws the daughters of farmers and tradespeople, and others, during a great part of their youth, from the practice of those homely arts which belong to their {v}stations, it leaves them, in nine cases out of ten, without anything more than the mere fancy that they possess acquirements of a higher order. The desire which many persons feel to give their children a better education than has been bestowed upon themselves is laudable, because it proceeds from sincere affection: but how often is the success equal to the motive which actuates? How often is the manner of attempting at all calculated for attaining the object so earnestly sought? An ambition to promote the welfare of children reconciles parents to part with them at that tender age when they ought to command more constant care than they generally need at a more advanced time of life; and this ambition is so strong that it will even cause little girls to be consigned to the blighting atmosphere of a crowded schoolroom, there to bewail the loss of the warm hearth, or the airy room of their own homes, and all the comforts which depend upon a mother's solicitude. With a view to their being educated, that is to say, fitted for the world, and for the discharge of their respective duties in it, girls are sent to school, and are there condemned to a dull course of lessons, before their minds have sufficient strength to imbibe any kind of learning that requires mental labour, and before their understandings are equal to any greater exertion than that of perceiving the difference between a roasted apple and a sugar-plum. A knowledge of housekeeping is not difficult to attain. It needs no natural superiority of talent, and no painful application. It is rather a habit than a science, and, like the neatness so characteristic of English women, this knowledge rarely comes to perfection at all, unless it be partly formed in early life, and by means of our very earliest associations. Little girls are always prone to imitate the ways of older persons, particularly in housekeeping matters. They very soon begin to find amusement in learning to make preserves, pastry, and such things. Those children, therefore, who are brought up at home, {vi}and have the daily and hourly practice of domestic duties before their eyes, will naturally fall into habits of usefulness, and acquire, by degrees and imperceptibly, a knowledge of what belongs to home, which should constitute the elementary education of every woman who is not born to rank and to luxury. But the unhappy little creatures who drag through seven or more years of continuous monotony within the walls of a school, their minds taking little or no part in the tasks which their memories are racked upon, have but little chance of learning any thing which will benefit their after lives; for, those whose mothers knead the bread, churn the butter, and help to cook the dinner, have not the benefit of that sort of society that would teach them to apply their learning, that would call forth their acquirements, or that would be able to appreciate those acquirements when displayed. During the period which these children spend at school, their mother continues her old-fashioned occupations, and, as time passes on, she looks forward, perhaps, with cheering anticipations to the _help_ which her daughters are to afford her. But alas! how often do these daughters return from school with false notions of the lives they are to lead, and with mistaken ideas of their own consequence, such as lead them to despise the humble occupations of their home, although their "education" may not have given them one single idea to justify any pretension of the kind. It is generally acknowledged, that girls educated at schools are seldom far advanced in learning. Where history and geography, and other sciences, are learnt by rote, "a page of Greece on Monday," a "page of Rome on Tuesday," a "page of Universal Biography on Wednesday," with occasional readings of the middle ages, of modern times, and application being made to maps, globes, charts, &c., to fill up the time which is not devoted to the fine arts (for it all goes on at once), the stock of real solid information which is gained by the end of the year, will be very scanty, or will probably {vii}have resolved itself into such a confused mass of imperfect information that all practical benefit may be despaired of. No wonder, if, after having undergone a course like this, a young girl is often found to have gained less from books than others have gained from vulgar report, and be puzzled to say whether it was Scipio or Washington who was the first President of the United States of America. They learn lessons, but they do not reason or think about what they are getting by heart; and many girls, whose education has cost a large sum of money, are unable to answer a question of name, place, or date, in their geography or history, without first running over a certain portion of one whole lesson, the sound of which has left a deeper impression on the ear, than its sense has left on the understanding. Just as, when wanting to ascertain the number of days in a particular month, we repeat the words, "Thirty days hath September," &c., thus recalling by means of the jingle of words, what of itself had slipped our memories. Girls so educated are very much to be commiserated. They live, through that part of their lives in which the mind is most open to receive impressions, without any opportunity for exercising their powers of observation, till, at last, those powers fall into a state of inertness; and their education is finished without their having gained the least knowledge of what the world really is, or of the part which they are to be called upon to act in it. Having had no intimate association with persons really well informed, it is no matter of surprise, if they become conceited of their supposed attainments, or if they remain in ignorance of the fact, that a little music, a little drawing, and a very little French and Italian, are not sufficient to make an accomplished woman, and that merely going the round of primers will not, of itself, constitute what is looked for in a "good education." Nor is it, indeed, to be wondered at, if the home, which has been so cherished in recollection from one holiday time to another, fail to realise all the anticipations {viii}of pleasure and of happiness which the thought of it has excited. Its simple occupations are not of a kind to make them, as novelties, attractive to one who is _only_ a fine lady; the want of capacity to fill domestic duties will, of course, render them rather disagreeable than otherwise; and it is but natural that young women who, during all the early part of their lives, have been unaccustomed to think of household cares, should entertain some degree of aversion to them, and feel dissatisfied when called upon to take a part in them. Many a father has repented that he did not rather lay up for his daughter, the money which has been expended to no better purpose than to cause her to repine at the condition in life in which he must leave her. And many a mother's pride, in the fancied superiority of her daughter, has been saddened by the recollection, not only that her daughter was incapable of helping her, but that the time must come when that incompetent daughter would be left to take care of herself. My readers may imagine that I forget my proper theme: they may wish me to remember that this book professes only to aid those young ladies who are uninformed on this subject, _how to keep house_, and that I am diverging from that subject, and raising objections to a very common way of bringing up children. But when it is generally acknowledged that there is, in the ladies of the present day, a great want of skill as regards the affairs of their household, an ignorance, in fact, of some of their first duties, it cannot be impertinent for me to inquire, whether this want of skill, and this ignorance, be not properly ascribable to a defective, or even to a mischievous, course of education. I certainly do think that habits of usefulness, and the cultivation of talents, may be combined, but then the acquiring of the useful, and the cultivating of the finer accomplishments must proceed hand in hand. There are, doubtless, many who do not think it beneath them to be able to make a pudding, merely because they can execute a difficult piece of music, or sing with good taste; who do not regard these as things absolutely incongruous; and who do not consider, when they receive applause for excelling in fashionable powers to charm, that the offering carries with it an excuse for their being inefficient and helpless mistresses of families. There are, however, not a few, who do think that {ix}qualifications of a refined nature render it unbecoming in their possessors to give that personal superintendence to the affairs of the kitchen, of the store-room, and of all the other branches of household arrangement, which is so necessary, that, for the want of it, moderate fortunes often prove inadequate to the support of families in the middle rank. Young persons cannot be expected to entertain a proper estimation of the value of useful habits, as compared with the value of ornamental acquirements, unless they have grown up in the exercise of those habits. The idea that capability in the domestic, is incompatible with taste in the elegant accomplishments, is so deeply rooted in the minds of most persons who aspire to be fashionable, that I despair of the power to do much towards eradicating the fatal error. And yet, I would fain represent to parents, the wrong which is done to children by suffering this idea to plant itself in their minds; for it not only reduces young women to a standard of comparatively little consequence, by making them helpless in all the ordinary business of life, but it produces incidentally, a variety of injurious effects on the health, on the spirits, and even on the temper. It is proverbial, that the largest portion of happiness belongs not to the higher ranks of society; and the reason is, not that the rich and luxurious are, as a matter of course, unworthy and consequently unhappy; but that their minds are not diverted by necessary cares, that their amusements are easily obtained, and that the enjoyment of them is never interrupted by their having duties to perform. Pleasures fail to excite and interest the mind, unless they come in the way of relaxation. Therefore it is, that even in youth, something by way of employment is necessary to keep gaiety from subsiding into dulness; and in mature life nothing is more salutary than occupation. To have _something to do_, to be obliged to _be doing_, withdraws the mind from the contemplation of fancied sorrows, and prevents its being subdued by the recurrence of unavailing regrets. Women who have been accustomed, in their youth, to be industriously engaged and to contribute to the daily happiness of others, are sure to enjoy the greatest share of tranquillity and satisfaction in a review of days gone by, to show the most courage in adversity, the most patience in sickness, and to be the most cheerful and resigned under the infirmities of age; and those parents, {x}therefore, who instil into the minds of their daughters the principle of _making themselves useful_, will confer upon them one of the greatest of blessings. Let it not be supposed, however, that by _useful_, I mean that a woman should be a mere household drudge, that all her ideas should be confined within the limits of her domestic offices, or that her guests as well as her family, should be entertained by nothing better than details of the household. Ladies who have houses and servants to look after, should be capable of superintending the whole in a manner so systematic, as that they may have a due portion of their time, and of their thoughts, to give to other, and, if they deem them such, higher matters. I by no means recommend, as patterns, the fussy people, who are always busy and have never done, who let you know every thing that they have to do, and who, sometimes, do very little after all. Neither is it advisable to imitate, too closely, that class of housewives who are distinguished by the phrase--"very _particular_:" for even the virtue of neatness, when incessantly exercised, or manifested too much in matters of little moment, becomes an intruder upon comfort, and, consequently, offensive. What I recommend is, that quiet and orderly method of conducting the business of a house, which tends rather to conceal than to make an appearance of much to do, which puts all that part of the family, who are not immediately engaged in it, as little as possible out of the way, and which may enable strangers to remain under the roof without being constantly reminded of the trouble they occasion. Every woman who presides over a home, and who wishes to preserve its attraction, should bear in mind the many minute cares which all contribute to give to that home, not only the semblance, but the substance of enjoyment; and I earnestly impress upon my youthful readers the important fact, that, as far as mere fortune is concerned, those often prove to be the most poor in reality, who may have been thought to be the most rich. Competence and ease may be changed for narrowed circumstances, and a struggle may ensue, to stem a torrent of difficulties which follow in succession, and threaten to destroy the home which has been hitherto considered secure. Then she who has passed her life in total listlessness, possessing no acquirements but of a showy kind, and {xi}ignorant of what is wanted to preserve the foundation of a family's happiness; then such a woman will prove as unfitted to lighten sorrow, as she has been careless to avert it: for herself, she can but quail as difficulties assail her; for others, she can only seek for protection where, if she were capable, she might be of assistance; and, instead of aiding to alleviate distress, she will become the main cause of rendering the common burden intolerable. How often do we see families stricken to the very dust, by the first, and perhaps only a slight blow, of misfortune; and this, merely for the want of a little of that practical knowledge, and that experience, which would have enabled them to husband their diminished means so that they might still supply sufficient to meet all real wants, and still procure every material comfort. From a want of this experience, some of the very best intentioned persons will so misapply the resources left to them, at one time laying out money where they ought to refrain altogether, and at another parting with more than the occasion requires, that, by degrees, those resources dwindle away to nothing before they seem to be aware of the natural consequences, and not only poverty, but destitution and misery are let into an abode where comparative ease and contentment might still have remained. The great art of economy in domestic life, is comprised in the two very homely phrases, "_to turn every thing to account_," and "_to make the most of what you have_." But their meaning is often perverted, and the habit of _turning every thing to an account_, and of _making the most of every thing_, is ascribed to those who are actuated, not by a laudable desire to produce as much comfort as their circumstances will admit, but by an inclination to indulge in a strong propensity to stinginess. But of this class of persons I am far from being the advocate; between extravagance and parsimony the widest possible interval exists; and that economy, that management and application of means, which I deem perfectly consistent with the most rigid virtue and the most generous impulse, is of too admirable a character to partake either of the spendthrift's criminality or of the miser's meanness. If my censures upon the present system of educating young ladies should appear to be presumptuous, I greatly fear that any disapproval of that which is now so {xii}universally adopted with regard to _the poor_ will be still more unpopular; but it does appear to me that _there_, there exists a mistake also, which, perhaps, in its consequences, will prove still more fatal. It appears to me that something better might be done, more advantageous to both rich and poor, by educating the latter to be useful members of society; and I think that ladies who live in the country may have ample opportunities of training up good servants, by attending to the education of poor neighbours of their own sex. By _education_, I do not mean that kind of teaching which merely qualifies them for reading letters and words. Small literary accomplishments, accompanied by idle habits, are already but too common, though the fact is more generally known than acknowledged. Nor do I mean that sort of education which creates expectations of gaining a livelihood by any other means than those of honest industry; or which tends to raise the ideas of persons who are born to work above the duties which fortune has assigned to them. I mean such an education as shall better their condition, by making them better servants. In large establishments, where there are old and experienced persons in service, it is very much the custom to have younger ones as helpers, and thus the latter have the benefit of learning all the duties of the household; but these establishments are comparatively few in number. The fashion of the day is opposed to my opinion, and the same ladies who now condescend to teach poor children to read and write, because it is the fashion to do so, would, in many cases, think it beneath them to teach a little girl to make a pudding. It would, in a work of this nature, be a hopeless and presumptuous attempt, to argue against the all-powerful influence of fashion, against which the keenest shafts of invective and ridicule, and in short every weapon of satire, have been so often aimed in vain; but, all are not under the dominion of so senseless and so capricious a tyranny, and I have to regret my inability to set before my readers the benefits which mistresses of families would confer and receive, from bringing up young country girls to be good servants. There might always, in a country-house, be one or more young girls, according to the size of the establishment; to be placed under older servants, or be instructed by the mistress herself, in all household occupations, from {xiii}the hardest work and most simple offices, to the more delicate arts of housekeeping, including needle-work. This practice would not only insure more good servants than there now are; but, young girls so trained would, by the force of hourly tuition and good example, imbibe a right sense of duty, and acquire good habits, before they could have had time to become vicious or unmanageable. When ladies take the trouble to teach the poor to read and write, they mean well, no doubt, and think they are doing the best they can for their pupils. But teaching industry is more to the purpose; for when learning has been found insufficient to preserve the morals of princes, nobles, and gentry, how can it be supposed that it will preserve those of their dependents? The supposition is, in fact, injurious to the cause of true learning, since the system founded upon it has been attended by no moral improvement. Our well-being is best secured by an early habit of earning our bread by honest labour; and "Not to know at large of things remote From use, obscure, and subtle, but to know That which before us lies in daily life, Is the prime wisdom; what is more, is fume. Or emptiness, or fond impertinence, And renders us in things that most concern, Unpractis'd, unprepar'd, and still to seek." A country girl, the daughter of a labourer, would, by making herself in some way practically useful to society, and gaining a respectable livelihood, be more profitably employed than in going through that long course of literary exercise which has, of late, been so generally bestowed on the children of poor people, but which, I fear, has not generally imparted to them much of what MILTON styles "the prime wisdom." It should also be considered, that the literary education of the poor, such as it is, cannot be much more than half completed at the age when the children cease to receive lessons from their charitable instructors. They are taught to read, to write a little, and perhaps something of the elements of arithmetic. The reading, however, is the principal attainment; and in this, they generally become well enough schooled before they are eleven, or, at most, twelve years of age. But alas! have they at that age, or at the age of thirteen or fourteen, {xiv}been taught all that is necessary for girls so young to learn, with regard to the _choice of books_? With the use of _letters_, indeed, as the mere components of words, they have been made acquainted. But why have they been taught to read at all, unless there be some profit to be derived from their reading; and how can any profit be looked for from that reading, unless there be the same kind of pains taken to point out the proper objects of study as there have been to teach the little scholars to spell? Surely that advice which is required by all young persons in the pursuit of book-learning, is at least as necessary to those who can do no more than just read their own native language, as it is to those who are brought up in a superior way. The education of youth, among the higher and middle classes, does not terminate, or, at least, it never should, immediately on their leaving school. At that period, a fresh series of anxieties occur to the parent or the guardian, who is quite as sedulous as before, to finish that which has been, in fact, only begun at school. If this be not the case, how is it, that though the son may have been eight or ten years at the best schools, the father, after the schooling is ended, finds it necessary to consult the most discreet and experienced advisers, concerning the right guidance of his child in the course of his future studies? The attention paid to the studies of young ladies, after they come from school, is, to be sure, not precisely the same as that which parents think requisite for their sons. But, while the daughter has generally the advantage of being with her mother, or with some female relative much older than herself; and while the success in life of our sex does not so frequently depend upon literary acquirements, and the proper employment of them; yet under such circumstances, favourable as they are, we all know that there is still much wanting, both in the way of counsel and attractive example, from the parent or guardian, to render the learning which a young girl has acquired at school, of substantial service to her in after years. If the daughters of the rich require to be taught, not merely to read, but, also, _what_ to read, why should not this be the case with the daughters of the poor? in whose fate, it is too often proved, that "a little learning is a dangerous thing," owing to the want of that discretion which is necessary to prevent the little learning becoming worthless, and even mischievous, to its possessor. {xv}In the way of practical education, there are many things of importance to the poor, which ought to be taught them in early youth. At the age of fifteen or sixteen, a girl should already have learned many of the duties of a servant; for if her education up to that age have been neglected, she must necessarily, for the next three or four years of her life, be comparatively useless and little worthy of trust. The poor do not, as some may suppose, inhale with the air they breathe any of that knowledge which is necessary to make them useful in the houses of their parents or their employers. To learn cookery, in its various branches; making bread; milking, butter-making, and all the many things that belong to a dairy; household offices innumerable; besides the nice art of getting up fine linen, and plain work with the needle; not only requires considerable time, but, also, unless the learner be uncommonly quick and willing, great attention on the part of the person who undertakes to teach them. It is lamentable to see how deficient many female servants are in some things, the knowledge of which ought to be thought indispensable. Some are so ignorant of plain needle-work as to be incapable of making themselves a gown; and this, too, where they happen to be what the country-people call "scholars," from their ability to read a little, and to make an awkward use of the pen. A maid-servant who can assist her mistress in plain needle-work, is a really valuable person. Strange as it may seem, however, there are but few common servants who can do so, notwithstanding that superiority in learning by which the present generation of the labouring people are said to be distinguished from their predecessors. With young servants, nothing has a better effect than _encouragement_. If they are, by nature, only good tempered, and blest with as much right principle as those who have not been spoiled generally possess, whatever you say or do in the way of encouraging them, can hardly fail to produce some good, though it may not always accomplish everything that you would desire. A cheerful tone in giving directions, a manner of address which conveys the idea of confidence in the willingness, as well as the ability, of the person directed, has great influence upon the minds of all young persons whose tempers and inclinations have not been warped by ill-usage, or soured {xvi}by disappointment. Very young servants frequently take pride in their work, though of the most laborious kind, and many a young girl might be proud to improve in the more refined departments of housewifery, and would regard a little congratulation upon the lightness of her pastry, or the excellence of her cakes, as worth ten times all the thought and care which she had bestowed upon them. There is no mistress who does not acknowledge the importance of a servant who can assist in preserving, pickling, wine-making, and other things of this description, which demand both skill and labour, and which must, where there is no one but the mistress herself sufficiently acquainted with them to be trusted, take up much of her time and give her considerable trouble. To teach poor children to become useful servants, may, perhaps, be thought a serious task; but it surely cannot be said that this sort of instruction is at all more difficult than that which is necessary to give them even a tolerable proficiency in the lowest branches of literature. The learning here recommended, seems naturally more inviting, as well as more needful, than that which is taught in the ordinary course of school education; and it possesses this advantage, that while its benefits are equally lasting, they are immediately perceptible. It is sometimes said that the poor are ungrateful, and that after all the pains and trouble which may have been taken in making them good servants, it often happens, that instead of testifying a proper sense of the obligation, they become restless, and desirous of leaving those who have had all the trouble of qualifying them for better places and higher wages. Servants cannot be prevented from bettering themselves, as they call it, but that constant changing of place which operates as one of the worst examples to young women who are at service, would become less frequent if their employments were occasionally varied by relaxation and amusement, and their services now and then rewarded by small presents. The influence of early habits is so universally felt and acknowledged, that it seems almost superfluous to ask why an early and industrious education of the poor, and the teaching of the youth of both sexes to look upon prosperity and right endeavour as inseparable, should not produce a taste, the reverse of that which leads to a discontented and unsettled existence. {xvii}It is equally the interest of the rich and of the poor, that the youthful inhabitants of the mansion and those of the cottage, should grow up with sentiments of mutual good will. If the poor are indebted to their opulent neighbours for the assistance which makes a hard lot tolerable, there exists a reciprocal obligation on the part of the rich, since they could not obtain the comforts and the luxuries which they enjoy, without the aid of those who are less fortunate than themselves. But there is another and superior motive, which ought to narrow the distance between the poor and the rich: the lady of the mansion, when she meets her washerwoman in the village church, must know that, in that place, she and the hard-working woman are equals. The lady of the mansion, when she beholds the ravages which but a few years of toil have wrought in the once blooming and healthful country girl, is astonished, perhaps, that her own looks and health have not undergone a similar change; but, she forgets that the pitiable creature before her has been exposed to the damp floors and steams of a wash-house, to the chill of a cold drying-ground, and the oppressive heat of an ironing stove, in order to earn her miserable portion of the necessaries of life. No wonder that her beauty has vanished; that her countenance betrays the marks of premature age, and that her air of cheerfulness is exchanged for that of a saddened resignation. But the lady of the mansion should not, in the confidence of her own happier fate, lose sight of the fact, that this poor and destitute creature is a _woman_ as well as herself; that her poor inferior is liable to all those delicacies and weaknesses of constitution of which she herself is sensible; and that, in the eyes of their Maker, the peeress and the washerwoman hold equal rank. The ingratitude of the poor is often made a pretext for neglecting to relieve their wants. But are not their superiors ungrateful? Is "the ingratitude of the world," of which philosophers of the earliest ages have said so much, confined to the lowly and unrefined? By no means. High birth and refinement in breeding do not, alone, ensure feelings of honour and of kindness to the heart, any more than they ensure common sense and sound judgment to the head; for these qualities seem to be in the very nature of some, while it passes the power of all art to implant them in {xviii}others. It is for those who have known what adversity is to say whether they have not met with instances of devoted attachment, of generosity, and of every other good feeling, on the part of servants, at the very time when they have been depressed by the heart-sick sensation caused by the desertion of friends. Those have been unfortunate in their experience of human nature, who cannot bear testimony to the admirable conduct of servants in fulfilling that wearisome, and often most trying, but at the same time most imperative of all earthly duties, attendance upon a sick bed. Perhaps it has not occurred to most others, as it has to me, to witness such proofs of virtue in poor people. Among the truly charitable there are, no doubt, many in whom disgust has been excited by ingratitude; but has it been excited by the hard-working and the half-starving only? It is but a very limited acquaintance with this life, which can justify the unselfish and noble nature in denouncing the _poor_, for being ungrateful. Be this, however, as it may, one thing is certain, that no probability of disappointment, no apprehensions of an ungrateful return, ought to have any influence with the mind of a Christian, and that such obstacles were never yet a hinderance to any man or woman whose desire was to do good. {xix}TABLE OF CONTENTS. PAGE INTRODUCTION iii CHAPTER I. General observations relating to Housekeeping, with remarks on the fitting up of a House, and conducting its affairs. On the choice and management of Servants. 1 CHAPTER II. The Store Room; the mode of fitting up, and the uses of it 14 CHAPTER III. The Pantry; the uses of it, with Receipts for Cleaning Plate and Furniture. 18 CHAPTER IV. The Larder; with Directions for Keeping and Salting Meat. Seasons for Meat, Poultry, Game, Fish and Vegetables 23 CHAPTER V. The Kitchen, with observations upon the fitting it up 35 CHAPTER VI. Directions for Jointing, Trussing and Carving, with plates of Animals and various Joints 44 CHAPTER VII. General Instructions for Boiling, followed by Directions for Boiling various Joints 59 CHAPTER VIII. General Instructions for Roasting, followed by Directions for Roasting particular Joints 67 CHAPTER IX. Directions for Baking 81 CHAPTER X. Directions for Broiling 83 CHAPTER XI. Directions for Frying 87 CHAPTER XII. General Instructions for the making of Soups and Broths, and Directions relating to particular sorts 92 CHAPTER XIII. Instructions for Boiling, Frying, Baking, Pickling and Potting Fish 114 CHAPTER XIV. General Instructions for Made Dishes, and Directions relative to particular Dishes 133 CHAPTER XV. {xx} Stuffing and Forcemeat 187 CHAPTER XVI. Gravies and Sauces 191 CHAPTER XVII. Seasonings 206 CHAPTER XVIII. General and particular Instructions for Cooking Vegetables, and also for Mixing Salads 210 CHAPTER XIX. General Instructions for making Pastry, with particular Directions relating to Meat, Fish, and Fruit Pies 227 CHAPTER XX. General and particular Directions for making Puddings 245 CHAPTER XXI. Directions for making Bread, Cakes, Biscuits, Rolls and Muffins 268 CHAPTER XXII. General Observations on Confectionary, and particular Instructions for making Jellies, Creams 283 CHAPTER XXIII. General and particular Instructions for making Preserves 303 CHAPTER XXIV. Instructions for making Pickles 318 CHAPTER XXV. Instructions for making Vinegars 324 CHAPTER XXVI. Instructions for making Essences 328 CHAPTER XXVII. Instructions for making Catsups 329 CHAPTER XXVIII. General Remarks upon the Cellar, followed by Directions for Brewing Beer, and the making of Wines and Cordials 332 CHAPTER XXIX. General Observations relating to the fitting up, and the care of the Dairy, with Directions for making Cheese and Butter 348 CHAPTER XXX. Observations upon Cooking for the Sick, and Receipts for Broths, Jellies, Gruels 354 CHAPTER XXXI. Medical Recipes 365 CHAPTER XXXII. Various Receipts 375 CHAPTER XXXIII. Observations relating to, and Directions for Cooking for the Poor 382 {1}THE ENGLISH HOUSEKEEPER. ---- CHAPTER I. GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. IT would be impossible to give rules for the management of a domestic establishment, because they would necessarily be subject to many and various exceptions, produced by various circumstances. But a few general observations, accompanied by remarks on the most important matters in domestic life, may not be unacceptable to young housekeepers. In the young and thoughtless, a spirit of emulation, leading them to vie with those who are richer than themselves, is often the source of domestic unhappiness, by causing so much to be sacrificed to appearance, as to circumscribe the means of enjoying the substantial comforts of life. It sometimes manifests itself in houses, equipages, and retinues of servants; but amongst persons of moderate income, for whose use this work is principally intended, it is commonly displayed in costly furniture and expensive entertainments. Many young married women conceive the notion, that unless they have as fine a house, as expensive furniture, plate, china, and glass, as some others have, and give as fine entertainments as others give; in short, unless they make the appearance of living quite as well as their richer neighbours, they will not be held in equal estimation. It is not that they derive any real pleasure from the false appearance which they make; indeed, expensive furniture is but an annoyance to its possessor, if there be not a sufficient number of good servants to keep it in order. Where the whole family concur in this sort of pride, no {2}mortification arises from difference of opinion, but the unanimity tends only to accelerate the ruin. The young housekeeper should consider the serious consequences that are likely to result from setting out in a style of lavish expenditure, and she should remember that, while it is easy to extend, it is extremely difficult to reduce, her establishment. One expensive article requires another to correspond with it, and one expensive entertainment imposes the necessity of other equally expensive entertainments; for it requires no small share of moral courage to risk the loss of consequence which may result by its being surmised that we are not so well off, as we have been supposed to be. And when the time comes, as sooner or later it assuredly must, when the means are not adequate to the demands, what sacrifices are made, and what unseemly contrivances are resorted to, in order to keep up, to the last, a poor remnant of "_appearance!_" and, when this can no longer be effected, then comes the humiliation, with all the bitter feelings attendant upon _retrenchment_; of all which feelings, the bitterest is, the dread of being degraded in the world's estimation. To endure privations with resignation, to feel the want of habitual comforts, yet be grateful for the blessings which are left to us, is the duty of every Christian, and is the less arduous when the reverse of fortune which has befallen us, has not been produced by any fault of our own. But if, in addition to the distresses of adversity, the wife and the mother be doomed to writhe under the pang of self-reproach, great indeed must be her suffering, and one for which I can suggest no adequate relief. To the young and generous-minded, the hardest portion which accompanies reverses of fortune, is, the change which they sometimes produce in the behaviour of acquaintances. When we are become poorer than we were, and have lost the ability to entertain guests in the accustomed manner, it is painful to perceive some of those very people who have been the most hospitably entertained, and who, in our prosperity, have appeared the most attached to us, turn from us and our difficulties, while they banish from their minds the recollection of past kindness. To meet with indifference in those whose smiles have courted ours; to feel that we have thrown away sincere friendship upon mere heartlessness, is hard to be endured, even by the faultless, but how {3}intolerable must it be, when aggravated by the consciousness that we have incurred it by our own misconduct. To the experienced, this is one of the severest vicissitudes of life; what, then, must it be to us, before we have acquired that equanimity of mind, which falls only to the lot of those who have passed through the ordeal of the world, and who have been amply compensated for the desertion of the many, by the sincerity, the warmth of heart, and the steadfastness of the few. Houses and furniture properly belong to the extraordinary expenses of the household. When a young woman is called upon to exercise her judgment in the choice of a house, she must pause before she rejects one which, though she may consider it rather too small, might, nevertheless, be made to accommodate the family _well enough_, and might be fitted up at a less cost than a larger one. Such a house would require fewer servants, and would certainly present a better appearance, than one that is rather too large for the quantity, or for the style of its furniture, and is, perhaps, larger than is actually required for the number of its inhabitants. It is easier to remove from a small to a large house, when circumstances require it, than it is to remove from a large to a small one. It is so easy to increase our wants, and so difficult to reduce them, that young persons should begin the world with caution, and not multiply their wants, lest, in time, they lack the means of gratifying them. In fitting up a house, the young housekeeper, who sets out with a determination to choose furniture suitable to her circumstances and station in life, will be content with that which is just _good enough_, rather than be induced to exceed her previous good intentions, and gratify her fancy at the expense of her comforts. She must never yield to the seductive reflection, that "_only_ five pounds more cannot make much difference;" for, the same argument may be equally applied to the sofa, the tables, the carpet, the curtains, the grate, the fire-irons and fender; all of which are necessary to furnish a dining room; to say nothing of the lamps, the mirrors, and other articles of ornament, which fashion in some cases makes of absolute necessity. If "_only five pounds_" be given for some of these, and two, or even one pound, for others, more than is necessary, she {4}will find that the "difference" is very great by the time that she has fitted up only one room. The rage for vying with our superiors shows itself in the bad taste which encumbers houses with unsuitable furniture. Massive sideboards, and unwieldy chairs, occupy too much space in a small room, while draperies not only obscure the light, but have an inelegant appearance, unless the room be large and lofty, or in keeping with the size and weight of cornices, cords, tassels, and other ornaments, which give offence to the eye when too gorgeous or prominent. Of equal bad taste, is the habit of occasionally changing furniture, to suit the varying of fashions; which is so much the practice that even persons in trade, having families to provide for, change furniture, sufficiently good to serve its purpose for a lifetime, for other no handsomer, but a little more fashionable. It is strange that persons pretending to gentility should not rather imitate the higher class of their superiors, who value their high-backed chairs the more because they are old, and would on no account exchange them for modern finery. When expensive furniture is introduced into the houses of persons of small fortune, the long upholsterer's bill rises like a phantom before the misplaced couches, ottomans, and ottoman sofas, crowded into small drawing rooms; and my feelings of regret become almost feelings of indignation on seeing plate, which belonged to fathers and mothers, or to grandfathers and grandmothers, and spoons which have touched those lips which spoke tenderness to our infancy, about to be bartered for the "Prince's," the "King's," or the "fiddle pattern," or for some other pattern that may happen to offer the newest temptation to vulgar taste. Every young woman who has the good taste to wish that her house may be characterised by its simplicity, and be more remarkable for comfort than for show, will, if she wish to spare herself and her family much discomfort, avoid having show-rooms; such rooms, I mean, as are considered too fine to be habitually occupied by the family, and are, therefore, kept shut up; except when, on particular occasions, and perhaps only a few times in the year, a fire is lighted for the reception of company. Upon such occasions, children are seen to look about them as if they {5}had never beheld the place before; the master of the house fidgets from one seat to another, as if he were anywhere but at home; and it is probable, that before the entertainment is over, the mistress of the house is heard to remark, that she is "never so comfortable as in the room she is accustomed to;" by which her friends discover that their visit has put her out of the way. True hospitality conceals from guests any trouble which their presence may unavoidably occasion; but in the luxurious taste of the times, there is little real hospitality left: friendly intercourse seems lost in ostentatious display, and in our vain attempts to equal, if not to outshine, each other. Most persons acknowledge this to be the case, and lament that it is so; yet few have the courage to pursue a different system. There is no species of decoration which produces so much effect in ornamenting a house as flowers. The artificial productions of the painter and the upholsterer, the gilded ceilings, glittering mirrors, and couches of brocade, are more splendid and durable, and are worthy of admiration for their individual beauty and the ingenuity and industry which has produced them, but they have not the lively, gay, and varied attractions of flowers. Vases, whether gaudy or elegant, excite interest only as mere objects of curiosity, unless filled with flowers. To point to any particular department of the household, as demanding the greatest share of attention, would tend rather to mislead than instruct; for a due proportion ought to be bestowed upon every department; where the mistress of the house is over particular on any one point, other matters, of equal importance, may be neglected. Perfect and uniform neatness is indispensable, not only for comfort, but appearance. By uniform neatness, I mean, that nothing which presents itself, whether about the house, in the dress of mistress, children, or servants, should be left open to unfavourable remark. A young lady who relaxes in attention to her own dress, merely because she has more important cares after, than she had before her marriage, does wrong; but she whose studied attire forms a contrast to the little soiled fingers which are forbidden to approach it; she who strikes the beholder as having bestowed care on herself, while her children bear the appearance of neglect, does infinitely worse. To preserve the {6}neatness of a house, there must be regular attention on the part of the mistress. I am a great enemy to the system of periodical scrubbings and general house-cleanings, which prevails to so great an extent, and especially in the country, where, when the appointed day comes round, carpets are taken up, and floors, even though they be delicately clean, are washed, whether the weather be suitable or otherwise, the health of the family being left to take its chance. The day of _general house-cleaning_ is no other than a day of commotion and discomfort. One attendant evil is, the make-up dinner, which does not, perhaps, content all the family; and it is a singular piece of good fortune if friends do not select that very day for paying you a visit. It is certainly a more simple process to clean a house, than it is to keep a house clean; for mere labour is required for the one, while method is necessary for the other. But this method every young housekeeper should endeavour to acquire. Sweeping, dusting, and polishing, should proceed daily. Carpets should be swept every day with a hair broom; but only once a week with a carpet broom, because it wears them: and damp tea leaves should always be used, whether in sweeping carpets or boards, as they lay the dust, which would otherwise fly over the furniture, and again settle on the floor. Bed room carpets should be in different pieces, not nailed to the floor, for the convenience of shaking, which may then be done once in a week. Bed rooms should be swept every day, and a damp mop passed under the beds, chests of drawers, &c., &c., which will remove all the flue and dust, and prevent accumulation of dirt, so that the washing of boards will not be so often required during the winter. In summer, indeed, frequent washings refreshen the atmosphere, and are also beneficial in removing the collections of light dust which engender insects so difficult to get rid of. Upon the subject of wet boards, I believe that my dislike to great scrubbings was acquired in that cleanest of cities, Philadelphia; where, though American servants do not and will not work so hard as English servants, yet, because it was the custom of the place, they were, notwithstanding severe cold, everlastingly scrubbing the stairs during the months of December and January. Some years afterwards, at Rome, one of the dirtiest of cities, and in the middle of {7}summer, I recalled to mind, with a complacency I had never bestowed on them before, the scrubbing-brushes and the curd-white pails of Philadelphia, and marvelled, as every one must, that in wet and cold countries people wash their houses so much, and that, in hot and dry countries, they do not wash them at all. With regard to the ordinary expenses of housekeeping, the most important branch of domestic duty which devolves upon the mistress is, to estimate and keep an exact account of the expenditure of her family. She may make this a simple affair by first ascertaining the sum of money to be allotted to it, and then making such arrangements as will confine the expenses rigidly _within_ that sum. By keeping a strict account of every article for the first three months, and making a due allowance for casualties, she will be able to form an estimate for the year; and if she find she has exceeded in these three months the allotted sum, she must examine each article, and decide where she can best diminish the expense; and then, having this average to go by, she may calculate how much to allow each month for meat, bread, groceries, washing, and sundries. Having formed her plan, whatever excess circumstances may have required in one month, she must make up for in the next. I should not advise paying for everything at the moment, but rather once a week; for if a tradesman omit to keep an account of the money received for a particular article, he may, by mistake, make a charge for it, as something had upon trust. A weekly account has every advantage of ready money, and is a more convenient mode of payment. All tradesmen may be paid on a Monday morning, the bills receipted, endorsed, and put by in a portfolio or case (which should have the date of the year on the outside), and they can then be referred to as vouchers, or to refresh the memory as to the price of any particular article. It is a satisfaction, independently of the pecuniary benefit, for the head of a family to be able, at the end of the year, to account to herself for what she has done with her money. Having, in the arrangement of her house, and in the choice of her servants, kept in view the two main objects, namely, the comfort of her family, and the care of her purse, the young housekeeper ought to commence her career, by strictly adhering to order and regularity in the {8}performance of those duties which devolve peculiarly upon herself. If the mistress of a house be regular in the superintendence of her domestic affairs, if she proceed every day to each department at the appointed time, and never pass over any neglect, in such a manner as to give the servants an idea that it had escaped her observation; if, in short, she be regular herself, her servants must be so too, and she will find the business of housekeeping a matter of no difficulty, and of comparatively little labour. The comfort and respectability of a house depend, in a great degree, upon the servants. Clean, neatly-dressed, and well-behaved servants, always impress a visitor with a favourable idea of the mistress of a house; while it is scarcely possible not to be somewhat prejudiced against her, if they be the reverse. Servants who understand their work, and do it without being continually looked after, are invaluable; and, as regards wages, not to be compared with ignorant and incapable ones, who perform their services only as they are directed at every turn. A few pounds a year more to a good servant is not, therefore, a consideration; the addition in wages will occasion little additional cost; for, the bad servant consumes as much as the other, and she wastes or damages more. The hours of meals should vary as little as possible; particularly the first meal of the day; for the work may be said to commence immediately after breakfast, and when that takes place one hour only, after the usual time, the whole business of the house is retarded. In even the most regular families, the time of dining may unavoidably be postponed. But this should happen as seldom as possible: for if the dinner ordered for five, be kept waiting till half-past six, one day, and, perhaps, later still another day, the cook may be prevented from performing some other part of her work, for which she had allotted the time; she will naturally be dissatisfied in having to consume that time in watching over the dinner; and if the dinner upon which she has, perhaps, exerted her utmost skill, be spoiled by waiting, she may be excused if she reproach herself for having taken so much trouble in its preparation. If the trial of her patience and temper be repeated, she will soon take little interest in pleasing her employers; she will {9}take _her_ turn to be irregular, and that, perhaps, on some occasion when it may produce inconvenience to the family. Under such circumstances, it would be unreasonable to find fault with the cook, who would only be following the bad example of those whose duty it is to preserve regularity. Their hours for going to bed, and getting up, should be as early as other arrangements will permit. But, those ought to be so regulated as to make it unnecessary that the servants should be kept up late, except on extraordinary occasions. Late dinners have, in a great measure, done away with hot suppers. Where these are not eaten, the labours of the twenty-four hours may be ended by ten o'clock at night; and that is the latest hour at which the servants of a family of the middle rank, and of regular habits, ought to remain up. Some one of the family should see that fires have been put out, and doors and windows secured. The honesty of servants depends, principally, upon their bringing up. But it also depends much, with young servants especially, upon the temptations to be dishonest they may have had to contend with; and it is the duty of every master and mistress to put all such temptations out of their way, as much as possible. The practice of locking up does not, as a matter of course, imply _distrust_, but it denotes _care_; and surely carefulness is one of the first principles to impress upon the mind of a poor person. I would as scrupulously avoid anything which should lead a servant to imagine that a drawer or tea-chest was locked up from _her_, as I would avoid giving the same idea to an acquaintance; but it is a culpable practice to leave tea, sugar, wine, or other things, open at all times, or only now and then locked up. The _habit_ is bad; and it is the result, not of generosity, but of negligence; it is also a habit which cannot fail to excite, in the minds of experienced and well-disposed servants, feelings rather of contempt, than of respect for their employers; while to the young, and more particularly to those of unsettled principles, it is nothing less than a temptation to crime. Little pilferings at the tea-chest, perhaps, have been the beginning of that which has ended in depriving a poor girl of her character, and, consequently, of all chance of gaining her bread by honest means. To suspect servants of being disposed to be dishonest merely because they are servants, is as silly as it is unfeeling. I should {10}never hesitate to give my keys to a servant, when it happened to be inconvenient to me to leave company, any more than I should hesitate to entrust them to one of my own family; but such an act of confidence is far different in its effects, from that neglect which often proceeds from mere idleness, and, while it proclaims a disregard of the value of property, is the occasion of much waste, and, in the end, proves as ruinous to the employer as it is fatal in the way of example to servants. That "_servants are plagues_" may be the fact; but when the hardships which belong to the life of a maid-servant are taken into consideration, the wonder is, that they are not less obedient to the will of their employers, and more callous to their displeasure, than we really find them. It is too much the habit to regard servants as inferior beings, hired and paid to perform certain services, but whose feelings are unworthy of the consideration of those upon whom they wait, for whom they cook, and whom they enable to sit at their ease, or to go about, and take their pleasure. True, they are paid for what they do; but how paid? Not in a degree adequate to their services. The double or the treble of what they are paid, would not compensate us for the discomfort of having to work for ourselves. Yet, "they are _paid_ for it," is said in justification of unreasonable demands upon the time, strength, and patience of servants; when, in fact, the whole of the pay to a female servant consists of that food, without which she would be unable to work, and of a sum of money, barely sufficient to keep her clothed, which she is required to be, for the credit of the house she lives in. Ladies who shudder as they meet the cold air, in descending to their breakfast rooms, forget the sufferings of the female servant, who has, perhaps, gone to bed over-night exhausted by fatigue, but whose duty compels her to rise again, some hours before she is rested, to begin her work afresh, and to do over again all that had been done the day before. A lady who thinks her servant _sufficiently paid_ for all she endures, has never known what it is to get up in the dark of a cold winter morning, and to spend half-an-hour on her knees, labouring to produce a polish on the bars of a grate, which bars were burnt black yesterday, and will be burnt black again to-day. Such a lady has never suffered from the drudgery of a kitchen, not {11}from the scorching of a kitchen fire, either of which is sufficient to impair the constitution of any woman, independently of all that wearing of the spirits, which those exposed to such trials must experience. It is true, also, that it is by their own choice that servants go to service; they are not compelled to do so by any other law than that of necessity; but starvation is their only alternative; and we should think it hard to be reduced to the alternative of either starving to death, in the bloom of our youth, and of quitting a world which was made for us, as well as for our more fortunate fellow beings, or of yielding up the whole of our lives, to promote the ease of those who deem us amply rewarded, in being fed and clothed, and suffered to repose from toil, at those times only when their wants happen not to require our attention. The apprehension of lowering our dignity and encouraging disrespect, by giving way to familiarity with inferiors, is pleaded by some as an excuse for haughty and overbearing demeanour towards servants. But such as adopt that kind of demeanour are mistaken. There are few better judges of good breeding than servants. Their ideas upon this subject are not formed by rules, or by fashions; but they have generally, from observation, a remarkably correct knowledge both of what is due to themselves, and of what is most becoming to the dignity of their superiors. I have occasionally been astonished at the quickness with which a servant has made the discovery, that some upstart person, notwithstanding her lofty bearing, "was no lady." The behaviour which characterises such persons is more likely to give rise to contempt, in those who are beneath them, than any behaviour that is unaffectedly conciliating and kind. To be loved, and to be cheerfully served, is for those only who respect the feelings, and consult the comfort of their dependents; and, as a single trait is often sufficient to reveal the whole character, they will most assuredly be disappointed, who expect to meet with the qualities which conduce to the happiness of domestic life, in a woman who considers the feelings of a female servant as unworthy of the same consideration as that which she gives to the feelings of others of her own sex. With regard to the general character and merits of servants, nothing is more common than the remark, that {12}"servants are not so good as they used to be." This is surely an error. There cannot be a greater predisposition to misconduct in them now than formerly. It may be said, that there are more frequent instances of bad conduct; but this does not warrant the idea, that the servants of the present day have a degree of inborn viciousness from which those of times past were free. If all who rail at the negligences, the waste, the want of care, the dislike of work, and the liking for dress and for gadding, to which servants are as much addicted as their betters; if all such were themselves as free from fault as they would have their servants be, it would probably be found that the effect, what with precept and example combined, would be quite enough to banish this commonplace remark. The truth is, that the change which has taken place in the habits of the middle class, has produced a change, but a very natural change, in the habits of those of a more humble station. There exists now a greater degree of high living than formerly; and consequently, a want of frugality, a waste in all sorts of ways, formerly unknown. Persons of moderate income keep more company than persons of the same class used to keep; they imitate the late hours, and other fashionable habits which used to be reckoned among the privileges of their superiors in fortune, instead of wisely avoiding emulation in such things, and keeping to their own more simple, and less hazardous mode of life. What wonder, then, if we find the most humble copying those of the middling, when the middling are doing all they can to rival those of the highest rank. Servants were formerly more the object of care with their employers than they have been of late. When ladies gave a considerable portion of their time to domestic duties, and prided themselves on their skill in household matters, they were not above maintaining a certain degree of friendly intercourse with their servants. This afforded opportunities for giving good counsel, and for superintending their conduct, and was a more efficient check upon them than "a good scolding now and then," which many think better than "being always on the watch." In addressing myself to young persons, it may not be considered impertinent or foreign to the general purpose of this work, to offer a few remarks upon the subject of {13}company. I do not mean in respect to the selection of friends and acquaintance, or the _kind_ of visitors proper to be invited, but simply as to the mode of entertaining them, which must, necessarily, be a matter of importance in housekeeping, and, therefore, comes properly within the scope of domestic economy. It should be a rule, not to invite such visitors as cannot be entertained without trespassing on the comforts and conveniences of the family. True hospitality may be enjoyed without much ceremony, and may be practised in the plainest manner; but when efforts to entertain _company_ disturb the usual arrangements of a house, they are inconsistent with their object. Let nothing, therefore, be attempted which cannot be performed without difficulty; let nothing be provided which cannot be provided plentifully; let nothing which is necessary be wanting, and nothing produced which may seem to be out of place or uncalled for. Do nothing, in short, which you cannot really afford to do; and the result will be, that while you consult your own ease, you will, at the same time, ensure that freedom from restraint which contributes, more than all besides, to make visiting agreeable, and which never fails to create in your departing guest, those mixed feelings of regret at going, but of pleasure at the prospect of returning, which are amongst the most flattering acknowledgments that genuine hospitality can receive. {14}CHAPTER II. THE STORE ROOM. EVERY housekeeper knows the value of a good Store-room; for it seems to be little less essential than a good kitchen. Few modern town residences, except those for large establishments, have a store-room sufficiently large to answer all its purposes. In the country a good store-room is so indispensable that where there is none it ought to be built; it should be on the same floor with, and as near as possible to, the kitchen; and as this would be on the ground floor, it would be necessary to make a cellar underneath, or to raise the building a little distance from the ground, to prevent its being damp, above all things to be guarded against, in a place where stores are kept. It may, perhaps, be kept dry by flues from the kitchen fire; and this would be a saving of fuel and labour; but if not practicable, the room should have a fire-place. If it be sufficiently large, and there be no other place for the purpose, there might be a closet, or press, for household linen. This should always be kept in a dry situation, and in some houses a small room is fitted up, with closets or presses round it, some of these having shelves or drawers for linen, and others with hooks, for a variety of things belonging to a family; but in this room there ought to be a fire-place, unless it be aired by one adjoining. In the store-room, there should be a closet or shelves for china and glass, not in every-day use. But as these ought to be free from dust, open shelves would not be so desirable as a closet; and if expense is not of importance, glass doors would be the most convenient. Preserves and pickles require air; they will ferment if shut up, or the place very warm; and, therefore, open shelves are best for them; and they should be at a convenient distance from the ground, so as not to be out of sight, for they ought to be examined frequently, and the coverings dusted. For {15}bottles of green gooseberries, peas, or any kind of fruit preserved dry, without sugar, have shelves with holes in them, to turn the bottles with their necks downwards. This effectually excludes the air. A dresser is a convenience in a store-room; or a table in the middle of the room may answer the purpose; but in either of these, or at the bottom of the linen press, there should be drawers for dusters, tea-cloths, &c., &c., unless they be kept in the Pantry. There should be boxes for candles and soap, but as these smell, the store-boxes may be kept in a garret, or some dry place, and a smaller quantity in the store-room for immediate use. Late in the summer is the best time to provide the year's stock of candles and soap. Both are the better for being kept some time before they are used: and the latter should be cut in pieces the size required for the different household purposes, and left, before packed in the box, a few days exposed to the air; but not in a thorough draught, for that would cause the soap to crack. It is mismanagement to buy candles a few at a time, and soap just as it is wanted; and not good to buy cheap candles. The dearest articles are not always the best; but it is very certain that the best are the cheapest. Good candles afford more light than bad; and do not waste, particularly if they have been kept some time, even for a year. There ought to be a place in the store-room appropriated to groceries, for they, too, should be laid in, not oftener than two or three times a year. The price of starch varies with the price of flour; and, therefore, as it keeps well, a stock should be laid in when flour is at a low price. Rice keeps very well, and is useful in a family, particularly in the country, where new milk and eggs are plenty. We once kept a quantity more than three years, by spreading a well-aired linen sheet in a box, and folding it over the rice, the sheet lifted out on the floor, once in two or three months, and the rice spread about upon the sheet for a day or two. This had the effect of keeping away the weevil. Jars and canisters, with closely fitting lids, for tea, sugar, coffee, cocoa, mustard, pepper, spices, and such things, will last many years. By giving, in the course of the year, one or two large orders, to any respectable shop, and always to the same one, you may pretty well depend upon {16}being supplied with good articles; but not so, if you send here and there, and for small quantities at a time; besides the inconvenience of finding yourself, now and then, without the very thing which you want. To dispose of these things properly, they should be kept in a closet, some in earthen jars, others in tin or japan boxes; and the spices in little drawers very closely fitted. If drawers, which are preferable, they should be labelled. As it may be convenient sometimes to perform little culinary matters in the store-room, there should be a rolling pin, pasteboard, and pestle and mortar kept there, in addition to those of the kitchen, and on this account a small marble slab would be very useful, for making pastry in hot weather. The fire-place might have an oven attached to it; for though it would be imprudent to heat the store-room, on account of preserves, &c., it may be occasionally used, when there is more cooking than usual. Besides which, in the season for making preserves, a hot plate in the store-room would be found useful. Weights and scales of various sizes are absolutely necessary, that the housekeeper may be able to ascertain the weight of the largest joint of meat, as well as of the smallest quantity of spice. Care should be taken to keep these in good order.--A hanging shelf is also a good thing in a store-room. Here the flour-bin may find a place, if there be no other more suitable. A store-room of this description is not adapted for keeping fruit; it would be too warm, besides that the fruit might prove injurious to other stores, from the smell which it occasions. There are various methods of keeping apples through the winter; but scarcely any other will be found to succeed so well as that of making layers of fruit, and layers of perfectly fresh and dry straw, in hampers, boxes, or the corner of a dry room. The apples should be examined every now and then, the specked ones taken away for use, the others wiped, and covered up again. In hard frosts, windows that have no shutters could be covered with rugs, old carpet, or mats, and something of the same kind spread over the apples. When we were in America, we were surprised to find that our neighbours took so little care to preserve their apples, during the three months of unremitting hard frost, which occur in their winter season. They merely {17}laid their apples on the floor of a spare room, sometimes of the barn, or of an outhouse, each sort by itself, and then covered them with a linen sheet. The people told us that their apples never became frozen, and attributed this to the dryness of the atmosphere. Apples and pears may also be preserved in the following way. Gather them on a dry day: wipe, and roll them, singly, in very soft paper, then pack them in jars, each containing about a gallon. Put a cover on the jar, and cement it closely, so as to keep out the air; and place the jar in a dry cellar. When a jar is opened, the fruit will eat the better for being taken out of the paper, and exposed to the air of a warm room for two or three days. Large baking pears may be suspended by their stalks on lines, placed across near the ceiling of a room. There are many ways of preserving grapes; but the best way is, to gather them with about five or six inches of the branch to each bunch, to seal the end with common sealing wax, and hang them to lines in a dry room. Examine them frequently, and cut out the mouldy berries. Nuts of all kinds may be preserved in jars, the covers cemented, the jars in a dry cellar. In this short sketch of what a store-room ought to be, even in the plainest houses in the country, many things requisite to the fitting up of a complete one are omitted. But one thing more necessary to be observed than any other, must not be omitted; which is, that it must be always in order, and everything kept in its proper place, or the main object in having it will be defeated. A store-room out of order can be compared to nothing but a drawer in a state of confusion. A lady once dressing in haste, to keep an appointment for which she was already too late, needed the assistance of all about her, to aid in her search for different articles necessary to complete her toilet. I sought a pair of gloves, and discovered many single ones of various sorts and colours, but no two to form a perfect match. And with this ill success must have ended my labours, if the drawer had not been regularly _put to rights_: and by the time that scarfs were folded, ribands rolled, collars smoothed, and scissors disentangled from sewing silk, half a dozen gloves were paired. The saving of time occasioned by observing order, and the waste of time occasioned by want of order, are {18}incalculable. A general putting to rights, every now and then, does not answer the purpose, because, in that case, it is sure to happen that some things will find new places; and persons coming in a hurry be unable to find them. The mistress of a house, when she sends her servant or a child to a store-room, should be able to say precisely where what she wants may be found. Negligence, and its companion disorder, are the two demons of housekeeping. Once admit them, and, like the moth, they gradually but completely destroy. CHAPTER III. THE PANTRY. WHAT is commonly called the _Butler's Pantry_, does not of necessity imply the presence of a butler; nor does it require to be spacious, when the china and glass not in daily use are kept in the store-room. Where women servants only are kept, the care of the pantry belongs either to the parlourmaid or the housemaid, and the same servant usually performs the office of laying the cloth, and waiting at table: which is always done better by women than by men servants, except it be the higher order of men servants, those who are in the daily practice of it, and whose occupation is in the house. The same hands which, in the morning, rubbed down the horses, swept the stable, cleaned the harness, and blackened the shoes, seem unfit to be employed in placing dishes on the dining-table, folding up napkins, and handling tea-things. It is almost impossible that occupations so widely differing should be equally well suited to one and the same person. The employing of men servants in work which properly belongs to women is highly objectionable; and nothing renders travelling in the South of France and Italy so disagreeable as being waited on by men, acting as housemaids and chambermaids. If, indeed, men were employed to scrub the floor, wash the stone halls, and clean the dirty doorsteps in London, the lives of many female servants might be saved. But the more delicate {19}occupations, such as wiping glasses, trimming candles, and waiting in the parlour, seem more suitable for women. Some women servants, it is true, never learn to wait at table well; but, then, others are very expert at it. Short people are generally the most nimble, but it is desirable that the servant who waits at table be tall, for the convenience of setting on and taking off dishes; and it requires long arms to carry heavy mahogany trays. Practice is as necessary to good waiting as it is in any of the higher domestic occupations. The mistress, therefore, should require the same particularity in preparing the table, arranging the sideboard, and waiting at dinner, when her family dines alone, as she requires when there are visitors; because, in the latter case, an increase in number gives sufficient additional trouble to a servant, without her being thrown into confusion by having to do what she may have forgotten, from being out of practice. There is one item of expenditure in housekeeping which should not be too narrowly restricted, and that is the washing of table-cloths and napkins. The fineness is not so much a matter of consideration with me: neither should I desire a clean table-cloth every day, merely for the sake of the change; but, if at all soiled, I would rather not see it on the table again. It is a very neat practice to spread a napkin on the centre of the table, large or small according to the size of the latter, and to remove it with the meat. In Italy this napkin is clean every day, and I have seen it folded in a three-cornered shape, and then crimped at the edges with the thumb and finger, which, when the napkin was spread out, gave it a pretty appearance. It is also a neat practice to place the dessert on the table cloth, and a convenient one too, where there are few servants, because the cloth saves the table; and rubbing spots out of dining tables, day after day, seems waste of labour. But the cloth must be preserved from gravy spots, or it will disgrace the dessert. A baize between two cloths is sometimes used, and this, being rolled up with the upper cloth and removed with the dinner, leaves the under cloth for the dessert. A table cloth _once folded_ may be laid over the one which is spread, and then removed with the dinner. A table cloth press is a convenience. The fitting up of the pantry must, in a great measure, be {20}regulated by the style of the establishment, but, in any case, there should be a dresser, furnished with drawers, one for table cloths, napkins and mats (unless all these be kept in sideboard drawers); another for tea cloths, glass cloths, dusters, &c. &c., and another drawer lined with baize, for the plate which is in use. Plate-leathers, flannels and brushes, kept in a bag; and the cloths and brushes used in cleaning furniture, in another bag, to preserve them from dust. A small sink, with the water laid on, indispensable. There should also be a horse, or lines, for drying tea and glass cloths upon. China and glass, whether plain or of the finest kind, require to be kept equally clean; and the servant whose business this is ought to have soft cloths for the purpose. China should be washed in warm water, with a piece of flannel, and wiped with a clean and soft cloth, or it will look dull. Glass washed in cold water, drained nearly dry, and then wiped; if the cloth be not clean and dry, the glasses will not look clear. For cut glass a brush, because a cloth will not reach into the crevices to polish it; and dull looking salts, or other cut glass, spoil the appearance of a table. Wash lamps and lustres with soap and cold water. When looking glasses are become tarnished and dull, thump them over with a linen bag containing powdered blue, and wipe it off with a soft cloth. Paper trays are the best, considering the small difference in the price, compared with the great difference in the appearance: it would be better to save in many other things, than to hear tea-things, glasses, or snuffers, jingle on japan. Paper trays are very durable, if taken care of. They will seldom require washing; but when they do, the water should only be lukewarm, for if hot water be poured on them the paper will blister. Wipe clean with a wet cloth, and when dry, dust a little flour over, and wipe that off with a soft cloth. To prevent their being scratched, keep tea-boards and trays in green baize cases, under the dresser of the pantry, or, if convenient, hung against the wall, to be out of the way, when not in use. Plate, plain, handsome, old or new, looks badly, if not perfectly clean and polished. Washing is of great consequence; and if in cold soft water, wiped dry with a linen cloth, and then polished with leather, it will not want any other cleaning oftener than once a week. Unskilful {21}servants may do great injury by using improper things to polish plate, or by rubbing it too hard, for that may bend it. Plate should be kept covered up, when not in use, to preserve it from tarnish. Tea pots, coffee pots, sugar bowls, cream jugs, candlesticks, and all large things, each in a separate bag of cloth, baize, or leather; a lined basket for that which is in daily use, preserves it from scratches. Where there is neither butler, nor housekeeper, to take charge of it, the mistress of the house usually has the plate basket taken at night into her own room, or that of some one of the family, where it may, occasionally, be looked over and compared with the inventory, kept in the basket. If a spoon or any article be missing, it should be immediately inquired after; the effect of this will be that the servant who has the care of these things will take more care of them for the future. It has happened to us to have spoons found, at different times, in the pig-sty, which had been thrown out in the wash. If they had not been discovered there, the servant, who was only careless, might have been suspected of dishonesty. _To clean Plate._ Having ready two leathers, and a soft plate brush for crevices, and the plate being washed clean, which it always should be first, rub it with a mixture of prepared chalk, bought at the chemist's, and spirits of wine; let it dry, rub it off with flannel, and polish with leather. I find this the best way of all. Much of the labour necessary to keep tables in good order might be saved, if mats were used, when jugs of hot water are placed on the table; and, also, if the servant were brought to apply a duster, the instant any accident had occurred to cause a stain. For this purpose a clean and white duster should always be in readiness. Rosewood and all polished, japanned, or other ornamental furniture, is best _dusted_ with a silk handkerchief, and wiped with a soft leather. China and all ornaments dusted with clean leathers. So little furniture is now used which is not _French polished_, that I shall only give the plainest receipt I know of, for cleaning mahogany. Take out ink spots with salts of lemon; wet the spot with water, put on enough to cover it, let it be a quarter of an hour, and if not disappeared, put {22}a little more. Wash the table clean with stale beer, let it dry, then brush it well with a clean furniture brush. To polish it, use the following FURNITURE PASTE:--½ lb. beeswax, turpentine to moisten it, _or_ spirits of wine, melt it, stirring well, and put by in a jar for use. Rub some on with a soft cloth, rub it off directly, and polish with another soft cloth. Nothing betrays slovenliness and want of attention more than ill-used and badly cleaned knives and forks. Plate, glass and china, however common, may be made to answer every purpose; but knives and forks ought to be good in quality, or they soon wear out, and nothing looks so bad on a table as bad knives and forks, and when good they are so expensive that it is unpardonable not to take care of them. Carving knives are of great consequence; there should be a judicious assortment of them, to suit various joints, or different carvers, and particular attention paid to their cleaning and sharpening. When it can be done, knives and forks should be cleaned immediately after they have been used; but when not, they ought, if possible, to be dipped in warm (not hot) water, wiped dry, and laid by till the time of cleaning comes. After bath brick has been used, dip the handles into lukewarm water, or wipe them with a soaped flannel, and then with a dry soft cloth. Inexperienced men servants seldom _wipe_ knives and forks sufficiently; but it is next to impossible for a woman to clean them well, and it is a masculine occupation. To preserve those not in daily use from rust, rub with mutton fat, roll each one in brown paper, and keep in a dry place. A good knife-board indispensable; covered with leather saves the steel, but the knives not so sharp as if cleaned on a board, and bath brick. Both knives and forks are the better for being occasionally plunged into fresh fine earth, for a few minutes. It sweetens them. Knife-trays do not always have so much care as they ought to have. Out of sight when in the dining-room, they are often neglected in the pantry; but they ought to be as clean as the waiters on which glasses are handed. The tray made of basket work and lined with tin, is best; there should be a clean cloth spread in it, before it is brought into the parlour, and also one in the second tray to receive the knives and forks, as they are taken from the table. {23}CHAPTER IV. THE LARDER. A GOOD larder is essential to every house. It should have a free circulation of air through it, and not be exposed to the sun. If it can be so contrived, the larder ought to be near the kitchen, for the convenience of the cook. For a family of moderate style of living it need not be very roomy. There should be large and strong hooks for meat and poultry; a hanging shelf so placed as for the cook to reach it with ease; and a safe, either attached to the wall, or upon a stand, for dishes of cold meat, pastry, or anything which would be exposed to dust and flies on the shelf. Wire covers should be provided for this purpose, and in hot weather, when it may be necessary to place dishes of meat on a brick floor, these covers will be found to answer every purpose of a safe. There should be a pan, with a cover, for bread, another for butter, and one for cheese. A shelf for common earthenware bowls, dishes, &c., &c., &c. Cold meat, and all things left from the dinner, should be put away in common brown or yellow ware; there ought to be an ample supply of these. Tubs and pans for salted meat sometimes stand in the dairy, but it is not the proper place for them, for meat ought not to be kept in a dairy. Meat should be examined every day in cold, and oftener in warm weather, as it sometimes taints very soon. Scrape off the outside, if the least appearance of mould, on mutton, beef, or venison; and flour the scraped parts. By well peppering meat you may keep away flies, which cause so much destruction in a short time. But a very coarse cheese-cloth, wrapped round the joint, is more effectual, if the meat is to be dressed soon. Remove the kidneys, and all the suet, from loins which are wanted to hang long, in warm or close weather, and carefully wipe and flour that part of the meat. Before you put meat which is rather stale to the fire, wipe it with a cloth dipped in vinegar. A {24}joint of beef, mutton, or venison, may be saved by being wrapped in a cloth and buried, over night, in a hole dug in fresh mould. Neither veal, pork, or lamb should be kept long. Poultry and game keep for some length of time, if the weather be dry and cold, but if moist or warm, will be more liable to taint, than venison or any kind of meat, except veal. A piece of charcoal put inside of any kind of poultry will greatly assist to preserve it. Poultry should be picked, drawn and cropped. Do not wash, but wipe it clean, and sprinkle the parts most likely to taint with powdered loaf sugar, salt, and pepper. As I should reject the use of all chemical processes, for the preservation of meat, I do not recommend them to others. Frost has a great effect upon meat, poultry, and game. Some cooks will not be persuaded of the necessity for its being completely _thawed before it is put near the fire_; yet it neither roasts, boils, nor eats well, unless this be done. If slightly frozen, the meat may be recovered, by being five or six hours in the kitchen; _not_ near the fire. Another method is, to plunge a joint into a tub of _cold_ water, let it remain two or three hours, or even longer, and the ice will appear on the outside. Meat should be cooked immediately after it has been thawed, for it will keep no longer. If the tastes of all persons were simple and unvitiated, there would be little occasion for the cook's ingenuity to preserve meat after it has begun to putrefy. An objection to meat in that state, does not arise merely from distaste, but from a conviction of its being most unwholesome. There may have been a difference of opinion among the scientific upon this subject: but, it seems now to be generally considered by those who best understand such matters, that when meat has become poisonous to the air, it is no longer good and nutritious food. The fashion of eating meat _à la cannibale_, or half raw, being happily on the decline, we may now venture to express our dislike to eat things which are half decomposed, without incurring the charge of vulgarity. SALTING AND CURING MEAT. The Counties of England differ materially in their modes of curing bacon and pork; but the palm of excellency in {25}bacon has so long been decreed to Hampshire, that I shall give no other receipts for it, but such as are practised in that, and the adjoining counties. The best method of keeping, feeding, and killing pigs, is detailed in COBBETT's _Cottage Economy_; and there, also, will be found directions for salting and smoking the flitches, in the way commonly practised in the farm-houses in Hampshire. The _smoking_ of bacon is an important affair, and experience is requisite to give any thing like perfection in the art. The process should not be too slow nor too much hurried. The skin should be made of a dark brown colour, but not black; for by smoking the bacon till it becomes black, it will also be made hard, and cease to have any flavour but that of rust.--Before they are dressed, both bacon and hams require to be soaked in water; the former an hour or two, the latter, all night, or longer, if very dry. But, according to some, the best way to soak a ham is to bury it in the earth, for one, two, or three nights and days, according to its state of dryness. Meat will not take salt well either in frosty or in warm weather. Every thing depends upon the first rubbing; and the salt, or pickle, should not only be well rubbed in, but this is best done by a hard hand. The following general direction for salting meat may be relied on:--"6 lbs. of salt, 1 lb. of coarse sugar, and 4 oz. of saltpetre, boiled in 4 gallons of water, skimmed and allowed to cool, forms a very strong pickle, which will preserve any meat completely immersed in it. To effect this, which is essential, either a heavy board or flat stone must be laid upon the meat. The same pickle may be used repeatedly, provided it be boiled up occasionally with additional salt to restore its strength, diminished by the combination of part of the salt with the meat, and by the dilution of the pickle by the juices of the meat extracted. By boiling, the _albumen_, which would cause the pickle to spoil, is coagulated and rises in the form of scum, which must be carefully removed." It is a good practice to wash meat before it is salted. This is not generally done; but pieces of pork, and, more particularly, beef and tongues, should first lie in cold spring water, and then be well washed to cleanse them from all impurities, in order to ensure their being free from taint; after which, drain the meat, and it will take the salt much {26}quicker for the washing.--Examine it well; and be careful to take all the kernels out of beef. Some persons like salted meat to be red. For this purpose, saltpetre is necessary. Otherwise, the less use is made of it the better, as it tends to harden the meat. Sweet herbs, spices, and even garlic, may be rubbed into hams and tongues, with the pickle, according to taste. Bay salt gives a nice flavour. Sugar is generally used in curing hams, tongues and beef; for the two latter some recommend lump sugar, others treacle, to make the meat eat short. In cold weather salt should be warmed before the fire. Indeed, some use it quite hot. This causes it to penetrate more readily into the meat than it does when rendered hard and dry by frost. Salting troughs or tubs should be clean, and in an airy place. After meat of any kind has been once well rubbed, keep it covered close, not only with the lid of the vessel, but, in addition, with the thick folds of some woollen article, in order to exclude the air. This is recommended by good housekeepers; yet in Hampshire the trough is sometimes left uncovered, the flitches purposely exposed to the air. _To cure Bacon._ As soon as the hog is cut up, sprinkle salt thickly over the flitches, and let them lie on a brick floor all night. Then wipe the salt off, and lay them in a salting trough. For a large flitch of bacon, allow 2 gallons of salt, 1 lb. of bay salt, 4 cakes of salt prunella, a ¼ lb. of saltpetre, and 1 lb. of common moist sugar; divide this mixture into two parts; rub one half into it the first day, and rub it in _well_. The following day rub the other half in, and continue to rub and turn the flitch every day for three weeks. Then hang the flitches to drain, roll them in bran, and hang them to smoke, in a wood-fire chimney. The more quickly, in reason, they are smoked, the better the bacon will taste. _To cure a Ham._ Let a leg of pork hang for three days; then beat it with a rolling pin, and rub into it 1 oz. of saltpetre finely {27}powdered, and mixed with a small quantity of common salt; let it lie all night. Make the following pickle: a quart of stale strong beer, ½ lb. of bay salt, ½ lb. of common salt, and the same of brown sugar; boil this twenty minutes, then wipe the ham dry from the salt, and with a wooden ladle, pour the pickle, by degrees, and as hot as possible, over the ham; and as it cools, rub it well into every part. Rub and turn it every day, for a week; then hang it, a fortnight, in a wood-smoke chimney. When you take it down, sprinkle black pepper over the bone, and into the holes, to keep it safe from hoppers, and hang it up in a thick paper bag. _Another._ For one of 16 lb. weight. Rub the rind side of the ham with ¼ lb. of brown sugar, then rub it with 1 lb. of salt, and put it in the salting-pan, then rub a little of the sugar, and 1 oz. of saltpetre, and 1 oz. salt prunel, pounded, on the lean side, and press it down; in three days turn it and rub it well with the salt in the pan, then turn it in the pickle for three weeks; take it out, scrape it well, dry it with a clean cloth, rub it slightly with a little salt, and hang it up to dry. _Another._ Beat the ham well on the fleshy side with a rolling pin, then rub into it, on every part, 1 oz. of saltpetre, and let it lie one night. Then take a ½ pint of common salt, and a ¼ pint of bay salt, and 1 lb. of coarse sugar or treacle; mix these ingredients, and make them very hot in a stew-pan, and rub in well for an hour. Then take ½ a pint more of common salt and lay all over the ham, and let it lie on till it melts to brine; keep the ham in the pickle three weeks or a month, till you see it shrink. This is sufficient for a large ham. _Another, said to be equal to the Westphalian._ Rub a large fat ham well, with 2 oz. of pounded saltpetre, 1 oz. of bay salt, and a ¼ lb. of lump sugar: let it lie two days. Prepare a pickle as follows: boil in 2 quarts {28}of stale ale, 1 lb. of bay salt, 2 lb. of common salt, ¾ lb. of lump sugar, 2 oz. of salt prunella, 1 oz. of pounded black pepper, and ½ an oz. of cloves; boil this well, and pour it boiling hot over the ham. Rub and turn it every day for three weeks or a month; then smoke it for about a fortnight. _To cure a Mutton Ham._ A hind quarter must be cut into the shape of a ham: rub into it the following mixture: ¼ lb. saltpetre, ¼ lb. bay salt, 1 lb. common salt, and ¼ lb. loaf sugar; rub well, every other day, for a fortnight, then take it out, press it under a weight for one day, then hang it to smoke ten or fifteen days. It will require long soaking, if kept any length of time, before it is dressed. Boil very gently, three hours. It is eaten cut in slices, and these broiled for breakfast or lunch.--_Or_; the ham smoked longer, not boiled, but slices very thinly shaved to eat by way of relish at breakfast. _To pickle Pork._ For a hog of 10 score.--When it is quite cold, and cut up in pieces, have well mixed 2 gallons of common salt, and 1½ lb. of saltpetre; with this, rub well each piece of pork, and as you rub, pack it in a salting tub, and sprinkle salt between each layer. Put a heavy weight on the top of the cover, to prevent the meat's swimming. If kept close and tight in this way, it will keep for a year or two. _Leg of Pork._ Proceed as above, salt in proportion, but leave out the saltpetre if you choose. The hand and _spring_ also, in the same way--and a week sufficient for either. Rub and turn them every day. _Pig's Head_ in the same way, but it will require two weeks. _To pickle a Tongue._ Rub the tongue over with common salt; and cut a slit in the root, so that the salt may penetrate. Drain the tongue next day, and rub it over with 2 oz. of bay salt, {29}2 oz. of saltpetre, and 2 oz. of lump or coarse sugar, all mixed together. This pickle should be poured over the tongue, with a spoon, every day, as there will not be sufficient liquor to cover it. It will be ready to dress in three weeks or a month. _To salt Beef._ Be sure to take out the _kernels_, and also be sure to fill up the holes with salt, as well as those which the butcher's skewers have made. In frosty weather, take care that the meat be not frozen; also, to warm the salt before the fire, or in a frying pan. For a piece of 20 lb. weight.--Sprinkle the meat with salt, and let it lie twenty-four hours; then hang it up to drain. Take 1 oz. of saltpetre, a ½ oz. of salt prunella, a ¼ lb. of very coarse sugar, 6 oz. of common salt, all finely powdered, and rub it well into the beef. Rub and turn it every day. It will be ready to dress in ten days, but may be kept longer. _To salt a Round of Beef._ For one of 30 lb. weight.--Rub common salt well into it all over and in every part, cover it well with salt: rub it well next day, pouring the brine over the meat. Repeat this every day for a fortnight, when it will be ready. Let it drain for 15 minutes, when you are going to cook it. You may, if you wish it to look red, add 4 oz. salt prunel, and 1 lb. saltpetre to the pickle. _An Edge Bone._ To one of 10 or 12 lb. weight allow ¾ lb. of salt, and 1 oz. of moist sugar. Rub these well into the meat. Repeat the rubbing every day, turning the meat also, and it will be ready to dress in four or five days. _Tongue Beef._ After the tongues are taken out of the pickle, wash and wipe dry a piece of flank or brisket of beef; sprinkle with salt, and let it lie a night; then hang it to drain, rub in a {30}little fresh salt, and put the beef into the pickle; rub and turn it every day for three or four days, and it will be ready to dress, and if the pickle have been previously well prepared, will be found to have a very fine flavour. _To smoke Beef._ Cut a round into pieces of 5 lb. weight each, and salt them very well; when sufficiently salted, hang the pieces in a wood-smoke chimney to dry, and let them hang three or four weeks. This may be grated, for breakfast or luncheon. _Another._--Cut a leg of beef like a ham, and to one of 14 lb. make a pickle of 1 lb. salt, 1 lb. brown sugar, 1 oz. saltpetre, and 1 oz. bay salt. Rub and turn the ham every day for a month, then roll it in bran and smoke it. Hang it in a dry place. Broil it in slices. _To make pickle for Brawn._ To rather more than a sufficient quantity of water to cover it, put 7 or 8 handsful of bran, a few bay leaves, also salt enough to give a strong relish; boil this an hour and a half, then strain it. When cold, pour the pickle from the sediment into a pan, and put the meat into it. Any of these pickles may be used again. First boil it up and take off all the scum. ---- THE SEASONS FOR MEAT, POULTRY, GAME, AND VEGETABLES. IT is always the best plan to deal with a respectable butcher, and to keep to the same one. He will find his interest in providing his regular customers with good meat, and the _best_ is always the _cheapest_, even though it may cost a little more money. _Beef_ is best and cheapest from Michaelmas to Midsummer. _Veal_ is best and cheapest from March to July. _Mutton_ is best from Christmas to Midsummer. _Grass Lamb_ is best from Easter to June. _House Lamb_ comes in in February. _Poultry_ is in the greatest perfection, when it is in the greatest plenty, which it is about September. {31}_Chickens_ come in the beginning of April, but they may be had all the year round. _Fowls_ are dearest in April, May, and June, but they may be had all the year round, and are cheapest in September, October, and November. _Capons_ are finest at Christmas. _Poulards_, with _eggs_, come in in March. _Green Geese_ come in in March, and continue till September. _Geese_ are in full season in September, and continue till February. _Turkey Poults_ come in in April, and continue till June. _Turkeys_ are in season from September till March, and are cheapest in October and November. _Ducks_ are in season from June till February. _Wild Ducks_, _Widgeons_, _Teal_, _Plovers_, _Pintails_, _Larks_, _Snipes_, _Woodcocks_, from the end of October till the end of March. _Tame Pigeons_ are in season all the year, _Wild Pigeons_ from March till September. _Pea-Fowl_ (young ones) from January till June. _Partridges_ from 1st September till January. _Pheasants_ from 1st October till January. _Grouse_ from the 12th of August till Christmas, also _Black Cocks_ and _Grey Hens_. _Guinea Fowls_ from the end of January till May; their eggs are much more delicate than common ones. _Hares_ from September to March. _Leverets_ from March to September. _Rabbits_ all the year round. _Fish._ The seasons of Fish frequently vary; therefore the surest way to have it good is to confide in the honesty of respectable fishmongers; unless, indeed, you are well acquainted with the several sorts, and have frequent practice in the choosing of it. No fish when out of season can be wholesome food. _Turbot_ is in season from September to May. Fish of this kind do not all spawn at the same time; therefore, there are good as well as bad all the year round. The finest are brought from the Dutch coast. The belly of a Turbot {32}should be cream coloured, and upon pressing your finger on this part, it should spring up. A Turbot eats the better for being kept two or three days. Where there is any apprehension of its not keeping, a little salt may be sprinkled on it, and the fish hung in a cool dry place. _Salmon._--This favourite fish is the most unwholesome of all. It ought never to be eaten unless perfectly fresh, and in season. Salmon is in season from Christmas till September. The Severn Salmon, indeed, is in season in November, but it is then obtained only in small quantities. This, and the Thames Salmon, are considered the best. That which comes from Scotland, packed in ice, is not so good. _Salmon Peel_ are very nice flavoured, but much less rich than large Salmon; come in June. _Cod_ is in perfection at Christmas; but it comes in, generally, in October; in the months of February and March it is poor, but in April and May it becomes finer. The Dogger Bank Cod are considered the best. Good Cod fish are known by the yellow spots on a pure white skin. In cold weather they will keep a day or two. _Skate_, _Haddocks_, _Soles_, _Plaice_, and _Flounders_ are in season in January, as well as _Smelts_ and _Prawns_. In February, _Lobsters_ and _Herrings_ become more plentiful; _Haddocks_ not in such good flavour as they were. In March _Salmon_ becomes plentiful, but is still dear. And in this month the _John Dory_ comes in. In April _Smelts_ and _Whiting_ are plentiful; and _Mackerel_ and _Mullet_ come in; also river _Trout_. In May _Oysters_ go out of season, and _Cod_ becomes not so good; excepting these, all the fish that was in season at Christmas, is in perfection in this month. In June _Salmon_, _Turbot_, _Brill_, _Skate_, _Halibut_, _Lobsters_, _Crabs_, _Prawns_, _Soles_, _Eels_ and _Whiting_ are plentiful and cheap. Middling sized Lobsters are best, and must weigh heavy to be good. The best Crabs measure about eight inches across the shoulders. The silver eel is the best, and, next to that, the copper-brown backed eel. A humane method of putting this fish to death is to run a sharp-pointed skewer or fine knitting needle into the spinal marrow, through the back part of the skin, and life will instantly cease. In July fish of all sorts plentiful, except Oysters, and about at the cheapest. Cod not in much estimation. {33}In the months of August and September, particularly the former, fish is considered more decidedly unwholesome than at any other time of the year, and more especially in London. _Oysters_ come in, and _Turbot_ and _Salmon_ go out of season. In choosing Oysters, natives are best; they should be eaten as soon after they are opened as possible. There are various ways of _keeping_ and _feeding_ oysters, for which see Index. In October _Cod_ comes in good season, also _Haddocks_, _Brill_, _Tench_, and every sort of shell fish. In November most sorts of fish are to be got, but all are dear. _Oysters_ are excellent in this month. _Fresh Herrings_ from November to January. _River Eels_ all the year. _Red Mullet_ come in May. _Flounders_ and _Plaice_ in June. _Sprats_ beginning of November. _Gurnet_ is best in the spring. _Sturgeon_ in June. _Yarmouth Mackerel_ from May till August. _Vegetables._ _Artichokes_ are in season from July to October. _Jerusalem Artichokes_ from September till June. _Asparagus_, forced, may be obtained in January; the natural growth, it comes in about the middle of April, and continues through May, June, and July. _French Beans_, forced, may be obtained in February, of the natural growth, the beginning of July; and they continue in succession through August. _Red Beet_ is in season all the year. _Scotch Cale_ in November. _Brocoli_ in October. _Cabbage_ of most sorts in May, June, July, and August. _Cardoons_ from November till March. _Carrots_ come in in May. _Cauliflowers_, the beginning of June. _Celery_, the beginning of September. _Corn Salad_, in May. _Cucumbers_ may be forced as early as March; of their natural growth they come in July, and are plentiful in August and September. {34}_Endive_ comes in in June, and continues through the winter. _Leeks_ come in in September, and continue till the Spring. _Lettuce_, both the Coss and the Cabbage, come in about April, and continue to the end of August. _Onions_, for keeping, in August. _Parsley_, all the year. _Parsnips_ come in in October; but they are not good until the frost has touched them. _Peas_, the earliest forced, come in about the beginning of May; of their natural growth, about the beginning of June, and continue till the end of August. _Potatoes_, forced, in the beginning of March; and the earliest of natural growth in May. _Radishes_, about the beginning of March. _Small Salad_, in May and June; but may be had all the year. _Salsify_ and _Scorzonera_, in July and August. _Sea Kale_ may be found as early as December or January, but of the natural growth it comes in in April and May. _Eschalots_, for keeping, in August and three following months. _Spring Spinach_, in March, April, and three following months. _Winter Spinach_ from October through the winter. _Turnips_, of the garden, in May; but the field Turnips, which are best, in October. {35}CHAPTER V. THE KITCHEN. THE benefit of a good kitchen is well known to every housekeeper, but it is not every mistress that is aware of the importance of having a good cook. I have seen kitchens which, though fitted up with every convenience, and certainly at considerable expense, yet failed to send forth good dinners, merely because the lady of the house was not happy in her choice of a cook. I do not in the least admire gourmands, or gourmandism; and yet I would be more particular in selecting the servant who is to perform the business of preparing the food of the family, than I should deem it necessary to be in selecting any of the other servants. In large establishments there is a greater quantity of cookery to be performed, and, consequently, a greater quantity of waste is likely to be caused by unskilful cooks, than there can be in small families; but even in the latter considerable waste may be the consequence of saving a few pounds a year in the wages of a cook. An experienced cook knows the value of the articles submitted to her care; and she knows how to turn many things to account which a person unacquainted with cooking would throw away. A good cook knows how to convert the remains of one dinner into various dishes to form the greater part of another dinner; and she will, also, be more capable than the other of forwarding her mistress's charitable intentions; for her capability in cooking will enable her to take advantage of everything which can be spared from the consumption of the family, to be converted into nourishing food for the poor, for those of her own class who have not the comfort of a home such as she herself enjoys. The cook who knows how to preserve the pot-liquor of fresh meat to make soup, will, whenever she boils mutton, fowls, or rabbits, &c., &c., carefully scum it, and, by adding peas, other vegetables, or crusts of bread, and proper seasonings, make some tolerable soup for poor {36}people, out of materials which would otherwise be thrown away. To be a good cook she must take pleasure in her occupation; for the requisite painstaking cannot be expected from a person who dislikes the fire, or who entertains a disgust for the various processes necessary to convert meat into savoury dishes. But a cook who takes pride in sending a dinner well dressed to table, may be _depended upon_, and that is of great importance to the mistress of a house: for though Englishmen may not be such connoisseurs in eating as Frenchmen, I question whether French husbands are more dissatisfied with a badly-cooked dinner than English husbands are. Dr. KITCHENER observes, "God sends us victuals, but _who_ sends us cooks?" And the observation is not confined to the Doctor, for the walls of many a dining-room have echoed it, to the great discomfiture of the lady presiding at the head of the table. Ladies might, if they would, be obliged to confess that many ill humours had been occasioned by either under or over roasted meat, cold plates, or blunt knives; and perhaps these _are_ grounds for complaint. Of the same importance as the cooking is neatness in serving the dinner, for there is a vast difference in its appearance if neatly and properly arranged in hot dishes, the vegetables and sauces suitable to the meat, and _hot_--there is a vast difference between a dinner so served, and one a part of which is either too much or too little cooked, the meat parting from the bone in one case, or looking as if barely warmed through in the other case; the gravy chilled and turning to grease, some of the vegetables watery, and others crisped, while the edges of the dishes are slopped, and the block-tin covers look dull. A leg of mutton or piece of beef, either boiled or roasted--so commonly the dinner of a plain-living family--requires as much skill and nicety as the most complicated made dishes; and a plain dinner well cooked and served is as tempting to the appetite as it is creditable to the mistress of the house, who invariably suffers in the estimation of her guests for the want of ability in her servants. The elegance of the drawing-room they have just left is forgotten by those who are suffocating from the over-peppered soup; and the coldness of the plate on which is handed a piece of turbot bearing a reddish hue, may hold a place in the memory of a visitor, to {37}the total obliteration of the winning graces, and agreeable conversation, of the lady at the head of the table. It is impossible to give particular directions for fitting up a kitchen, because so much must depend upon the number of servants, and upon what is required in the way of cookery. It was the fashion formerly to adorn it with a quantity of copper saucepans, stewpans, &c., &c., very expensive, and troublesome to keep clean. Many of these articles, which were regularly scoured once a week, were not, perhaps, used once in the year. A young lady ought, if she has a good cook, to be guided by her, in some measure, in the purchase of kitchen utensils; for the accommodation of the cook, if she be a reasonable person, ought to be consulted. But, where there is no kitchen-maid to clean them, the fewer coppers and tins the better. It is the best plan to buy, at first, only just enough for use, and to replace these with new ones as they wear out; but all stewpans, saucepans, frying-pans, &c., &c., should be kept in good order--that is to say, clean and in good repair. Some of the best cooks say that iron and block tin answer every purpose. There is an useful, but somewhat expensive, article, called the _Bain-marie_, for heating made dishes and soups, and keeping them hot for any length of time, without over-cooking them. A _Bain-marie_ will be found very useful to persons who are in the habit of having made dishes. A _braising_ kettle and a _stock-pot_ also; and two or three cast-iron _Digesters_, of from one to two gallons, for soups and gravies. Saucepans should be washed and scoured as soon as possible after they have been used: wood ashes, or very fine sand, may be used. They should be rinsed in clean water, wiped dry (or they will rust), and then be turned down on a clean shelf. The upper rim may be kept bright, but it seems labour lost to scour that part where the fire reaches; besides which, the more they are scoured the more quickly they wear out. Copper utensils must be well tinned, or they become poisonous. Never allow anything to be put by in a copper vessel; but the fatal consequences of neglect in this particular are too well known for it to be necessary here to say much in the way of caution. The fire-place is a matter of great importance. I have not witnessed the operations of many of the steam cooking apparatuses, which the last thirty years have produced, but {38}the few I have seen do not give me satisfaction. It is certainly desirable that every _possible_ saving should be made in the consumption of coals; but it is _not possible_ to have cooking in perfection, without a proper degree of heat; and, as far as my observation has gone, meat cannot be well roasted unless before a good fire. I should save in many things rather than in coals; and am often puzzled to account for the false economy which leads persons to be sparing of their fuel, whilst they are lavish in other things infinitely less essential. A cook has many trials of her temper, but none so difficult to bear as the annoyance of a bad fire; for she cannot cook her dinner well, however much she may fret herself in the endeavour; and the waste caused by spoiling meat, fish, poultry, game, &c., is scarcely made up for by saving a few shillings in coals. "Economy in fuel" is so popular, that every species of invention is resorted to, in order to go without fire; and the price of coals is talked of in a fine drawing room, where the shivering guest turns, and often in vain, to seek comfort from the fire, which, alas! the brightly polished grate does not contain. The beauty of the cold marble structure which rises above it, and is reflected in the opposite mirror, is a poor compensation for the want of warmth. I advise young housekeepers to bear in mind, that of the many things which may be saved in a house, without lessening its comforts, firing is _not_ one. It is best to lay in coals in the month of August or September, to last until the spring. They should be of the best kind; paid for in ready money, to prevent an additional charge for credit. The first year of housekeeping will give a pretty correct average to go by: and then the consumption should be watched, but not too rigidly. To return to the fire-place.--Perhaps there is no apparatus more convenient for a family of moderate style of living than the common kitchen range, that which has a boiler for hot water on one side, and an oven on the other side. It is a great convenience to have a constant supply of hot water, and an advantage to possess the means of baking a pie, pudding, or cake; and this may always be done, when there is a large fire for boiling or roasting. There is a great difference in the construction of these little ovens. We have had several, and only three which {39}answered; and these were all, I believe, by different makers.--A _Hot plate_ is also an excellent thing, as it requires but little fire to keep it sufficiently hot for any thing requiring gradual cooking; and is convenient for making preserves, which should never be exposed to the fierceness of a fire. The charcoal stoves are useful, and so easily constructed that a kitchen should not be without one. There is a very nice thing, called a _Dutch Stove_, but I do not know whether it is much in use in England. On a rather solid frame-work, with four legs, about a foot from the ground, is raised a round brick-work, open at the top sufficiently deep to receive charcoal, and in the front, a little place to take out the ashes; on the top is a trivet, upon which the stew-pan, or preserving-pan, or whatever it may be, is placed. This is easily moved about, and in the summer could be placed anywhere in the cool, and would, therefore, be very convenient for making preserves.--Where there is much cooking, a _Steamer_ is convenient; it may be attached to the boiler of the range. I have seen lamb and mutton which had been steamed, and which in appearance was more delicate than when boiled, and equally well flavoured. But there is an _uncertainty_ in cooking meat by steam, and, besides, there is no liquor for soup. Puddings cook well by steam.--The _Jack_ is an article of great consequence, and also a troublesome one, being frequently out of repair. A _Bottle-jack_ answers very well for a small family; and where there is a good _meat screen_ (which is indispensable), a stout nail and a skein of worsted will, provided the cook be not called away from the kitchen, be found to answer the purpose of a spit. There are now so many excellent weighing-machines, of simple construction, that there ought to be one in every kitchen, to weigh joints of meat as they come from the butcher, and this will enable the cook to weigh flour, butter, sugar, spices, &c., &c. The cook should be allowed a sufficiency of kitchen cloths and brushes, suitable to her work. Plates and dishes will not look clear and bright unless rinsed in clean water, after they are washed, then drained, and wiped dry with a cloth which is not greasy. A handful of bran in the water will produce a fine polish on crockery ware. {40}As they do not cost much, there need be no hesitation to allow plenty of jelly-bags, straining cloths, tapes, &c. &c. These should be very clean, and scalded in hot water before they are used. There should be a table in the middle of the kitchen, or so situated as not to be exposed to a current of air, to arrange the dishes upon, that blunders may not be committed in placing them upon the dining-table. Much of the pleasure which the lady at the head of her table may feel at seeing her guests around her, is destroyed by the awkward mistakes of servants in waiting; who, when they discover that they have done wrong, frequently become too frightened and confused to repair the error they have committed. The cook in a small family should have charge of the beer; and where there are no men servants, it should be rather good than weak, for the better in quality, the more care will be taken of it. When more is drawn than is wanted, a burnt crust will keep it fresh from one meal to another, but for a longer time it should be put into a bottle, and corked close; it would be well for the cook to keep a few different sized bottles, so that the beer may not stand to become flat before she bottle it. A clock, in or near the kitchen, will tend to promote punctuality. But the lady herself should see to its being regulated, or this piece of furniture may do more harm than good. There is nothing fitter to be under lock and key than the clock, for, however true to time, when not interfered with, it is often made to bear false testimony. That good understanding which sometimes subsists between the clock and the cook, and which is brought about by the instrumentality of a broom-handle, or some such magic, should be noted by every prudent housekeeper as one of the things to be guarded against. The kitchen chimney should be frequently swept; besides which, the cook should, once or twice a week, sweep it as far as she can reach; for where there are large fires in old houses, accidents sometimes occur; and the falling of ever so little soot will sometimes spoil a dinner. Every lady ought to make a receipt-book for herself. Neither my receipts nor those of any cookery book can be supposed to give equal satisfaction to every palate. After {41}performing any piece of cookery according to the directions given in a book, a person of common intelligence would be able to discover whatever was displeasing to the taste, and easily alter the receipt, and so enter it in her own book that the cook could not err in following it. This plan would be found to save much trouble. As soon after breakfast as she conveniently can, the mistress of a house should repair to the kitchen; which ought to be swept, the fire-place cleaned, tea-kettles, coffee-pots, and anything else used in preparing the breakfast, put in their appropriate places, and the cook ready to receive her orders for the day. Without being parsimonious, the mistress should see, with her own eyes, every morning, whatever cold meat, remains of pastry, bread, butter, &c., &c., there may be in the larder, that she may be able to judge of the additional provision required. Having done that, she should proceed to the store-room, to give the cook, the housemaid, and others, such stores as they may require for the day. This will occupy but very little time, if done regularly every morning; and having done this, she should proceed to make her purchases at once, lest visitors, or any accidental circumstance, cause her to be late in her marketing, and so derange the regularity of the dinner hour, the servants' work, &c., &c. Many ladies, in consequence of their own ill health, or that of their children, are compelled to employ their servants to market for them; but when they can avoid doing so it is better. I do not say this from a suspicion that either tradespeople or servants are always likely to take advantage of an opportunity to impose upon their customers or their employers, but because this important part of household management ought to be conducted by some one of the family, who must necessarily be more interested in it than servants can be. Besides, more judgment is required in marketing than all servants possess. A servant, for instance, is sent to a fishmonger's for a certain quantity of fish, and she obeys the order given her and brings home the fish, but at a higher price, perhaps, than her mistress expected. Now if the lady had gone herself, and found that the weather, or any other circumstance, had raised the price of fish for that day, she would probably have made a less expensive one suit her purpose, or turned to the Butcher or Poulterer to supply her table. {42}Also it is a hindrance to a servant to be sent here and there during the early part of the day, not to mention the benefit which the lady of the house would derive by being compelled to be out of doors, and in exercise, for even a short time, every day. Although I like French cookery, I am not sufficiently acquainted with the interior of French kitchens to know whether we should improve in the fitting up of ours by imitating our neighbours. When I was abroad, and had opportunities of informing myself upon this subject, I had not the present work in contemplation. And though it is the object of travellers in general to inquire into almost every thing while passing through a foreign country, it happened once to me to meet with so much discouragement, when prying into the culinary department of a large Hotel in the south of France, that I hesitated to enter a foreign kitchen again. I was then on the way to Italy, and from what was afterwards told me respecting the kitchens of the latter country, I have reason to think that my resolution was not unwise, since, had it been overcome by fresh curiosity, I might have been induced to starve from too intimate knowledge of the mode in which the dishes of our table were prepared. We had, at the hotel I am speaking of, fared sumptuously for three days. There were, among other things, the finest poultry and the most delicate pastry imaginable. But some chicken broth was wanted for an invalid of our party, and the landlord suggested that if Mademoiselle would herself give directions to the cook, the broth might, perhaps, be the better made; and he went, accordingly, to announce my intended visit to the important person who commanded in the kitchen. Upon receiving intimation that all was ready, I descended, and was introduced to the said cook, who met me at the door of a large, lofty, vaulted apartment, the walls of which were black, not from any effect of antiquity, but from those of modern smoke, and decorated with a variety of copper utensils, all nearly as black on their outsides as the walls on which they hung. Of what hue their insides might be I did not ascertain; and, at the moment, my attention was suddenly diverted by the cook, who, begging me to be seated, placed a chair by the side of a large, wild-looking fire-place. I had not expected to see a tall, thin and bony, or a short and {43}fat woman, like the cook of an English kitchen; I imagined a man, somewhat advanced in age, and retaining some traces of the _ancien regime_, with large features and a small body, with grizzly and half-powdered hair, and, perhaps, a pigtail; at all events, with slippers down at heel, hands unclean, and a large snuff-box. It was, therefore, not without surprise that I found the very contrary of this in the personage who, dressed in a white apron, white sleeves, and white night cap of unexceptionable cleanness, and bowing with a grace that would have done credit to the most accomplished _petit maître_ of the last century, proceeded to relate how he had been instructed in the art of making chicken broth by an English _Miledi_, who in passing into Italy for the benefit of her health, had staid some weeks at the Hotel de l'Europe. His detail of the process of broth-making was minute, and no doubt scientific, but unhappily for the narrator, it was interrupted by his producing a delicate white fowl, which he without ceremony laid on the kitchen table, which stood in the middle of the room, and rivalled the very walls themselves in blackness. I was assured, by the first glance at this table, by reason of the fragments of fish, fowl, and pastry, strewed over it, that the same piece of furniture served every purpose of _chopping-block_ and _paste-board_. When, therefore, under these circumstances, I saw the preparation for the broth just going to commence, the exclamation of "Dirty pigs!" was making its way to my lips, and I, in order to avoid outraging the ears of French politeness, in the spot of all France most famous for the romantic, made the best of my way out of the kitchen, and endeavoured, when the next dinner-time arrived, to forget that I had ever seen it. Whenever afterwards the figure of this black table appeared to my fancy, like a spectre rising to warn me against tasteful and delicate looking _entremets_, I strove to forget the reality; but I never recovered the feeling of perfect security in what I was about to eat until the sea again rolled between me and the kitchen of the Hotel de l'Europe, and I again actually saw the clear bright fire, the whitened hearth, the yellow-ochred walls, the polished tins, the clean-scrubbed tables and chairs, and the white dresser cloths, of the kitchen, such as I had always been used to see at my own home. {44}CHAPTER VI. JOINTING, TRUSSING, AND CARVING. Below will be found the figures of the five larger animals, followed by a reference to each, by which the reader, who is not already experienced, may observe the names of all the principal joints, as well as the part of the animal from which the joint is cut. No book that I am acquainted with, except that of MRS. RUNDELL, has taken any notice of this subject, though it is a matter of considerable importance, and one as to which many a young housekeeper often wishes for information. _Venison._ [Illustration] 1. Shoulder. 2. Neck. 3. Haunch. 4. Breast. 5. Scrag. {45}_Beef._ [Illustration] 1. Sirloin. 2. Rump. 3. Edge Bone. 4. Buttock. 5. Mouse Buttock. 6. Leg. 7. Thick Flank. 8. Veiny Piece. 9. Thin Flank. 10. Fore Rib: 7 Ribs. 11. Middle Rib: 4 Ribs. 12. Chuck Rib: 2 Ribs. 13. Brisket. 14. Shoulder, or Leg of Mutton Piece. 15. Clod. 16. Neck, or Sticking Piece. 17. Shin. 18. Cheek. _Mutton._ [Illustration] 1. Leg. 2. Shoulder. 3. Loin, Best End. 4. Loin, Chump End. 5. Neck, Best End. 6. Breast. 7. Neck, Scrag End. _Note._ A Chine is two Loins; and a Saddle is two Loins, and two Necks of the Best End. {46}_Veal._ [Illustration] 1. Loin, Best End. 2. Fillet. 3. Loin, Chump End. 4. Hind Knuckle. 5. Neck, Best End. 6. Breast, Best End. 7. Blade Bone, or Oyster-part. 8. Fore Knuckle. 9. Breast, Brisket End. 10. Neck, Scrag End. _Pork._ [Illustration] 1. Leg. 2. Hind Loin. 3. Fore Loin. 4. Spare Rib. 5. Hand. 6. Belly or Spring. {47}_Cod's Head._--FIG. 1. [Illustration] _Cod's Head_ (_Fig. 1_) is a dish in carving which you have nothing to study beyond that preference for particular parts of the fish which some persons entertain. The solid parts are helped by cutting through with the fish trowel from _a_ to _b_ and from _c_ to _d_, and so on, from the jaw-bone to the further end of the shoulder. The _sound_ lies on the inside, and to obtain this, you must raise up the thin part of the fish, near the letter _e_.--This dish never looks so well as when served dry, and the fish on a napkin neatly folded, and garnished with sprigs of parsley. _Haunch of Venison._--FIG. 2. [Illustration] _Haunch of Venison_ is cut (as in _Fig. 2._) first in the line _a_ {48}to _b_. This first cut is the means of getting much of the gravy of the joint. Then turning the dish longwise towards him, the carver should put the knife in at _c_, and cut, as deep as the bone will allow, to _d_, and take out slices on either side of the line in this direction. The fat of venison becomes cold so very rapidly, that it is advisable, when convenient, to have some means of giving it renewed warmth after the joint comes to table. For this purpose, some use water plates, which have the effect of rendering the meat infinitely nicer than it would be in a half chilled state. _Haunch of Mutton_ is carved in the same way as _Venison_. _Saddle of Mutton._--FIG. 3. [Illustration] _Saddle of Mutton._ This is prepared for roasting as in _Fig. 3_, the _tail_ being split in two, each half twisted back, and skewered, with one of the kidneys enclosed. You carve this by cutting, in straight lines, on each side of the backbone, as from _a_ to_ b_, from _c_ to _d_. If the saddle be a fine one, there will be fat on every part of it; but there is always more on the sides (_ee_) than in the centre. {49}_Edge Bone of Beef._--FIG. 4. [Illustration] _Edge Bone of Beef_, like the Round of Beef, is easily carved. But care should be taken, with both of these, to carve neatly; for if the meat be cut in thick slices or in pieces of awkward shape, the effect will be both to cause waste and to render the dish, while it lasts, uninviting. Cut slices, as thin as you please, from _a_ to _b_ (_Fig. 4_). The best part of the fat will be found on one side of the meat, from about _c_ to _d_. The most delicate is at _c_. _Fore Quarter of Lamb._--FIG. 5. [Illustration] _Fore Quarter of Lamb_ is first to be cut so as to divide the _shoulder_ from the rest of the quarter, which is called {50}the _target_. For this purpose, put the fork firmly into the shoulder joint, and then cut underneath the blade-bone beginning at _a_ (_Fig. 5_), and continue all round in the direction of a circular line, and pretty close to the under part of the blade-bone. Some people like to cut the shoulder large, while others take off no more meat with it than is barely necessary to remove the blade-bone. It is most convenient to place the shoulder on a separate dish. This is carved in the same way as the shoulder of mutton. (See _Fig. 7_.) When the shoulder is removed, a lemon may be squeezed over that part of the remainder of the joint where the knife had passed: this gives a flavour to the meat which is generally approved.--Then, proceed to cut completely through from _b_ to _c_, following the line across the bones as cracked by the butcher; and this will divide the ribs (_d_) from the brisket (_e_). Tastes vary in giving preference to the ribs or to the brisket. _Leg of Mutton._--FIG. 6. [Illustration] _Leg of Mutton_, either boiled or roasted, is carved as in _Fig. 6_. You begin, by taking slices from the most meaty part, which is done by making cuts straight across the joint, and quite down to the bone (_a_, _b_), and thus continuing on towards the thick end, till you come to _c_, the _cramp-bone_ (or, as some call it, the _edge-bone_). Some {51}mutton is superfluously fat on every part of the leg. The most delicate fat, however, is always that which is attached to the outside, about the thick end. After cutting as above directed, turn the joint over, and cut longwise the leg, as with a haunch of venison (see _Fig. 1_). Some people like the _knuckle_, that part which lies to the right of _b_, though this is always the driest and the leanest. A few nice slices may be taken at _d_, by cutting across that end: these are not juicy, but the grain of the meat is fine; and here there is also some nice fat. _Shoulder of Mutton._--FIG. 7. [Illustration] _Shoulder of Mutton._--Cut first from _a_ to _b_ (_Fig. 7_) as deep as the bone will permit, and take out slices on each side of this line. Then cut in a line with and on both sides of the ridges of the blade-bone, which will be found running in the direction _c_ to _d_. The meat of this part is some of the most delicate, but there is not much of it. You may get some nice slices between _e_ and _f_, though these will sometimes be very fat. Turn the joint over, and take slices from the flat surface of the under part: these are the coarsest, yet some think the best.--In small families it is sometimes the practice to cut the under side while hot; this leaves the joint better looking for the next day. {52}_Ham._--FIG. 8. [Illustration] _Ham_ is generally cut by making a deep incision across the top of it, as from _a_ to _b_, and down to the bone. Those who like the _knuckle_ end, which is the most lean and dry, may cut towards _c_; but the prime part of the ham is that between _a_ and the thick end. Some prefer carving hams with a more slanting cut, beginning in a direction as from _a_ to _c_, and so continuing throughout to the thick end. The slanting mode is, however, apt to be very wasteful, unless the carver be careful not to take away too much fat in proportion to the lean. _Sucking Pig_ should always be cut up by the cook; at least, the principal parts should be divided before the dish is served. First, take off the _head_ immediately behind the ears: then cut the body in two, by carrying the knife quite through from the neck to the tail. The _legs_ and the _shoulders_ must next be removed from the sides, and each of them cut in two at their respective joints. The _sides_ may either be sent to table whole, or cut up: if the latter, separate the whole length of each side into three or four pieces. The _head_ should be split in two, and the lower jaws divided from the upper part of it; let the _ears_ be cut off. In serving, a neat cook will take care to arrange the different parts thus separated so that they may appear, upon the dish, as little uneven and confused as possible. The sides, whether whole or in several pieces, should be laid parallel with each other; the legs and {53}shoulders on the outer side of these, and opposite to the parts to which they have respectively belonged; and the portions of the head, and the ears, may be placed, some at one end, and some at the other end, or, as taste may suggest, at the sides of the dish. _Hare, or Rabbit, for Roasting._--FIG. 9. [Illustration] _Hare, or Rabbit, for Roasting_, is prepared for the spit as in _Fig. 9_.--To carve: begin by cutting through near to the back-bone, from _a_ to _b_; then make a corresponding cut on the other side of the back-bone; leaving the _back_ and the _head_ in one distinct piece. Cut off the _legs_ at the hip joint (_e_), and take off the _wing_ nearly as you would the wing of a bird, carrying the knife round the circular line (_c_). The _ribs_ are of little importance, as they are bare of meat. Divide the _back_ into three or four portions, as pointed out by the letters _f g h_. The _head_ is then to be cut off, and the lower jaws divided from the upper. By splitting the upper part of the head in the middle you have the _brains_, which are prized by epicures. The comparative goodness of different parts of a hare, will depend much on the age, and also upon the cooking. The back and the legs are always the best. The wing of a young hare is nice; but this is not so good in an old one, and particularly if it be not thoroughly well done. The carving of a _rabbit_ is pretty much the same as that of a hare: there is much less difficulty, however, with the former; and it would always save a good deal of trouble, as well as delay, if hares which are not quite young were sent to table already cut up. {54}_Rabbit, for Boiling._--FIG. 10. [Illustration] _Rabbit, for Boiling_, should be trussed, according to the newest fashion, as in _Fig. 10_. Cut off the _ears_ close to the head, and cut off the _feet_ at the foot-joint. Cut off the _tail_. Then make an incision on each side of the backbone, at the _rump-end_, about an inch and a half long. This will enable you to stretch the legs further towards the head. Bring the _wings_ as close to the body as you can, and bring the legs close to the outside of the wings. The _head_ should be bent round to one side, in order that, by running one skewer through the legs, wings and mouth, you may thus secure all and have the rabbit completely and compactly trussed. _Turkey, for Roasting._--FIG. 11. [Illustration] _Turkey for Roasting_, is sometimes trussed with the _feet_ on; and it is sometimes brought to table with the _head_ as {55}well as the feet. But such trussing is exceedingly ugly, and altogether unworthy of a good cook. The manner here described (see _Fig. 11_) is the most approved. If the breast-bone be sharp, it should be beaten down, to make the bird appear as plump as possible.--See _Carving_, in observations on _Fig. 15_. _Goose._--FIG. 12. [Illustration] _Goose._--For Carving, see observations on _Fig. 15_. _Fowls, for Roasting._ [Illustration: FIG. 13.] [Illustration: FIG. 14.] _Fowls, for Roasting._--The most modern way of trussing these is as in _Figs. 13_ and _14_. If it be but a chicken, or a small fowl, a single skewer through the wings, and the legs simply tied, as in _Fig. 14_, will be sufficient. But a large fowl is best kept in shape by the other method (_Fig. 13_).--See _Carving_, in observations on _Fig. 15_. {56}_Turkey or Fowl for Boiling._--FIG. 15. [Illustration] _Turkey or Fowl, for Boiling._--For boiling, turkeys and fowls should, according to the newest fashion, both be trussed in the same way. There is nothing peculiar in this way, excepting as to the legs, which are to be trussed _within the apron_. To do this, the cook must first cut off the feet, and then, putting her fingers into the inside of the fowl, separate the skin of the leg from the flesh, all the way to the extreme joint. The leg, being drawn back, will thus remain, as it were, in a bag, within the apron; and, if this be properly done, there need be no other break in the skin than what has been occasioned at the joint by cutting the feet. If it be a turkey, or a large fowl, the form may be better preserved, by putting a skewer through the legs as well as through the wings (_see Fig. 15_). But with small fowls there needs no skewer for the legs. All skewers used in trussing should be taken out before the dish comes to table. To carve fowls, turkeys, &c., see _Fig. 15_. Begin by taking off the _wings_, cutting from _a_ to _b_, _c_ to _d_. Next the _legs_, putting your knife in at _f f_. Then, if it be a large bird, you will help slices from the breast (_e e_). But with the smaller birds, as chickens, partridges, &c., a considerable portion of the breast should come off with the wing, and then there is not enough left to spare any thing more from the breast-bone. _The merry-thought_, situated at the point of the breast-bone, is taken off by cutting straight across at _h h_. In helping, recollect that the _liver-wing_ is {57}commonly thought more of than the other. The _breast-bone_ is divided from the back by simply cutting through the ribs on each side of the fowl. The _neck-bones_ are at _g g_; but for these see _Fig. 16_, and the directions for carving the _back_. _Back of a Fowl._--FIG. 16. [Illustration] Rest your knife firmly on the centre of the back, at the same time turning either end up with your fork, and this part will easily break in two at _a b_. The _side-bones_ are at _c d_; and to remove these, some people put the point of the knife in at midway the line, just opposite to _c d_; others at the rump end of the bones _e f_. The _neck-bones_ (at _g h_) are the most difficult part of the task. These must be taken off before the breast is divided from the back; they adhere very closely, and require the knife to be held firmly on the body of the fowl, while the fork is employed to twist them off. _Duck._--FIG. 17. [Illustration: _Breast._] [Illustration: _Back._] _Duck._--This should be trussed as in _Fig. 17_. The _leg_ is {58}twisted at the joint, and the _feet_ (with the _claws_ only cut off) are turned over, and so brought to lie flat on the rump.--For _Carving_, see observations on _Fig. 15_. _Pheasant._--FIG. 18. [Illustration] _Partridge._--FIG. 19. [Illustration] _Pheasant and Partridge._--These two are trussed nearly in one way, as in _Figs. 18_ and _19_, excepting, that the _legs_ of the partridge are raised, and tied together over the apron, crossing each other. For _Carving_, see observations on _Fig. 15_. {59}CHAPTER VII. BOILING. THERE is no branch of cookery which requires more nicety than plain boiling, though, from its simplicity, some cooks think it does not. They think that to put a piece of meat into water, and to make that boil for a given length of time, is all that is needful; but it is not so. To boil a leg of mutton, or a fowl, properly, requires as much care as to compound a made dish. Meat which is poor and tough cannot be made tender and fine flavoured by boiling; but that which was, to all appearance, very fine meat before it was put into the pot, has often been taken out really good for nothing. And many a Butcher and Poulterer have been blamed, when the fault was not theirs. Meat should be put into cold water, enough to keep it _well_ covered. The longer in reason it is coming to a boil, the better, as a gradual heating produces tenderness, and causes a separation from the meat of the grosser particles, which rise in the shape of scum to the surface, and which should be carefully taken off. The finest leg of mutton must be disgusting, if garnished with flakes of black scum. Care should be taken to watch the first moment of the scum's appearing in order to remove it, and then, by throwing in a little salt, the remainder will be caused to rise; and if the fast boiling of the water render the scumming difficult, pour in a very little cold water. The practice of boiling meat, such as poultry, veal, and lamb, in floured cloths, to keep it white, must have been the invention of lazy cooks, if not of tasteless and extravagant housewives; for the meat is rendered less juicy, and the liquor in which it has been boiled, so good for broth or gravy, must be lost. When the pot has been well scummed, and no more scum to be seen, set in such a situation on, or by, the fire, that it may continue to boil _gently_ and _regularly_, for the time required; and see that it do not stop boiling {60}altogether at one time, and then be hurried to a wallop at another time, for this dries up the juices, hardens the meat, and tears it. A kettle of boiling water should be at hand, in order to replenish the pot, as the quantity diminishes, taking heed not to exceed the original quantity, namely, enough to _cover_ the meat, for the less water, the better the broth will be. Salted meat, if very salt, and all smoked meat, should be washed, and in some cases, _soaked_ before it is boiled. If too little salted, it must not be either washed or scraped, and may be put on to boil in water a little heated, because a slow process would help to freshen it. No positive rule can be given for the time required to boil meat, any more than to roast, for much depends on its freshness, and a piece of _solid_ meat requires a longer time to boil than a joint of equal weight but of less thickness. Salted and smoked meat require longer boiling than fresh meat, veal longer than beef, mutton, or lamb; and pork, though ever so little salted, still longer than veal. A leg of mutton which has hung long will boil in less time than one which is quite or nearly fresh; but then the former ought not to be boiled at all, but roasted, for the fire takes away mustiness, and all the impurities with which the boiling water would only tend still more to impregnate the meat. A quarter of an hour, and a quart of water, to every pound of meat, is the rule of boiling, but practice must teach this, as well as many other important parts of culinary science. By a little care and attention, a cook will soon gain sufficient experience to preserve her from the risk of sending a joint to table too little, or too much done. When meat is sufficiently boiled, take it up directly; and if it have to wait, stand it over the pot it was cooked in, to keep it hot; remaining in the water will sodden it. The next thing for consideration, after that of cooking the meat properly, is the turning to account the liquor in which it is boiled. This, be the meat what it may, is good as a foundation for _Soups_ or _Gravies_ unless it be the liquor of ham or bacon, and that can only be used in small quantities, to flavour. The liquor of pork makes good pease soup. When such liquor is not wanted for the family, it may always, at a trifling expense, be converted {61}into wholesome and nourishing food for the poor. (_See cookery for the poor._) _Round of Beef._ If too large a joint to dress whole, for a small family, or where cold meat is not liked, it may be cut into two or even three pieces, taking care to give to each piece a due portion of fat; skewer it up tightly, of a good shape, then bind it with strong coarse tape, or strips of linen. The vessel roomy, the beef placed on a fish drainer (as should all large joints), and care taken to keep it covered with water. Three hours for a piece of 12 lbs. About three hours and a half to 16 lbs., and so on, in proportion. Put in carrots and turnips two hours after the meat. See that there be no scum left on, before you send it to table. Garnish with sliced carrots, and serve mashed turnips or greens, in a separate dish. Also dumplings, if approved. The whole round, if 30 lbs. weight, will require to boil five hours. But remember, that the _boiling_ should be only steady _simmering_. Place the vessel over the fire, that the water may come to a boil; then draw it to the side, and never let it cease to simmer. Have a kettle of boiling water by the side, to fill up with. _Edge Bone of Beef._ One of 20 lbs. weight will require to boil three hours and a half. One of 10 lbs. weight will be done in two hours. The soft fat is best hot, the hard fat cold. _Brisket of Beef._ This being a long, awkward joint, may be cut in two; it requires longer boiling than the edge bone; five hours not too much for a large piece. (See _Beef to Press._) For _Bouilli_ and other ways of cooking beef, see the _Index_. _Leg of Mutton._ This joint should be kept from two days to a week. Cut out the pipe, and carefully wipe the meat to clear it of all {62}mustiness. Chop but a very small piece off the shank. Boil carrots and turnips with it if you _like_, but the former will not improve the colour; and do not put them in before the pot has been carefully scummed. A leg of 9 lbs. will take three hours _slow_ boiling. Garnish with slices of carrot, or a rim of mashed turnip. Serve caper sauce in a boat. _Walnut_ also is good, in place of capers. If chickens or a fowl be wanted for the same dinner, they may boil in the same vessel with the mutton, but not with vegetables. The _broth_ will be better for this addition. If broth be wanted the same day, put into the water, as soon as it has been scummed, some barley or rice, and after it has boiled one hour and a half, lift out the mutton and place it by the fire, covered to keep warm; take the lid off the pot, and let it boil quickly till the liquor be reduced to the quantity you desire; put in turnips and carrots, in small pieces, a head of celery, and a little parsley; return the mutton, and boil it slowly half an hour.--A leg of mutton, if too large to cook at once, may be divided into two; roast the fillet and boil the shank. _Or_: you may take cutlets off the large end two days running, and then dress the shank.--Tongue is good with boiled mutton. _Neck of Mutton._ Should be very much trimmed of its fat, and, if from 3 to 5 lbs. weight, boil _slowly_ two hours; it will likewise make very good broth, as the leg. Garnish and serve in the same way.--Some do not cut off any of the fat, until after it is cooked, then pare it off, and put it by: this, shred finely, makes light pudding crust. _Leg of Lamb._ A delicate dish, if nicely boiled, served with parsley and butter, and garnished with sprigs of cauliflower, brocoli, or spinach. A dish of the latter should be served with it. (_See in the Index._) If small, the loin may be cut into steaks, fried, and placed round the leg, lightly garnished with crisped parsley; or they may be placed round mashed potatoes, in another dish. A leg of 5 lbs. should _simmer_ gently two hours, counting from the time it is first put on, in cold water. {63}_Calf's Head._ Wash it well in several waters, and soak it in warm water for a quarter of an hour, but first take the brains out, and having well washed, let them soak in cold water with a little salt for an hour. _Half_ the head (without the skin), will require _gentle_ boiling two hours; with the skin, another hour. Put it on in cold water. Boil 8 or 10 sage leaves, and the same quantity in bulk of parsley, half an hour, then drain, chop very fine, and spread them on a plate. Scald and peel the skin off the brains, put them into a saucepan with plenty of cold water: when it boils, carefully scum it, and let it boil gently fifteen minutes; chop the brains, but not very fine, and put them into a small saucepan with the parsley and sage, also 2 table-spoonsful of thin melted butter, a little salt, and, if you like, cayenne and lemon juice. Take the tongue out of the head, trim off the roots, skin and place it in the middle of a dish, the brains round it. Pour parsley and butter over the head, garnish with broiled rashers of bacon. Serve ham, bacon, or pork, and greens. Save a quart of the liquor to make sauce for the hash (_which see_). A very good sauce for this, eaten in France, is as follows: 2 table-spoonsful of chopped eschalots, 1 of parsley, 1 of tarragon and chervil, 1 of salt, a little pepper, 6 table-spoonsful of salad oil, 1 of vinegar: mix well together and serve cold. _Veal._ In some parts of England a boiled fillet is considered a delicacy. It should not be large. Stuff it the same as for roasting (_which see_), or with the forcemeat directed for boiled turkey. Serve white sauce, and garnish with slices of lemon and barberries.--The neck is good boiled, and eaten with parsley and butter. _Pork._ This must be exceedingly well done. Wash and scrape a leg, and let it lie in cold water a quarter of an hour to whiten; put it on to boil in cold water; do not let it boil fast, because the knuckle will be broken to pieces, before the thick part of the meat is done. Be careful to {64}take off all the scum, and let a leg of 7 lbs. weight simmer three hours. If to eat cold, do not cut it in the middle, because that will allow too much gravy to be lost, but cut from the knuckle, and it will eat more tender. Peas pudding with leg of pork, also parsnips, carrots, turnips or greens, and mashed potatoes. _Petit-Toes._ Put a thin slice of bacon at the bottom of a stew-pan, with a little broth or thin melted butter, a blade of mace, a few peppercorns, and a sprig of thyme; in this boil the feet, the heart, liver and lights, till tender; the three latter will be done first; take them out and mince them fine: put this mince and the feet into another saucepan with some good gravy thickened with butter rolled in flour, season with pepper, salt, and a small quantity of walnut and mushroom catsup; let it simmer five minutes. While this is cooking prepare some sippets of toasted bread, lay them round a dish, pour the mince and sauce into the middle, and having split the feet, lay them lightly on the top.--A little cream may be added. (_See to fry._) _Poultry._ Be careful in picking, that the skin be not broken. Some cooks wash poultry, but if wiping will be sufficient, it is best not washed. Chickens and fowls will keep two or three days, except in very hot weather. A fowl put on in cold water, should simmer by the side of the fire, from twenty-five minutes to half an hour. Some cooks boil a little fresh suet sliced, and also slices of lemon peel, with fowl. Some boil them in milk and water. The water must be well scummed. _Boiled Fowls_ with white sauce, or mushroom, oyster, celery, liver, or lemon sauce, or parsley and butter. A pretty remove of fish or soup, is, a small tongue in the centre, a boiled chicken on each side, and small heads of brocoli, with a few asparagus and French beans to fill the spaces. Serve any of the above sauces.--Always ham, bacon or tongue, and some sort of green vegetable, with fowl and turkey; chine with the latter. Garnish with slices of lemon. {65}_Ducks._ Choose fine fat ones. Some persons salt them slightly, for two days, others boil them without. Smother them with onions, or serve onion sauce. _Turkey._ Let it hang four days, and take care not to blacken it in singeing. It is usual to fill the crop of a turkey with forcemeat (_see forcemeats_), or with a stuffing of bread-crumbs, suet shred fine, a little parsley, thyme, and lemon peel, chopped fine, nutmeg, pepper, and salt, the whole mixed together by an egg. In America it is the practice to stuff turkeys with oysters chopped and mixed with bread-crumbs. About 4 would be sufficient. A large turkey, with the crop filled, requires two hours _slow_ boiling; not filled, half an hour less; and a small hen turkey an hour. Serve with oyster or celery sauce, and either chine, bacon or tongue. The forcemeat may be enriched by grated tongue or ham, chopped veal, an anchovy and a little bit of eschalot. (_See to hash, also grill._) _Rabbits._ A full-sized one will boil in half an hour; an old one above an hour. Some use _milk_ and water. Serve with onion sauce poured over; or a sauce made of melted butter, and the livers, previously boiled, and minced small, with a little parsley. Lay slices of lemon round the dish. Ham or Bacon. _Bacon_ Should be well washed and scraped, and old bacon soaked in cold water. After coming slowly to a boil, let a piece of 4 lbs. simmer by the fire two hours, if young and fresh cured, less time. Some cooks put fat bacon into hot water, and lean into cold. Take off the rind and set it before the fire to dry up the oozing fat. Strew bread-raspings over. _Ham._ The main thing to be attended to is the previous soaking, and the requisite time must be left to the discretion of the cook, for, whereas one night would be sufficient for a small {66}and tender ham, if very old and dry, less than four days and four nights will scarcely be enough. The water should be changed every day, and the night before it is boiled, scrape well, pour warm water over it, and trim off all the rusty, ill-looking, bits, then lay it in the water again. Scum the pot, and let the ham _simmer from three to five_ hours, according to its weight. When done, take the skin off gently, and after covering the ham with bread-raspings, set it before the fire, to crisp it. Twist writing paper round the shank, and garnish with greens, or little heaps of bread-raspings. The liquor, if well scummed at first, may be strained or put by, and if you boil fowls or veal on the following day, you may put the two liquors together, boil them rapidly down; add pepper, mace, eschalot, and a faggot of herbs, and you will have a highly relishing gravy. Some persons contend that the practice of boiling a ham until half cooked, and then finishing by _baking_ it, improves the flavour. (_See to bake meat._) _Tongue._ If you buy it salted, learn how long it has been in pickle, for according to that it must soak. If old and hard, twenty-four hours will not be too much. Have plenty of water, and let it be a full hour in coming to a boil; then _simmer gently_ for three hours; longer if very large. The root is an excellent ingredient for peas soup. _Tripe._ Cut in cutlets, or not, as you choose, and simmer it in milk and water till quite tender. Peel and boil a dozen button onions, put the tripe in a deep dish with some of the sauce, and the onions on the top; or you may boil it in plain water. Mustard sauce is good.--As all persons would not choose onions, you may serve onion sauce as directed for rabbits (_which see_). Serve rashers of bacon, if approved. _Cow-Heel._ When well boiled, cut into nice pieces, egg, bread crumb, and fry them of a light brown, and serve with fried onions or any piquant sauce. Is very good only boiled, and served with parsley and butter. {67}CHAPTER VIII. ROASTING. FOR roasting, meat should be kept longer than for boiling, or it will not, though ever so good, eat well. The proper length of time depends upon the state of the weather, and the age of the animal when killed, for young meat bears keeping less time than old meat. Two days of hot weather will do as much to render meat fit for the spit, as a week of cold weather. Next after the state of the meat, the thing of most consequence is preparing the fire, which ought to be made up (of the size required by the length and breadth of the joint) half an hour before the meat is put down. It should not at first be exposed to a fierce fire. Let there be a backing of wetted cinders or small coals: this tends to throw the heat in front; lay large coals on the top, smaller ones between the bars, give the fire time to draw, and it will be clear. Before you put down the meat, stir the fire, clear it at the bottom, and see that it be free from smoke in front. Some cooks make a practice of washing meat, with salt and water, then wiping it dry, before it is roasted. Where there is mustiness, or slimy appearance, it should be wiped off with a wet cloth, otherwise much washing is neither necessary nor beneficial. See that it be properly jointed; if there be too much fat, cut it off (it is better for puddings, in the shape of suet, than dripping); cover the meat with kitchen paper, _tied_ on with twine, and not fastened by _pins_; see also, that the spit be bright and clean, and take care to run it through the meat, in the right place, at once, for the more the meat is perforated, the greater chance will be given for the escape of the gravy. Great nicety is required in spitting, that the joint may be accurately balanced. In the absence of spits and smoke-jacks, a bottle-jack, or a stout nail with a strong string or skein of worsted, will {68}dangle a joint, and if the fire be made proportionably high to the length of the joint, there is no better mode of roasting. A strong skewer must be run in, at each end of the joint, in order to turn it. The larger the joint the greater distance it should, at first, be from the fire, that the outside may not be shrivelled up before the middle is warmed. A quarter of an hour to a pound of meat, is the rule for roasting, and it admits of the same exceptions as in the case of boiling, with this addition, that fat meat takes longer than lean meat, as do pork and veal longer than any other kind. Fillets and legs, on account of their solidness, longer than loins and breasts. Much depends upon the situation of the fire-place, and whether the joint be exposed to draughts of cold air, or whether it be preserved from them, and the fire assisted, by a meat screen. Where there is none, a contrivance must be resorted to, by way of substitute, such as small wooden horses, or chairs, with cloths hung over them; these will keep off the cold, but a meat screen, lined with tin, keeps in the heat, and acts as a reflector.--Twice, or if the roast be large, oftener, remove the pan, pour off the dripping (it ought to be strained), draw the spit to a distance, and stir the fire, bring forward the hot coals, and put fresh at the back. Be careful that cinders do not reach the dripping-pan, for the smoke which they cause to rise from the fat, gives a disagreeable flavour to the meat, besides the injury to the dripping. (_See Dripping._)--When the meat is nearly done, the steams will draw towards the fire; take the paper off, and move the joint nearer to the fire, particularly the ends, if they want more cooking; sprinkle salt lightly over the roast; then pour off all the remaining dripping, dredge flour _very lightly_ over the joint, and baste with a very little fresh butter, which will not injure the gravy in the pan, but give a delicate froth to the meat. To the gravy now flowing from the meat, the best addition is a teacupful of boiling water. (_See Gravies._) With a clear strong fire (and meat cannot be well roasted without a strong fire), time allowed for gradual cooking, a cook may ensure for her roasts that fine pale brown colour, to produce which is esteemed one of the greatest proofs of a cook's skill. {69}_Sirloin of Beef._ After reading the foregoing observations, the cook must gain, by observation and practice, that experience which will enable her to send this very best of joints to table, done enough, yet not overdone. A piece of 15 lbs. weight will require nearly four hours to cook it well: cover it with two half sheets of foolscap paper, and put it near to the fire for a few minutes; then rub it well over with butter, and draw it back to a distance (provided always that there is a very _good, steady_ fire); and in this case do not baste at all, but put some boiling water into the dripping-pan when you first put the meat down, and this, by the time the meat is done, will be good gravy, after you have poured the fat off. The older fashion is to baste with dripping as soon as you put it down, and continue the basting every quarter of an hour; but I think the other method gives the meat the most delicate taste and appearance. However, a cook should try both ways, and afterwards follow the one which best suits the taste of her employers. The old fashion of Yorkshire pudding with roast beef is too good a one to be abandoned, though its substitute of potatoe pudding is not to be rejected. Garnish with finely scraped horseradish.--Where cold roast beef is not liked, or if too underdone to eat cold, slices may be gently simmered over the fire in gravy or broth, or a very little water, and a little pepper and salt, eschalot vinegar, or some sort of catsup. The sirloin always came to table whole in the house in which I was brought up; therefore, I am able to give instructions for cooking it. No spit will carry round a whole sirloin; it must be _dangled_, and one which weighs (after great part of the suet has been taken out) 40 lbs. will roast in five hours, for it is no thicker than a piece of 10 lbs. weight. The fire must be large and high, the heat, of course, very great. Many a cook's complexion, to say nothing of her temper, has suffered in the cause of our "noble sirloins." If the inside, or tender-loin, be taken out leaving all the fat to roast with the joint, this part may be cooked to resemble hare. For this purpose, spread some hare stuffing over the beef, roll that up tightly with tape, and tie it on the spit. Send this to table with the sauces for roast hare. When the whole joint is roasted, the inside {70}will be sufficiently underdone to make hashes. If only a part of the sirloin be cooked, the inside is best eaten hot, as it is not so good cold as the upper side.--Roast beef bones should be taken care of, for soup and gravy, and used before they become musty. _Rump of Beef._ Roast in the same manner. _Half_ of this joint makes a nice family dish. Parboiled potatoes, browned in the dripping-pan are good. _Ribs of Beef._ Roasted the same as the sirloin. But it requires to be basted. Is a better joint to eat cold than sirloin. 15 or 20 lbs. weight, three hours or more, according to the size. Paper the fat and the thin part. Another way is to take out the bones, lay the meat flat, and beat it with a rolling pin; soak it in two thirds of vinegar and one of water, or, better still, white wine in place of vinegar, a night; next day cover it with a rich forcemeat, of veal, suet, grated ham, lemon peel, and mixed spices. Roll it tightly up, fasten with small skewers and tape, and roast it, basting constantly with butter, and serve with venison sauce.--_Or:_ you may take out the bones, roll the meat up like a fillet of veal, lard it, then roast and serve with tomata sauce. _Leg, Loin, Haunch, Saddle, and Shoulder of Mutton._ Cut out the pipe that runs along the back bone, wipe off all mustiness. Rather a _quick_ fire is required for mutton, particularly if it have been kept. Roast in the same manner as beef. Paper it, and baste every twenty minutes till the last half hour, when lightly sprinkle with salt, baste with _butter_, and dredge flour lightly over, and as soon as the froth rises, take it up. Onion, sweet sauce, or currant jelly, are eaten with mutton. Some think it an improvement to the _haunch_ and _saddle_ to take the skin off; to do this you must beat it well with a rolling pin, slip the skin with a sharp knife from the meat, and with a cloth pull it off nearly to the shank. Some put a thin paste over, as directed for venison, others paper only, and the latter is sufficient, if the cook baste enough, and do not let {71}it burn.--A good sauce for roast mutton is made by putting 2 glasses of port wine, 1 of Reading sauce, and a tea-spoonful of garlic vinegar into a small saucepan, and pouring the contents hot over the joint just before serving it. _Haunch of Mutton._ _To dress as Venison._--Keep it as long as you can, then rub with the following, and let it lie in it, thirty-six hours. Mix 2 oz. of coarse sugar, 1 oz. of salt, and ½ oz. of saltpetre. A taste somewhat peculiar to our house, and of American growth, is stewed cranberries, as sauce with roast mutton, and I recommend the trial to all who can procure good cranberries. Tomata sauce is also good with roast mutton. _Bullock's Heart._ Soak it well in lukewarm water to disgorge, dry and stuff the interior with a veal stuffing, and roast it two hours. _Calves'_ and _Sheep's_ heart the same. _Tongue._ Stick a fresh tongue all over with cloves, roast it, baste with butter, and serve with port wine sauce, and currant jelly. _Sucking Pig._ The age at which it ought to be killed is a matter of dispute; some say at twelve days old, others at three weeks; but all agree that the sooner it is cooked after, the better. After the inside is taken out, wash the pig well with cold water. Cut off the feet at the first joint, leaving the skin long enough to turn neatly over. Prepare a stuffing as follows: ½ oz. of mild sage, 2 onions, parboiled and chopped fine, a tea-cup full of grated bread crumbs, 2 oz. of good butter, and some pepper, cayenne and salt; put this into the pig, and carefully sew the slit up. Some cooks baste, at first, with salt and water, and then keep brushing the pig with a brush of feathers, dipped in salad oil. Others tie a piece of butter in muslin, and diligently rub the crackling with it; either is good. It should be dredged with flour, soon after it is put down, and the {72}rubbing with butter or oil never cease, or the skin will not be crisp. The fire should be brisk, and a pig iron used, or the pig will be unequally cooked, for the middle will be burnt up, before the two ends are done. A good-sized one will take two hours. A pig should never go whole to table. Take the spit from the fire, and place it across a dish, then with a sharp knife cut the head off, cut down the back, and slip the spit out. Lay it back to back in your dish, and the ears, one at each end, which ought to be quite crisp. For sauce, clear beef, or veal gravy, with a squeeze of lemon, and, if approved, the brains and liver, or a little of the stuffing out of the pig, mixed in it, also a very little finely chopped sage. Apple sauce and currant sauce are not yet out of fashion for roast pig. Chili or eschalot vinegar is an improvement to pig-sauce. The easiest way is to _bake it_. (See _Baking._) _Venison, Haunch or Shoulder._ This will hang three weeks with care, but must be watched. Wet it as little as possible; a damp cloth, only, should be used to cleanse it. Butter a sheet of kitchen paper, and tie it over the fat side of the joint, then lay over that a paste of about ½ an inch thick of flour and water; tie another sheet of paper over that, fasten all on firmly, and rub butter over the outside paper, that the fire may not catch it. Baste well, and keep up a strong clear fire. A haunch of from 20 to 25 lbs. weight, in a paste, will take from four to five hours, and not be overdone. Half an hour before it is ready take off the coverings, and put it nearer the fire to brown and froth. Baste with fresh butter, and lightly dredge it with flour. For sauce, currant jelly in heated port wine, in one boat, and clear drawn, unspiced gravy, in another. (_See Gravies._) Raspberry vinegar may be used in making sauce for venison. Some epicures like eschalots or small onions, served with venison, hare, or any meat, eaten with sweet sauce.--The shoulder, breast, and neck, are all roasted, but the two latter are best in pies; and if lean, may be used in soup.--Serve French beans, and currant jelly. _Fawn._ This should, like a sucking-pig, be dressed soon after it {73}is killed. When quite young, it is trussed and stuffed like hare. But it is best, when large enough, cut in quarters, and dressed like lamb. The hind quarter is the best. It may be half roasted, and then hashed like hare or venison.--_Or_: in pies the same as venison. It may also be baked. Venison sauce. _Veal_ Must have a strong and brisk fire. It must not only be _well done through_, but be of a nice brown. For the fillet a stuffing of forcemeat made thus: two parts of stale bread-crumbs, one part suet, marrow or fresh butter, a little parsley boiled for a minute and chopped fine, 2 tea-spoonsful of grated lemon peel, a little nutmeg, a very little cayenne and some salt, the whole to be worked to a proper consistence, with yolks of 2 or 3 eggs. Many things may be used in flavouring stuffing, such as grated ham, beef, sausages, pickled oysters, anchovy, sweet herbs, eschalots, mushrooms, truffles, morels, currie powder and cayenne. The fillet should be covered with paper, and securely fastened in a nice shape. Baste well, and half an hour before you take it up, remove the paper, and bring the meat nearer the fire, to brown it. Garnish with slices of lemon. When in the dish, pour some thin melted butter over it, to mix with its own gravy. A fillet of 15 lbs. weight will require 4 hours' roasting. Serve sausages, ham, or bacon, and greens. _Shoulder of Veal._ Stuff it, using more suet or butter than for the fillet. Serve and garnish the same. From three hours to three and a half. _Loin of Veal_ Must be well jointed. The kidney fat papered, or it will be lost. Toast half the round of a loaf, and place it in the dish under the kidney part, and serve and garnish the same as the fillet. About three hours. _Breast of Veal._ Keep it covered with the caul till nearly done, for that will preserve the meat from being scorched, and will also {74}enrich it.--From one hour and a half to two hours. Some put in a very delicate stuffing. _Neck, best end._ Two hours to roast. _Lamb._ Lamb must be young, to be good, and requires no keeping to make it tender. It is roasted in _quarters_, or _saddles_, _legs_, and _shoulders_; must be well done, but does not require a strong fire. Put oiled paper over a fore quarter. One of 10 lbs. weight will require two hours.--When the shoulder is removed, the carver ought to sprinkle some salt, squeeze ½ a lemon, and pour a little melted butter (it _may_ have finely chopped parsley in it), over the target, and then replace the shoulder for a few minutes.--Mint sauce; and garnish with crisp parsley, sprigs of parsley, sprigs of cauliflower, or alternate slices of lemon and sprigs of water cress.--Serve salad, spinach, French beans, cauliflower or green peas. (_See Sauces._) _Pork_ Requires a very strong fire, and must be well done. _Leg of Pork._ Make a slit in the shank, and put in a stuffing of mild sage, and parboiled onions, chopped fine, also pepper, salt, grated stale bread-crumbs, a piece of butter, a tea-spoonful of made mustard, and an egg to cement the whole, then sew it up. Rub the skin often all over with salad oil or fresh butter, while the roast is going on. The skin must be scored about twenty minutes after the pork is put down. A leg of 8 lbs. about three hours. Serve onion sauce, mustard, or apple sauce. (_See Sauces._) _Spare Rib._ When put to the fire, dust some flour over, and baste gently with some butter. Have some sage leaves dried and rubbed through a hair sieve, and about a quarter of an hour {75}before the meat is done, sprinkle this over it, just after the last basting with butter. Apple sauce; mashed potatoes. _Loin and Griskin._ Score the loin, and, if you like, stuff it as the leg, or mix powdered sage and finely-chopped onion with the basting. A loin of 5 lbs. two hours; if very fat, half an hour longer. A griskin of 7 or 8 lbs. one hour and a half. Either of these may be baked. Score the rind, rub over it well with butter or oil, and stand it in a common earthen dish, with potatoes peeled and cut in quarters; and, if you like, add some apples also, and two or three onions previously parboiled and cut up. Dress the pork round with these when you serve it. _Apples roasted_, and sent to table in their skins, are very good with pork. _Turkey._ It is not a good practice to wash poultry, only to wipe it out quite clean; but if it be _necessary_ to wash it, then dredge flour over before you put it down to the fire. A turkey ought to hang as long as the weather will allow. Take care, in drawing, not to break the gall bag, for no washing would cure the mischief. It is still the custom, in some counties, to send a roast turkey to table with its head on. Press down the breast-bone. Fill the craw with a stuffing as follows: a large cup of bread-crumbs, 2 oz. minced beef suet, a little parsley (always parboiled, as well as onions, for stuffings), a little grated lemon peel, two or three sprigs of thyme, some nutmeg, pepper and salt; mix the whole well, and cement it with an egg. Add, if you choose, parboiled oysters (a few), or a little grated ham. Do not stuff too full, and keep back some of the stuffing to make little balls, to fry and garnish with, unless you have sausages. Paper the breast. Score the gizzard, dip it in melted butter, and then in bread-crumbs, fix it under the pinion, cover it with buttered paper, and be sure that it has its share of basting, as well as the liver, which must be placed under the other pinion. The fire must be the same as for beef. Keep the turkey at a distance from the fire, at first, that the breast and legs may be done. A very large one will require three hours, and is never so good as a {76}moderate sized one, such as will roast in little more than one hour and a half. Dredge with flour, and baste with fresh butter, or wash it with salt butter. Half an hour before it is done, take off the paper, to let the turkey brown, and when the steam draws towards the fire, lightly dredge it with flour; then put a good sized piece of butter in the basting ladle, hold it over the turkey, and let it drop over it as it melts. This will give a finer froth than basting from the dripping-pan. Clear gravy in the dish, and more in a tureen, with egg, bread, or oyster sauce, in another. Chine and greens. _Capons and common Fowls._ Roasted the same as turkeys, and stuffed, if the size will admit. A large, full-grown fowl will take about one hour and a quarter; a chicken from thirty to forty minutes. The sauces for fowls are, gravy, parsley, and butter, either with or without the liver (roasted) chopped up in it, or mushroom, bread or egg sauce. Three or four slices of fat bacon, not too thick, may be attached by skewers to the breast of a fowl, and is an improvement to a large one. _Goose._ Well wash and dry it in a cloth; then stuff it with four onions, parboiled, a fourth of their bulk in sage, and half, or, if you like it, the whole of the liver; parboil these together slightly, and mix them with the crumb of a penny loaf and an egg. _Or_, prepare a stuffing of six good onions, two or three apples, and some sage; chop these together quite fine, season with pepper and salt, and warm it in a saucepan sufficient to half cook it. Put the stuffing in the goose, tie that tightly at both ends, when on the spit: keep it papered the first hour, and baste with a little dripping. Froth it the same as turkey. The fire must be kept brisk. A large goose will require two hours. Take it up before the breast falls. Its own gravy is not good. Serve a good gravy flavoured with port wine, or cider, and walnut catsup, also a table-spoonful of made mustard.--It is a good plan for the cook to cut up the goose, remove the joints separately on another _hot_ dish, then pour the gravy boiling hot over. This may not be fashionable, but it preserves the {77}goose from eating _greasy_, saves the lady of the house trouble, and insures its being hot when helped. Serve apple sauce.--Some persons like goose stuffed with potatoes, previously boiled, then mashed without butter, and well peppered and salted. _Green Geese_ Will roast in half an hour; are not stuffed. Put a good sized piece of butter inside, pepper and salt. Froth and brown nicely. Gooseberry sauce. _Ducks_ Will keep three days, but are better dressed the day they are killed. Ducks may be stuffed or not (the same as geese), according to taste. But if two are roasted, one may be stuffed, and the other merely seasoned inside, with pepper, salt, an eschalot, and cayenne, if liked. Serve green peas with ducks. From three quarters to an hour will roast them. Baste well, and give a good froth. (_See Sauces and Forcemeats._) Some persons squeeze a lemon over the breasts when dished. _Wild Ducks_ Take from twenty-five minutes to half an hour. Have a clear brisk fire. They are, generally, preferred underdone, but brown outside. Cut slices in the breast, and squeeze in lemon juice with cayenne; _or_ put an oz. of butter into a stew-pan with a little cayenne, the rind of an orange cut thin and previously blanched in boiling water, and the juice of a lemon; warm this over the fire, and when melted, but not oiled, pour it over the duck and serve. (_See Sauces._) _Pheasants, Partridges, Guinea and Pea-fowl_, Require a brisk fire. All are trussed in the same way, and the heads left on. Make a slit in the back of the neck to take out the craw; do not turn the head under the wing, but truss it like a fowl, and fasten the neck to its side with a skewer. Thirty minutes will roast a young pheasant, and forty or fifty minutes a full grown one. Good sized partridges take nearly as long. Baste with butter, and {78}froth them. Clear, well-flavoured gravy, in which there should be a tea-spoonful of the essence of ham. Also bread sauce. French cooks lard all these. (_See to Lard._) They also have a method of dressing them thus: lay slices of lemon over the breast, and upon these, slices of fat bacon, cover with paper, and roast them. Another way is to fill the bird with a delicate stuffing of veal, grated ham, lemon grated, and spice; then roast it. _Woodcocks, Snipes, and Ortolans_, Should be kept as long as they are good. Do not draw woodcocks, for the trail is considered a delicacy, nor cut off their heads. They should be tied to a bird spit, or dangled singly. The fire must be clear. Twenty or thirty minutes is enough for woodcocks, and less for the rest, in proportion to their size. Lay some slices of toasted bread, the crust cut off, in the dripping-pan, to dish them on. Serve melted butter. Garnish with slices of lemon.--In France they stuff woodcocks with truffles, and other things, then roast, or stew them. _Grouse, Black Game, Plovers, Rails, Quails, Widgeons and Teal_, Are roasted the same as partridges, the head of grouse twisted under the wing. Do not let them be over-done. A rich gravy, and bread sauce. Garnish with fried bread-crumbs. _Pigeons._ Clean them as soon as killed, and the sooner they are dressed the better. Wash them very well, stuff each with a piece of butter the size of an egg, a few bread-crumbs, a little parsley, and the liver chopped, if you like: season well with pepper and salt. Roast twenty-five or thirty minutes. Pour into the dish a little thin melted butter, with or without the parsley, to mix with their own gravy. Serve bread or rice sauce, or parsley and butter. They may be served on a thin toast. Wood-pigeons should hang till tender, then roasted and served in rich gravy. They require less roasting than tame pigeons. {79}_Larks, Wheat-ears, and other Small Birds._ Some of these are nice eating, particularly the _Wheat-ear_, which, from its superior flavour, has been called the English ortolan. A roast of small birds is so much the fashion in France, that you seldom travel many days together without finding it one of the principal dishes of the supper table. In the autumn, and, indeed, through the winter, you will constantly see a partridge, or a woodcock, served up in the midst of a numerous company of blackbirds, thrushes, larks, and a variety of such small birds; a truly "dainty dish to set before a king." This custom is remarkable because there is a comparative scarcity of small birds in France, whilst we in England are overstocked with them. The _sparrow-pudding_ is _known_ in many country places, but is not often seen. Indeed, in this land of beef and mutton, it would be hard if these little creatures could not be left to sing and build their nests in peace. With the French there is such an avidity for all sorts of small birds, that a string of them is one of the most ordinary articles in the larder. Nothing that flies in France above the order of humming-birds in its size, is too insignificant to come within the scope of the sportsman's ambition, and the purveyor's nets and springes. I am not sure whether our exquisite neighbours ever proceed so far as to devour sweet Philomel herself; but they certainly do what would be deemed still more shocking in England, making no exception in favour of that little bird, to injure which is here a sort of crime; they kill the robins and cook them by dozens at a time. The Forest of Ardennes abounds in them, and in the season the traveller may fare sumptuously upon these pretty little creatures, without being aware of what he is eating. Lovers of delicacies might find it worth their while to travel in the countries where the vine and the fig-tree abound. There the small birds feed and fatten on the grapes, even in the winter, for, long after the conclusion of the vintage, refuse grapes may always be found hanging. This food, so superior to our blackberries, hips and haws, may well cause the flavour of the birds to be in the highest perfection: for the fruit is so nutritious that the labouring people almost entirely live upon it through one whole season of the year. In Sicily the grapes will keep for months {80}after they are quite ripe, hanging on the vines in the open air. There is a little bird, about the size of the nightingale, called the _fig-pecker_, from its feeding upon the figs. This is one of the most prized delicacies of the south of France and Italy.--All the above-named birds require to be well cleaned. Then put them on a bird-spit or skewer, and tie that on another spit, or dangle it before the fire. Baste constantly with good butter, and strew sifted bread-crumbs over as they roast. French cooks generally put a thin small slice of bacon over the breast of each bird, bringing it over each wing. Fifteen minutes will roast them. Serve larks on bread-crumbs, and garnish with slices of lemon.--_Or_: dip the birds into a batter, then roll them in bread-crumbs. _Hare_ Should, unless a leveret, hang several days, to become tender. Cooks differ as to the proper method of keeping it. Some keep it unpaunched, while others see that it is paunched instantly, wiped clean and dry inside, and then let it hang as many as eight days. If really an _old_ hare, it should be made into soup at once, for it will never be tender enough to roast. The heart and liver should be taken out as soon as possible, washed, scraped, parboiled, and kept for the stuffing. Most cooks maintain the practice of soaking hares for two hours in water, but more are rendered dry and tasteless by this method than would be so naturally. A slit should be cut in the neck, to let the blood out, and the hare be washed in several different waters. Prepare a rich and relishing stuffing, as follows: the grated crumb of a penny loaf, a ¼ lb. beef suet, or 3 oz. of marrow, a small quantity of parsley and eschalot, a tea-spoonful of grated lemon-peel, the same of nutmeg, salt, pepper, and the liver chopped, mix all together with the yolk of an egg; and an anchovy, if approved; put it inside the hare, and sew it up. For basting, most cooks use milk and water till within twenty minutes, or thereabouts, of the hare being done, and then baste with butter. But a cook of ours, first basted it with milk and water, for about ten minutes, to draw away the blood, then with ale, and for the last half hour with fresh dripping, until about five minutes before the hare was taken up, when she basted with butter to give {81}a froth, having previously lightly floured it. Where cream and eggs abound, you may, after the hare has been basted with butter, empty the dripping pan, and baste with warm cream, and the yolk of an egg mixed in it. A good-sized hare will take one hour and a quarter to roast. Serve good gravy in a tureen, and currant jelly, or some piquant sauce. (_See Sauces._) Kid is dressed the same way. _Rabbit_ Is roasted in the same manner as hare; in addition to the stuffing, put three or four slices, cut very thin, of bacon. Liver sauce. CHAPTER IX. BAKING. SOME joints of meat bake to advantage. It is convenient, occasionally, to send the dinner out to be cooked, and the meat which suffers least from such cookery ought to be selected; veal is good baked, so is pork, a sucking pig, a goose, and a duck; but not mutton. Some pieces of beef bake well, with peeled potatoes under to catch the gravy, and brown. Some sorts of fish also bake well. (_See Fish in the Index._) _Breast, Loin, Fillet, or Shoulder of Veal._ The two last stuffed with forcemeat; put the joint on a stand in a deep baking dish, and stick bits of butter over the top. The heat of the oven strong, but not fierce. Baste often; when nearly done, sprinkle salt over, and ten minutes before it is taken out, dredge with flour. _Pig._ Put it in a shallow baking dish, wrap the ears and tail in buttered paper; send a good sized piece of butter tied in muslin, for the baker to rub over it frequently. _Goose and Duck._ Prepare as for roasting: put them on a stand, and turn {82}them when half done.--_Wild Goose_ the same, with a piece of suet inside. _Ham._ Boil it till half done, then cover it with a paste of flour and water, and set it in an oven, hot enough for bread, till you think it done. _Ox Cheek._ Cover with a strong seasoning of pepper, salt, and minced onion. Bake three or four hours, according to its size, then set it by till next day, take off the fat, and warm it as you want it. A _Shin of beef_ in the same way. _Hare and Rabbit._ Prepare as for roasting, and baste it constantly with butter. The stuffing should be rich. _A Fawn._ Put a caul over and set it in the oven; about a quarter of an hour before it is done, take off the caul and baste well with butter. It will bake in the same time that a pig requires. Meat pies require the oven to be as hot as for joints of meat, yet they should not be scorched. They also require time to soak through, or the meat will not be done. Fish pies require half an hour less baking than the same sized meat pies. Great nicety is required in baking fruit pies and light pastry. All these ought to be baked at home; when the precise heat of the oven, required, may be attained, which it rarely can be at the bakehouse. Pastry suffers, too, in being exposed to the air on its way to the oven; and it ought not to wait long before it is baked. _Pork._ Any joint will bake well. It must be scored. Rub it over with oil, or stick bits of butter all over it. Put it on a stand, and put peeled potatoes under it; also, you may put onions and apples. Sprinkle dry sage over, before you serve it. Stuff the pork, or not, as you choose. {83}CHAPTER X. BROILING. THIS is seldom excelled in, though it appears simple, and is of general utility; for few like to dine on cold meat, and none dislike a broil. There is no economy in broiling, but such meat, poultry, or game, as cannot be hashed with advantage, had best be broiled. The great art in broiling is to have a suitable fire. It must be strong, bright, and clear, and entirely free from smoke; if half burnt down, so much the better. Have two gridirons, one for meat and poultry, the other for fish. Those which hang before the fire are useful. A gridiron should be rubbed clean immediately after being used, not set aside with a particle of grease or soot attached to it. Just before you lay meat on, after you have made it hot, rub the gridiron with a piece of fresh suet, if for meat; if for fish, rub with chalk. A pair of steak-tongs is indispensable. Above all things, it is necessary that the broil be served immediately, closely covered on its way from the fire to the table, and that the plates and the dish be hot. _Beef Steaks._ These are eaten in perfection in England only, and, it is said, best in the Chop-houses in London, where daily practice makes the cooking perfect, and because in London the best beef may always be procured. No skill in broiling will render tough meat tender. Steaks are best from the middle of the rump (unless it be the under part of the sirloin), after the meat has been killed five days (if the weather permit), or even longer. They should be of about ¾ of an inch in thickness; beat them a very little. Sprinkle a little salt over the fire, lay the steaks on the hot gridiron, {84}turn them frequently, and when the fat blazes and smokes much, quickly remove the gridiron for an instant, till it be over, and the steak will be sufficiently done, in from ten to fifteen minutes. Have a hot dish by the side of the fire; and, to gratify the taste of some persons, rub it with a piece of eschalot; at all events let the dish be _hot_, and as you turn the steaks, if there be any gravy at the top, drop it into the dish. Before you dish them, put a piece of fresh butter, and a spoonful of catsup in the dish; then sprinkle the dish with a little salt, lay the steaks in the dish, and turn them once or twice, to express the gravy. Garnish with horse-radish, or pickles. Oyster, and many other sauces may be served; some beef steak eaters say that its own gravy, pepper and salt, are all that a good beef steak requires, unless it be a little sliced raw onion or tarragon; others like fried onions. _Beef Steaks, with Potatoes._ Beat them flat; season on both sides with pepper, salt, and such mixed spices as you choose; dip the steaks in melted butter, lay them on the gridiron, and broil them, as directed in the last receipt. Have a little finely-rubbed parsley, or chopped eschalot, a piece of butter, and some pepper and salt, in a hot dish; when the steaks are done, lay them in it, turn them once or twice, and arrange slices of potatoes fried, round them. _Or_: spread mashed potatoes quite hot in the dish, and lay the steaks on. _Blade bone of Veal._ Broil it till quite done. Serve it with stewed mushrooms, or a garnish of pickled mushrooms and slices of lemon. _Mutton and Lamb Chops, also Rabbit and Fowl cut up, Sweetbread and Kidneys._ These may all be broiled in the same way as plain beef steak. Take care that the fat which drops from mutton and lamb, does not smoke the chops; where there is danger, take off the gridiron, and hold it aslant over the fire. {85}Kidneys must, to prevent their curling, be stretched on a skewer. They may be dressed in a more savoury way, thus: dip them in egg, then in a mixture of bread-crumbs, and savoury herbs, before you put them on the gridiron. For mutton, a piece of butter in a hot dish, with a little catsup, is good sauce; but no catsup for lamb; cucumber sauce is better.--(_See Blade bone of Pork._) _Pork Chops_ Require a very strong fire, and more cooking than mutton, for they must be well done, about a quarter of an hour; cut them once to ascertain the state they are in. Mix in a _little_ gravy, rather thin than rich, a spoonful of made mustard; pour this quite hot, over the chops, in the dish, to mix with their own gravy; then strew over them a little dry sage, rubbed small, and some chopped eschalot. Pork chops may be dressed in a Dutch oven. _Blade bone of Pork._ Cut it with a small quantity of meat to it: lay it on the gridiron, and when nearly done, pepper and salt it well, then rub a piece of butter over, and serve it directly. Mutton in the same way. _Chickens and Pigeons._ After a chicken is picked, singed and washed, or wiped clean, truss, and lay it open, by splitting down the back; season the inside with pepper and salt, and lay that side on the gridiron, at a greater distance from the fire than you put a steak, for it will take longer to cook; at least half an hour is necessary for a good sized chicken. From time to time remove the chicken from the fire, and rub it over with a piece of butter, tied in muslin. Run a knife into the breast to ascertain if it be done. The gizzard should be scored, well seasoned, broiled and divided, to garnish the chicken, with the liver, and slices of lemon. Serve mushroom sauce or parsley and butter. You may egg the chicken and strew grated bread over it, and broil till it is of a fine brown; take care that the fleshy side is not {86}burnt. Pigeons are broiled in the same way, or may be done whole; in which case truss and put inside each a large piece of butter, pepper and salt, tie close at both ends, lay them on the gridiron, and turn them frequently. You may brush them with egg, and roll them in bread-crumbs and chopped parsley, with which mixture dredge them whilst broiling. Parsley and butter in the dish, with mushroom catsup, if you like. Stewed mushrooms are served with these, or pickled mushrooms as garnish. Chickens should be skinned before they are broiled for a sick person. _Partridges._ Prepare as above, and place them in a frying-pan in which you have melted a little very delicate dripping, or butter; let them stay ten minutes; turn them once, finish on the gridiron; this makes them more firm than they would otherwise be. Poor man's sauce (_see Sauces_) is good with all broiled birds. (_See in Index for Devils, also in Made Dishes, for Cutlets._) _Note._--_Sauce Robert_ is good with all broils. {87}CHAPTER XI. FRYING. NOT so difficult to _fry_ as it is to _broil_ well, and it is quite as good, for some things, but the fat must be good. Lard, butter, dripping, topfat (i.e. the cake of fat which is taken off soup or broth, when it has stood a night), oil, and suet, are all good for frying. If butter, suet and dripping be clarified, the pan will not be so apt to burn, and the fat will be more delicate. Housekeepers lose much of their credit by neglecting this, and similar niceties. The pan should be thick at the bottom: an oval shape is best, particularly for fish. The fire not fierce, as fat soon scorches, and the meat may be burnt, before it is half cooked; neither must it be too slack, for then the meat will be soddened; and if fish, of a bad colour, and not crisp. Ascertain the heat by throwing a bit of bread in; if the pan be too hot the bread will be burnt up. The fat in which veal, lamb or sweetbreads have been fried, will do for fish; let it stand to settle, then pour the top carefully from the sediment, and put it by. Fritters, pastry or sweet things, must be fried in good butter, lard or oil. Care is required to fry fish well, and is attainable only by practice. To ascertain the heat of the pan, dip the tail of the fish into the boiling fat, and if it crisps quickly, the pan is ready. Fries, as well as broils, served hot, as soon as off the fire, or they will be spoiled. _To Clarify Butter._ Cut in pieces, and put it into a jar: set that in a kettle of boiling water, to melt; skim carefully, take the jar out of the water, let the butter cool a little, then pour it gently off, keeping back the milky sediment. {88}_Suet._ Chop beef, mutton, or veal suet, take off all skin and fibrous parts, melt it _slowly_, as in the last receipt, or in a Dutch oven, before the fire. Strain, and pour it off: beef or mutton dripping may be done the same way, and is good for peas soup, and for plain pastry. For soup, it may be seasoned, after it is melted and strained. A piece of charcoal will remove a rancid taste, put into the melting fat, and stirred round a few minutes. Use butter or lard in frying white meat. _Beef Steaks and Mutton Chops_ Must be fried in butter. Steaks the size directed for broiling will be done in from ten to fifteen minutes. When nearly done, cover with a dish and let the pan remain five minutes by the fire, after you take it off. Then lay the steaks in a hot dish, and add to the gravy in the pan a piece of butter rolled in flour, a glass of port wine, or some catsup, a very little water, pepper, salt, a little minced eschalot or onion; let this boil, then pour it over the steaks. Garnish with horse-radish, and serve mashed potatoes and pickles. (_See Made Dishes, for Cutlets._) _Veal Cutlets_ May be cut from the fillet or the loin, ½ an inch thick: brush them over with egg, cover with bread-crumbs, and fry of a nice light brown, in a good deal of butter or lard. You may, if you choose, add to the bread-crumbs, a mixture of parsley, lemon thyme, lemon peel, and a little nutmeg and cayenne. When done place the cutlets in a hot dish, while you make some gravy in the pan; pour all the fat out, and pour in ¼ pint of boiling water, the same of melted butter, and let it boil till thickish, then add Harvey sauce, white wine, and any other sauce you like: strain this over the cutlets. Garnish with rashers of bacon, curled parsley, and slices of bacon. Cutlets, _without gravy_, may be served round mashed potatoes. _Lamb and Pork Chops._ Pork chops may be cut from neck or loin. Fry the same {89}as veal, either plain or egged. Garnish with slices of lemon, or crisped parsley. Pork chops, egged, are improved, to some persons' tastes, by a little finely chopped onion and sage. You may make a sauce thus: put the chops on a dish, keep hot while you pour part of the fat from the pan, stir in a tea-spoonful of flour, moisten ½ pint of water, or broth, a table-spoonful of vinegar, a little salt and pepper, and 6 small gherkins or slices (or _for lamb, pickled mushrooms_), put the chops back into the pan to re-warm in the sauce, and serve it altogether. You may add mustard to the sauce; also, chopped onions, for pork. If there be no herbs used before, you may sprinkle dried parsley over lamb chops in the dish; also, lemon peel. _Sausages._ Some suppose that these do not require fat to fry them. It should be butter or dripping, not lard (a little for beef or pork, more for veal), and sausages ought to cook slowly, that they may be done, without being scorched, and not burst. Prick them with a darning needle to prevent this, but gradual heating is the best preventative. Drain, _very_ lightly flour, and set them before the fire to froth. For dinner or supper, serve mashed potatoes with sausages. _Rabbits_ _Must_ be young, either tame or wild. Carve in joints, brush these with egg, and dip them in bread-crumbs, in which there may be, if you like it, some dried parsley, grated ham or lemon peel; fry nicely and serve with rashers; make some gravy in the pan as directed for veal cutlets. _Eggs with Ham or Bacon._ Soak the slices, of ham or bacon, in lukewarm water, and dry them in the folds of a cloth; and they will be less hard than fried bacon usually is. The pan used to fry eggs should be delicately clean. A good method is, to melt a little fat in the pan, pour that off, and then, whilst the pan is quite hot, rub it hard with a cloth. Let the bacon be nearly done, and if the fat be burnt, pour that off, and put in some fresh; then slip the eggs gently in. When they {90}are done lay the slices of bacon in a dish, trim the eggs, and lay them on the bacon. The eggs may be fried in one pan, and the bacon in another; some prefer the latter broiled. For breakfast, slices of ham or bacon should not be broiled or fried, but toasted before the fire. _Sweetbreads._ Parboil them while fresh, and then fry them in long slices, or whole, in plain butter; or else egged, covered with bread-crumbs, and seasoned with lemon peel, pepper, and a sprig of basil. Garnish with crisped parsley, and lemon sliced: serve on a toast, with either parsley and butter, or plain butter, and a very little walnut, mushroom or any other catsup. Garnish with small slices of crisped bacon. (_See Made Dishes._) _Ox, Calves', and Lamb's Liver, and Pig's Harslet_, Must be quite sound. Cut the liver in long thin slices, soak in water, then dry them in a cloth, flour, and season with pepper, salt, a little onion, or eschalot and sage, chopped fine. Fry the slices in butter or lard, of a light brown, and when nearly done, put into the pan some slices of bacon. When you take the liver and bacon out of the pan, pour in a tea-cupful of boiling water, dredge some flour in, let it boil up, and pour this gravy over the liver. You may fry a handful of parsley in the gravy. You may improve this gravy, by adding to it pepper, salt, a wineglass of vinegar, lump of sugar, and a tea-spoonful of made mustard. Garnish with crisped parsley; serve mashed potatoes, or better still, stewed cucumbers. Of the pig's harslet, the lights, sweetbread, and heart may be parboiled, cut up, and fried with the liver. _Or_:--After the fashion of _Herefordshire_, cut in slices, 2 inches thick, the liver, griskins, heart, kidney, lights, crow, and some fat of bacon; rub these slices well with a seasoning, composed of onions, apples, a _little_ sage, and plenty of pepper and salt; then put them on a small spit in alternate slices of lean and fat, cover all over with a pig's caul, and roast it three hours, or more, if the harslet be large. When done, remove the caul and pour a kettle of boiling water over. Make some gravy of the water that has been poured over, and flavour it with port wine, cyder, and walnut catsup. Serve apple sauce. _Harslet_ is {91}very good stewed in just enough water to make gravy, and seasoned well. A little cayenne. _Tripe._ Boiled tender, cut in long narrow slips, these dipped in a batter of egg and flour, and, if you like, a little minced onion and salt. Fry from seven to ten minutes, of a light brown. Serve, if approved of, onion sauce.--(_Cow-Heel the same._) _To Fry Parsley._ After it has been washed and picked, shake the parsley backwards and forwards in a cloth till dry; then put it into a pan of hot fat, and fry it quickly of a light brown; take it out with a slice the moment it is crisp--it will be spoiled if done too much. Lay it on a sieve before the fire. Herbs, lemon peel, and onions, must always be chopped fine before they are mixed with bread-crumbs to fry. _Or_: Spread it on paper in a Dutch oven before the fire, and turn it often till it is crisp. _To Fry Bread Sippets._ Cut a slice of bread about a ¼ inch thick, divide it into pieces of any shape you like. Make some fat quite hot, in the frying-pan, put in the sippets, and fry of a light brown; take them up with a slice, and drain them before the fire ten minutes. Take care the pan be not hot enough to burn. _To Fry Bread Crumbs._ The bread two days old: rub it into very smooth crumbs, put them into a stew-pan with some butter; set it near a moderate fire, and stir them constantly with a wooden spoon, till of a fine light brown; spread them on a sieve to drain, and stir occasionally. Serve with roasted sweetbreads, small birds, and game, if approved. (_See Made Dishes._) {92}CHAPTER XII. SOUPS AND BROTHS. THE prejudice against French soup, arising from a belief that it must be _maigre_, is as ridiculous as was the assuming that all Frenchmen are the small, thin, miserable looking creatures which they used to be represented in caricatures. Soup is nourishing, and also economical, as it converts into palatable food, the coarser parts of meat, all trimmings, and much that could not be cooked with effect in any other way. The French excel, merely because they take such pains in making soup, and not from the quality or quantity of their ingredients. A little meat with slow and regular boiling, will produce richer soup, than double the quantity, if the soup kettle be suffered to boil fast one quarter of an hour, and to stop boiling altogether the next quarter of an hour.--The fault most common in English soup is, the want of the juice of meat, caused by too quick and irregular boiling, to remedy which want, recourse is had to pepper, herbs, and wine. It is very easy to vary the _sort_ of soup, by making a good clear _stock_, or what the French call _bouillon_, and the next or following days, flavour it, or add vegetable ingredients to your taste. Soup made solely of brown meat or game, without vegetables, will keep better than that made of veal, fowl, any vegetable substance, or fish. As the French are great economists in their kitchens, and are most scientific cooks, it may not be amiss to recommend their practice. Read the directions for boiling meat, for they must be observed in the first process of soup making. Always use the softest water; and, as a general rule, give a quart to a pound of meat for soup, rather less for gravy. Place the soup-kettle over a moderate fire, that the meat may be gradually heated through, which will cause it to swell and become tender; also the water will penetrate into it, and {93}extract all the gross particles, which will then go off in scum. If it be suffered to boil up quickly, it will be just as if scorched before the fire, and will never yield any gravy.--After the soup has been near to a boil for half an hour, let it boil _gently_, to throw up the scum; remove that carefully, and when you think no more will appear, put in the vegetables and a little salt: these will cause more scum to rise; watch and take it off, then cover the pot close, and place it so, by the fire, that it may boil or _simmer_ gently, and not vary its rate of boiling. From four to six hours may be enough, but an hour more would not be too much, for the bare meat and vegetables; all flavouring ingredients should be allowed the shortest possible time, because their flavour evaporates in boiling. Great extravagance is often committed for the want of attention to this, for a larger quantity of costly ingredients is used, than need be if they were put in just at the proper time. It may be necessary to put in _some_ of these things earlier than others; but this must rest with the discretion of the cook. Remember that where catsup is used, care must be observed not to give so much salt as where there is none. If the soup waste much in boiling, add boiling water. Keep the lid close, and remove it as seldom as possible, because so much of the flavour escapes by that means. If the soup be over-watered, leave the lid half way off, that some of it may evaporate in steam. French cooks, I believe, invariably brown the meat and vegetables first, thus: put a good piece of butter in a stew or frying-pan, then the meat and vegetables and a little water (no seasoning), set it over a sharp fire, turn it frequently that none of it may burn, or the flavour will be spoiled; when it is all browned, put your quantity of water to it. The soup may, perhaps, have a finer flavour, but it will not be so clear, for after the meat has been fried the scum will not be extracted from it in boiling. Thickening may be made of bread-raspings. But that most commonly used, is flour rubbed in butter or fat skimmings. Flour or meal is coloured, spread on a plate, in a Dutch oven before the fire. Turn it with a spoon till it is of the colour you wish. Keep covered close, for use. Potato flour, a table-spoonful, mixed smooth in a cup of water, is a nice thickening. Barley and oatmeal, also Indian {94}corn meal, in the same quantity. Thickening should be put in after that scumming has taken place which the vegetables have made necessary. But the French mode of thickening soup is best of all. (_See Roux._) Some persons boil vegetables by themselves to a mash, and pulp them through a sieve into the soup. This helps to thicken it. The fatter the meat, the more of green vegetables, such as leeks and greens, may be used. Meat should not be very fat, nor yet all lean, for soup. No seasoning whatever, except salt, should be given to plain stock, if not to be eaten the day it is made. Thickened soup requires a greater quantity of flavouring ingredients than clear soup, as the thickening material absorbs a portion of the flavouring.--Take care not to over-season, for this is a common fault. Of wine, the quantity should not exceed a wine-glassful to a quart. The sort must depend upon taste, but claret is best for brown soup; Madeira for Mock Turtle; Brandy is used in soup, and so is lump sugar. Vegetable soup requires a little cayenne. Soup or stock to be eaten on the following day, should stand by the side of the fire a quarter of an hour to settle, before it is strained; the fat skimmed carefully off, and put by. Strain the stock into an unglazed vessel. In hot weather, let it stand in a cool place; if you wish to keep it three or four days, boil it up every day. When you rewarm it, take off the cake of fat at the top, and hold back the sediment. Be careful in warming soup, that it do not get smoked. Also remember that it should but just come to a boil, and be taken off the fire, for every bubble tends to flatten its flavour. When macaroni, or other paste, or any kind of green vegetable, is added at the time of re-warming the soup, of course time must be given for such addition to be cooked; it is best partly cooked by itself first. Ham is used for making stock; but except for ragouts, or sauces very highly flavoured, I should reject it. When cream is added, it must be boiled first, or it will curdle. Pour it in by degrees, stirring all the while. The French use earthenware soup-kettles, and some prefer them to the cast-iron digester, or stock-pot. Tammis cloths (bought at the oil shops) are better for straining than sieves. Never use stale meat for broth or soup. Vegetables as {95}fresh as possible. The older and drier the onion, the stronger its flavour. _Plain Stock._ Having read the foregoing directions, get a leg or shin of beef, break it in two or three places, wash it, and cut some nice pieces to eat. Cover with water, and boil it slowly. If you wish it to be very good, add an old fowl, rabbit, any trimmings of meat, or gizzards of poultry, or bones, but mind that whatever it be, it is quite fresh; take care that you take off the first scum as it rises, then put in salt, and a large carrot, a head of celery, two turnips, and two onions. Simmer this so gently as not to waste the liquor, from four to five hours, then strain as directed.--Rabbits are excellent in making stock. More onions may be used than I have given directions for in this receipt; indeed, where their flavour is not objected to, it is scarcely possible to use too many, for nothing enriches soup and gravy so much. The meat of shin of beef is excellent for your family dinner; before what is cut into smallish pieces are cooked too much, take them out and keep hot to serve with a little of the soup poured over, as sauce. Serve pickles. _Soup and Bouilli._ About 5 lbs. of fresh, juicy rump, or flank of beef, four quarts of water, let it come slowly to a boil, put in a heaped table-spoonful of salt, taking off all the scum carefully; put in three carrots, four turnips, two leeks, one head of celery, three onions (one burnt), three cloves in each, a small bunch of herbs; this should boil very gently five hours. All the vegetables cut or sliced. Some persons like a small cabbage cut up in this. Serve the bouilli garnished with the vegetables; put slices of bread in your tureen and pour the soup over, without straining. Tomata sauce is good with bouilli. _Good Plain Stock._ 7 lbs. of knuckle of veal cut in pieces, five inches in diameter, also ¾ lb. of lean ham, cut in dice, put ¼ lb. of butter into a stew-pan, turn it round, then put in the meat, two {96}onions, four cloves in each, a turnip, carrot, leek and a head of celery. Cover the pan and keep skimming its contents over a sharp fire, until there be a thick white glaze that will adhere to the spoon; then put in four quarts of soft water, and when coming to a boil, set it on one side of the fire, that it may _simmer_ for three hours. Skim off the fat, and strain it. _Very good Clear Gravy Soup._ First heat, then rub with a coarse cloth, a good-sized stew-pan or stock-pot, then rub the bottom and sides with a marrow, or a large piece of butter. Lay in about 6 or 7 lbs. of shin of beef chopped across, a knuckle or scrag of veal, four shanks or the knuckle part of a leg of mutton, and any trimmings of meat, game or poultry you have, a slice of carrot, a head of celery, two onions, two leeks, and turnip sliced, and two table-spoonsful of salt. Let this catch, not burn, over a rather brisk fire, and add five quarts of soft water. When it has been carefully scummed once, give it a pint of cold water, to throw up more scum. Simmer slowly full four hours. Place it by the side of the hearth to settle, skim off the fat, and strain it. Of this soup, which ought to be very clear, are made many sorts, on following days, thus:-- _Vermicelli._--Boil the quantity you wish to use, in a little water, till nearly cooked enough, then put it into the clear soup, when you put that on the fire to re-warm. _Brown thickening, which see, in the Index._ _Maccaroni Soup._--The same as the last, but do not make it too thick. Boil the maccaroni till rather more than three parts cooked, and put it into the soup to finish while that is heating. Cream is an improvement. Serve grated parmesan. _White thickening._ _Carrot or Turnip Soup._--Cut red carrots in thin strips, boil them till tender, and put them into clear soup, when it is rewarmed. _Or_: Boil six or eight carrots quite tender, then pulp them through a sieve into the soup. Scoop turnips into little balls, or cut them in any shapes you like, boil them till tender, and put into the soup. _Brown thickening._ _Celery and Asparagus Soup._--Cut these in pieces rather more than ½ an inch in length, and boil them gently, till {97}tender, then put them into clear gravy soup. Cream may be used if the thickening be white. _Julienne Soup._--Cut leeks and celery in squares, turnips and carrots in strips, boil them till tender, and put into clear brown soup. _Or_: Cut carrots and turnips in strips, put a large tea-cupful of these into a stewpan with ½ lb. of butter, and shake it over the fire till they are tender and look transparent, then pour in the stock; add young peas, two onions, two leeks, a small lettuce, some sorrel and chervil, all these cut small; simmer gently till the vegetables are cooked, then put in three lumps of sugar. _Clear Herb Soup._ Cut up what herbs you like the flavour of; also leeks, celery, carrots, turnips, cabbage, lettuce, and young onions, in preference to old ones, a handful of young peas, put the whole into boiling water, and give them just a scald. Drain them on a sieve, put them into some clear stock, and simmer slowly till the roots are tender. Season with salt, and a very little cayenne, if you choose. _A Clear Soup._ Cut 6 lbs. of gravy beef small, put it into a large stewpan, with two onions, a small carrot and turnip, a head of celery, a bunch of sweet herbs, and a pint of water. Stew slowly an hour, add nine pints of boiling water. Simmer it slowly six hours, strain, and let it stand till next day. Take off the fat, pour it from the sediment, and boil up with whatever flavouring ingredient you choose. This may be made _Julienne_ by putting in the mixture of vegetables as directed above. Also _Ox-tail_ by adding one to it. _Brown Soup._ Make this as clear gravy soup, and strain it. Then fry to a nice brown 2 lbs. rump steaks, cut in small pieces, drain them from the fat, and put them in the soup. Let them simmer an hour, add salt, pepper, and cayenne to taste, also a wine-glassful of any catsup you like, and when done, let it stand by the fire, to allow the fat to rise; take that off, and serve the soup with the steaks. {98}_Plain White Soup._ Soak a large knuckle of veal, put it into the soup-kettle with 2 fowls skinned, or a rabbit, ¼ lb. of lean undressed bacon or ham, a bunch of lemon thyme, 2 onions, 1 carrot, 1 turnip, a head of celery, a few white peppercorns, and 2 blades of mace, cover with water, and boil for two hours and a half, and strain. This should form a jelly. To re-warm it, take off the top fat, clear the soup from the sediment, and put it in a stewpan. Add vermicelli or maccaroni, previously boiled, till nearly done. _Another White Soup._ Fry 2½ lbs. veal, and ¼ lb. ham or bacon, with a faggot of herbs, 2 onions, a parsnip cut small, and a head of celery. When the gravy is drawn, pour upon it 2 quarts of water, and 2 quarts of skim milk. Boil it slowly an hour and a half. Add 2 table-spoonfuls of oatmeal, rubbed smooth in a tea-cupful of broth. Boil half an hour, then strain it into the tureen. _Cow heel_ and _calf's feet_ are good in making white soup; also rabbits, in place of fowls. When veal is dear, use lean beef. _Another with herbs._ Boil a quart of beef and a quart of veal stock together, with a table-spoonful of chopped tarragon, and one of chervil; when tender, have ready a coffee-cupful of cream and three eggs beaten together, stir them gently in, and keep stirring till cooked, but do not let it boil. _Lorraine Soup._ Blanch ½ lb. of sweet and 1 oz. bitter almonds, pound them in a mortar, with a very little water, to a paste. Take all the white part of a cold roast fowl, skin and mince it very fine, with the yolks of 3 hard-boiled eggs, and some fine bread-crumbs; put this into a pint of _plain white soup_, with a large piece of lemon peel, and a little mace and nutmeg; let it come to a boil, add a quart more of the same stock boiling hot, and after it has simmered a few minutes, strain the soup, and add, by degrees, a quart of cream which has been boiled. {99}_Onion Soup._ The number of onions must depend upon taste; if 10 or 12, chop and stew them, in a saucepan, with a good piece of butter; stew them gradually, and when done, add some good stock: salt, pepper, and cayenne, if the stock be not already seasoned. This may be strained, and a pint of boiling cream added, to make it more delicate.--_Another_: cut small silver onions in rings, fry them of a light colour, drain and cook them for twenty minutes in _clear gravy soup_. Serve toasted sippets. _Onion Soup Maigre._ Fry in clarified butter 12 large onions, 2 heads of celery, a large carrot and a turnip, all chopped. When soft, pulp them through a sieve, into 2 quarts of boiled water, thickened with 4 or 5 oz. of butter, worked up with potato flour, and seasoned with mace and white peppercorns, 2 lumps of sugar, or you may thicken with the beat yolks of 4 eggs. Bread sippets in the tureen. _Green Peas Soup._ An old-fashioned, but good receipt. Boil quite soft, 3 pints of green peas, and work them through a hair sieve. Put into the water in which the peas were boiled, 3 large slices of ham, a small knuckle of veal, a few beet leaves shred small, a turnip, 2 carrots, and a little more water. Boil an hour and a half. Then strain the liquor into a bowl, and mix it with the pulp. Put in a little juice of spinach, which is obtained by squeezing the spinach, after it has been boiled, through a cloth. This will give a good colour. Then give it a gentle boil, to take off the taste of the spinach, slice in the whitest part of a head of celery, and a lump of sugar the size of a walnut. Cut a slice of bread into little square pieces, a slice of bacon in the same manner, and fry together in fresh butter, of a light brown. Cut a large lettuce in slices, fry that, after the other, then put them all together into the tureen. Have ready boiled, a pint of young peas, put them also into the tureen, and pour the soup over.--Onions may be added if approved.--Serve toasted bread, and also dry powdered mint. {100}_Green Pea or Asparagus Soup._ Put 5 pints of peas, with ½ lb. of butter and ¼ lb. lean ham, in dice, into a stew-pan with two onions cut up and a little parsley, moisten it with water, and keep stirring or shaking over a sharp fire; when quite tender put in a thickening of flour rubbed smooth with water or broth, and having stirred that well in, add 3 quarts of any stock you have; whatever salt and pepper you think is required, also cayenne if you like, and 3 lumps of sugar: boil ten minutes and strain it. This may be served at once; or, after you have strained it, you may boil it up again with ½ pint of boiling milk, skim it, and serve on crisp sippets. _Asparagus_ the same way: keep back part of the heads, and boil them separately, not very tender, cut them in pointed pieces, and put into the strained soup. _Artichoke Soup._ Wash and peel 2 doz. Jerusalem artichokes, and cut them in thin slices. Put 2 large onions, 1 turnip, a head of celery, 2 bay leaves, a sprig of thyme, and 1 lb. of lean ham into a stew-pan, with ½ lb. butter, stir all the time, and let it fry over a slow fire 20 minutes; it will form a white glaze, then take it off, and put it all with the artichokes into a stew-pan with a pint of thin broth or soft water, and simmer it, till all the vegetables are quite tender, then put in 3 table-spoonsful of flour rubbed smooth with broth, mix well together; add 3 quarts of good stock and a pint of boiled milk, a tea-spoonful of salt, the same of sugar, let it just boil up, then strain it, and boil it up again with mushroom catsup, and a glass of white wine; and pour it over fried bread in the tureen. _A good Maigre Soup._ Melt slowly, in a stew-pan, ¾ lb. butter, put in a head of celery, 1 carrot, and 1 turnip sliced, shake them well and let them brown; add three quarts of boiling water, 1½ pint of young peas, and some black pepper; when these are done, let it settle, strain the soup into another stew-pan, leaving all sediment; put it on again with 3 large onions in slices, {101}another head of celery, and 3 turnips and carrots in pretty shapes. Boil slowly till done, then serve the soup. _Yellow Peas Soup_ Should soak the night before, and if old, again in the morning, in lukewarm water. Allow 1½ lb. to 4 quarts of soft water, with 3 lbs. of lean sinewy beef, or fresh trimmings of meat, poultry, or roast beef bones, a small piece of pickled pork, the shank of a bacon or mutton ham, or the root of a tongue a little salted, and soaked and washed; also 2 carrots, 2 turnips, and 6 rather small onions. Scum well, as soon as it boils, and stir the peas up from the bottom; add another quart of boiling water, or the liquor of any boiled meat. (Pot liquor should always be saved for peas soup.) Let it simmer till the peas will pulp. Then strain through a coarse sieve. Take the onions out from the pulp, and put the latter back into the soup, with a fresh head of celery, or a large tea-spoonful of celery seed, tied in muslin, and some salt and pepper. Simmer it, if thin, three-quarters of an hour, to thicken it; then put it into the tureen, let it stand covered a few minutes, and remove the fat which will have gathered on the top. Shake dried mint or parsley over the soup, and serve with dice of toasted bread.--This soup may be made in a very economical way, by the means of pot liquor, roast beef bones, fragments of meat, and fresh clarified dripping. The liquor in which a leg of pork has been boiled, should be saved for peas soup.--Very little pieces of boiled pork may be served in peas soup, also cucumbers cut and fried, or bacon cut and fried. A pickled herring is used to give flavour, when there is no pot liquor. Peas soup is very good quite maigre; the water must be soft, and the peas boiled long and slowly, before they are pulped. _Carrot Soup plain._ Scrape and wash six large carrots, and peel off the outsides quite thick; put these into a soup-kettle, with a large head of celery, an onion cut thin, two quarts of soft water, or pot liquor, and, if you have them, roast beef bones. After this has been boiled and scummed, set it by the fire, keep it close covered and simmer it gently two hours. {102}Strain through a sieve, and pulp the vegetables, with a wooden spoon, into a clean saucepan, and as much broth as will make it as thick as peas soup; season with salt and pepper. Make it hot, and send it to table. Add what spices you like. Serve toasted bread, either fried or plain.--_Celery_ and _Turnip_ soup the same way. When celery cannot be procured, the seed pounded fine, about ½ a drachm, put in a quarter of an hour, will give the flavour of two heads of celery. _Mock Turtle Soup._ Make it the day before it is wanted. Get a good sized calf's head, the skin on, scald and split it, take out the brains, and the bones of the nose, and lay it in lukewarm water to soak. Change the water often, to draw out the blood and slime. When the head is quite clean, put it into a stew-pan with rather more soft cold water than to cover it. Let it come to a boil rather quickly, and scum well. Then boil gently, rather more than half an hour. Take out the head, place it in a dish, and when cold, cut it into small neat pieces: skin the tongue, and cut it up. Keep the meat covered, and set it by till the next day. Put all the bones and refuse parts of the head into the soup-kettle, in the liquor in which it was boiled, with a knuckle of veal broken, and about 3 lbs. shin of beef, but the latter must be soaked first. Let this boil, then take off all the scum, and simmer it gently from four hours and a half to six hours, strain it into a pan, and set it by. When you want to make the soup, take off the cake of fat, and pour the stock into a large stew-pan, holding back the sediment; set it on the fire, let it come quickly to a boil, then throw in a little salt to facilitate the rising of whatever scum there may still be, and take this off. Put in from 10 to 12 sliced onions, browned in the frying-pan; also a few sprigs of fried sage, a few leaves of sweet basil, and the peel of a large lemon, not fried; a little cayenne, black pepper to your taste, a very little allspice, three blades of mace, some cloves, one eschalot, and the thickening; which latter may be of flour worked up in butter, or of brown _roux_ (which _see in the Index_). Let it simmer nearly two hours, or till it taste strong, and be of a good colour; pass it gently through a hair-sieve into another stew-pan, and put into that the cut {103}up pieces of head, and what wine you choose, Madeira, sherry, or claret, about a wine-glassful of either of the two former, to a quart of soup. When the meat is tender, the soup is done, and from half to three-quarters of an hour ought to cook it. Have ready 12 each of forcemeat and egg balls to serve in the tureen. _Forcemeat balls_ are made of veal or fowl, suet and parsley, all minced very fine, mixed with bread-crumbs, salt, pepper, cayenne, lemon-peel, nutmeg, and allspice, and wetted with yoke of egg, to make up into balls. Fry of a light brown, and lay them in a small sieve to drain before you put them in the tureen. _Egg balls_ are eggs boiled hard, the yoke taken from the white and pounded well in a mortar, a little salt added, and as much raw yolk of egg and flour as will bind these into balls, not bigger than a marble. Put them into the soup soon enough to cook them. Before you serve the soup, squeeze the juice of a lemon into the tureen. Some persons put ox palates, in slices, in mock turtle; pickled cucumbers cut very thin may also be an improvement. The above is not an expensive receipt, though, perhaps, quite rich enough. _Cheaper Mock Turtle_ may be made of cow-heels or calf's feet, stewed gently, strained, and the liquor added to plain stock of beef, an onion, and what herbs and other seasonings you like. Cut up the feet, and put them into the soup, just before you serve it. Add lemon juice and wine, if you like. _Hare Soup._ The hare must be quite fresh. Cut it up (washed, but not soaked), put it in a stewpan, with six middling-sized onions (two burnt), two bay leaves, a blade of mace, three cloves, a bunch of parsley, a little sweet basil, thyme, and celery, also a little broth, plain stock, or, if you have neither, soft water, to cover the meat. If you desire it to be very good, add 1 lb. of gravy beef, notched and browned first; when it has come to a boil, and been scummed, put in three quarts of water, and simmer, if the hare be young, three hours; if old, longer. Strain it, set the best pieces cut rather small apart, to serve in the tureen, and cut all the meat off the other parts, to pound with soaked crumb of {104}bread, to give thickness to the soup. When this is put into the strained soup, season it to your taste, and add catsup and port wine; also fried forcemeat balls, if you like. _Another, and a better._ If you happen to have two hares, one old and tough, the other young, cut up the first and put it on in three quarts of water, with three onions, two anchovies, six cloves, a blade of mace, a teaspoonful of salt, half a one of cayenne, and simmer it four hours. Meantime, roast the other hare, properly stuffed, till half done, then cut it up, and put it all, with the stuffing, into the soup, and let it simmer gently nearly an hour. You will have kept back some of the best pieces to serve in the soup the next day, unless you prefer it clear without any meat, in which case put it all in. Next day, when you re-warm it, add a tumbler of port wine. Not having the old hare, two rabbits may be found very good. _Rabbit Soup._ Cut up the rabbits, and if two, put the pieces into water sufficient to cover them; let it boil slowly, and take off all the scum; when no more rises, add two quarts of good stock (or soft water), prepared of shin of beef and veal, or of knuckle of veal alone, or of trimmings of veal and two or three shanks of mutton: this stock must be already flavoured with onions or eschalots, white peppercorns, and mace; simmer gently till the meat is quite tender, and then put it by till next day. Take off all fat before you re-warm it; take out the liver, rub it through a sieve, moisten with a little flour and butter, and add to the soup, also a teacupful of Port, the same of white wine, a table-spoonful of walnut catsup, and lemon pickle. _Game and Venison Soup_, May be made of any and of every kind of game. Skin the birds; if large ones, carve them; if small ones, only split down the back; fry them, with slices of ham or bacon, and a _little_ sliced onion and carrot. Drain the pieces, lay them in a stewpan with some good _stock_, a head of celery, a little chopped parsley, and what seasonings you like. Stew gently {105}for an hour. If venison be at hand, fry some small steaks, and stew with the birds. Serve the meat in the soup, taking out the ham. _Another, and plainer._ In the season, and in houses where game abounds, make soup as follows: cut the meat off the breasts of any cold birds, and pound it in a mortar. Boil the legs, and all the bones, in whatever broth you have, for an hour. Boil four large turnips to a mash, and pulp them to the pounded meat, mix these well, then strain in the broth, by degrees, and let it stand close by the fire, in the stew-pan, but do not let it boil. Season to your taste. Just before you serve it, beat the yolks of 6 eggs in a pint of cream, and pass through a sieve; then put the soup on the fire, and as it is coming to a boil, stir in the cream, and keep stirring a few minutes, but do not let it quite boil, or it will curdle. _Stewed Knuckle of Veal and Soup_, May be made of the breast, shoulder-blade, or scrag, but best of the knuckle. Cut it in three pieces: wash, break, and place it on skewers, in the stew-pan, with 1 lb. of streaked bacon, a head of celery, 4 onions, 2 carrots, 1 turnip, a bunch of parsley and lemon thyme, and a few black and Jamaica peppercorns. Cover the meat with water, and let it simmer till quite tender. Strain the soup, put it on the fire again, and season and thicken it to your taste. Either serve the meat in the tureen with the soup, or put it in a dish with the bacon, and the vegetables round it. You may pour parsley and butter over the meat, or serve it in a boat. A little rice flour is good to thicken with. Some have whole rice boiled, as for eating, and put to the soup when it is returned to the fire. Others use vermicelli. Eggs and cream beaten together and strained, would enrich this soup; when you put them in, stir all the time, and take off the soup before it quite boils. _Mulligatawny Soup._ Put a few slices of bacon into a stew-pan with a knuckle of veal, and no vegetables; simmer an hour and three {106}quarters; cut about 2½ lbs. of breast of veal into rather small pieces, add the bones, and gristly parts of the breast, to the knuckle which is stewing; fry the pieces of meat, and 6 sliced onions, in a stew-pan, with a piece of good clarified dripping or butter. Strain the stock if done, and put the fry to it, set it on the fire, and scum carefully; simmer it an hour. Have ready mixed in a batter, 2 dessert-spoonsful of curry powder, the same of lightly browned flour, and salt and cayenne as you choose; add them to the soup. Simmer the meat till quite tender. You may have 2 chickens parboiled, and use them in place of the breast of veal. The above receipt is a plain one. _Another and richer._ Make a strong stock of a knuckle of veal, roast beef bones, a ham bone, a faggot of sweet herbs, 2 carrots, 4 turnips, 8 onions, 1 clove of garlic, 3 heads of celery, previously fried in butter, 6 cloves, some black pepper, salt, cayenne, mace, and mushroom powder; stew it all in 5 quarts of water, eight hours, then strain through a fine sieve. When cold take off all the fat, and if the stock be not rich enough, add to 3 quarts, a pint of good gravy; rub 3 table-spoonsful of curry powder, 1 of ground rice, and 1 of turmeric with some butter and flour, then moisten with a little stock, and add it by degrees to the rest, and simmer it two hours. Add 2 or 3 wine-glassfuls of sherry or Madeira, 1 of oyster, 1 of walnut pickle, 1 of eschalot or chili vinegar, 2 table-spoonsful of soy, 2 of Harvey or Reading sauce, and 1 of essence of anchovy; simmer it a few minutes. Have ready 2 chickens, or a rabbit, parboiled, then browned in fresh butter, or pieces of ox-tail previously cooked, add whichever of these it may be to the soup, simmer it again till the meat be cooked, then squeeze in the juice of a lemon and serve. Serve rice, cayenne, chili vinegar, and pickles.--_Cold Arrack_, or _Rum Punch_, after mulligatawny. _Ox-Tail Soup._ Three tails will make a good sized tureen-ful of soup; it is very strengthening, is considered an elegant, and is by no means an expensive soup. Have the tails divided at the {107}points, rub with suet, and soak them in lukewarm water. Lay them in a stew-pan with 6 onions, a turnip, 2 carrots, some peppercorns, and 3 quarts of soft water. Let it simmer two hours and a half; take out the tails, cut them in small pieces, thicken it brown, then strain it into a fresh stew-pan, put in the pieces of meat, boil up and skim it; put more pepper, if wanted, and either catsup, or Port wine. _Grouse Soup._ Roast 3 birds, cut off all the meat, reserve some nice pieces to serve in the tureen; put the bones and all the rest into 2 quarts of good stock, and boil them half an hour; then pound the meat in a mortar; put a large onion, ½ a carrot and turnip, cut up, into a stew-pan with ½ lb. butter, 2 sprigs each of parsley, thyme, 2 bay leaves, 6 peppercorns, and ½ a blade of mace, and stir them a few minutes over the fire; then add a pint of stock, and stew it all till tender, put in the pounded meat, and 4 oz. of flour rubbed smooth, and the soup, mix it all well together, simmer it 20 minutes, stirring all the while; if required, add salt, and a table-spoonful of sugar; strain it into another stew-pan, boil it up, skim it well, and pour into the tureen over the reserved slices of meat, and some fried pieces of bread, cut in any shape you please. The _stock_ for the above is good made of 4 or 5 lbs. of beef and 1 or 2 rabbits, according to the quantity, and the richness you require. I should put a large wine-glassful of Port into a moderate sized tureen-ful. _Partridge and Pheasant Soup._ The same as the above. _Poacher's Soup._ This excellent soup may be made of any kind of game. About 4 lbs. of any of the coarse parts of venison, beef, or the same weight in shanks, or lean mutton, for the stock; boil in it celery, onions, carrots, turnips, what herbs you like, and ¼ oz. of mixed black and Jamaica peppers. Simmer three hours, then strain it. Skin and cut up a black cock, a woodcock, a pheasant, half a hare, a rabbit, a brace {108}of partridges, or grouse, or slices of venison; any one, or parts of several of these, according to what you may require and what game you may have. Season the meat with such mixed spices as you like, then flour and fry it in the frying-pan, or put them, at once, into the strained stock, for the frying process is not actually necessary. Put in with the pieces of meat, about 10 small onions, 2 heads of celery cut up, and 6 peeled potatoes; when the stock comes to a boil, add a small white cabbage, or a lettuce quartered, black pepper, salt, and allspice if you like. Simmer till the meat be tender. If the meat be composed of small birds, the vegetables must be put into the soup and cooked before the meat, for _that_ must not be _overdone_. This may be enriched by wine, catsup, anchovies, and forcemeat balls. _Scotch Barley Broth._ About 4 lbs. of mutton to 4 quarts of water, and ¼ lb. of Scotch barley (more or less according to taste), a large spoonful of salt, also a large cup of soaked split peas, if in season. Scum carefully, and let the broth boil slowly an hour. Then add 2 carrots, 2 turnips, cut small, 3 onions, or 3 leeks sliced, and a head of celery, or a bunch of parsley, and some green or split peas. When these are done, season to your taste. This may be made of beef, with greens instead of turnips. The meat, if mutton, is served in a dish, with parsley and butter; and the vegetables in the soup. Remove the fat from the top before you serve. _Hotchpotch, a German dish._ Cut 6 lbs. of either beef or mutton, or both, into nice shaped pieces, and put to them as much water as you require soup. Boil and scum well, then put in carrots and turnips sliced, parsley chopped, leeks and German greens cut up, suiting the quantity to the meat. Serve all together. _A Pepper Pot._ Three quarts of water, 2 lbs. of mutton or veal, and a small piece of lean bacon; a fowl if you have it; as many carrots, turnips, and onions as you like, and a tea-cupful of {109}rice. Scum well, season highly, and let it stand a little before you serve it, to take off the fat. _Scotch Cock-a-leekie._ Make a stock of 5 lbs. of shin of beef, strain, and put to it a large fowl trussed for boiling, and when it boils, put in six leeks (blanched), in pieces an inch long. In half an hour put in six more leeks and the seasoning; if these leeks do not make the soup thick enough, put more. When the fowl is done, serve it in the soup. _Mutton Broth._ Put 2 lbs. of scrag of mutton into a saucepan, with just enough water to cover, and when that is near boiling, pour it off, and carefully take all the scum off the meat; then put it back into the saucepan with four pints of boiling water, a table-spoonful of grits, a little salt, and an onion; set it over a slow fire, scum well, and then put in two turnips, and simmer it slowly two hours. (_See Cooking for the Sick._) _Veal Broth._ The knuckle is best, but the scrag is good. A gallon of water to the knuckle, add an onion, a blade of mace and salt. Carefully scum, and boil it gently till the meat be thoroughly done, and the liquor greatly reduced. Add vermicelli or rice. _Chicken Broth_ Should simmer very gently, and its strength will be in proportion to the quantity of water. A good-sized chicken will make a quart of very good broth. As this is seldom made except for invalids, neither onion, carrot, nor turnip ought to be used. A bunch of parsley may be boiled in the broth, then taken out and chopped fine. Skim the fat off the broth, and serve the parsley in it. _Milk Soup._ Boil two quarts with a little salt, cinnamon, and sugar. {110}Lay thin slices of toasted bread in a tureen, pour a little hot milk over them, and cover close that they may soak. Beat the yolks of five eggs, add them by degrees to the milk; stir it over the fire till it thickens, take it off instantly or it will curdle; pour it into the tureen upon the bread. You may stir into the boiling milk a ¼ lb. of sweet almonds, and a few bitter ones, all blanched. In France _buttermilk_ is cooked in this way, and poured on thin slices of boiled apples, spread in a tureen. _Ox-Head Soup._ Put half an ox cheek into a tub of cold water, and let it soak two hours. Take it out, break the bones not already broken, and wash it well in lukewarm water. Then put it in a pot, cover with cold water, and let it boil; scum carefully, put in salt, one head of celery, one turnip, two carrots, two large onions (one burnt), a bay leaf, two dozen berries of black pepper, the same of allspice, a good handful of parsley, some marjoram, savory, and lemon thyme; cover the soup kettle close, and set it over a slow fire. As the liquor is coming to a boil, scum will rise, take that off, and let the soup stew gently by the fire three hours. Then take out the head, pour the soup through a fine sieve into a stone-ware pan, and set both by till the next day. Cut the meat into small pieces, skim all fat from the top of the liquor, and put about two quarts of it, all the meat, and a head of celery cut up and fried with an onion, into a clean saucepan, and simmer it half an hour. Cayenne may be added, a glass of white wine, or a table-spoonful of brandy. _Giblet Soup._ Scald two sets of fresh giblets, and pick them very clean. Cut off the noses, split the heads, and divide the gizzards and necks into small pieces; crack the bones of the legs, put all into a stewpan, and cover them with cold water. When it boils scum well, and put in three sprigs each of lemon thyme, winter savory, or marjoram, and a little bunch of parsley; also twenty berries of allspice, and the same of black pepper, in a muslin bag; let this _stew very gently_, till the gizzards are tender, which will be in about an hour and {111}a half. Lift out the giblets with a skimmer, or spoon with holes, into a tureen, and keep it, covered, by the fire. Melt 1½ oz. of fresh butter in a clean saucepan, stir in enough flour to make a paste, and pour in, by degrees, a ladleful of the giblet liquor, and the rest by degrees, and boil it ten minutes, stirring all the time. Skim and strain the soup through a fine sieve into a bason. Rince the stewpan, return the soup into it, and add a glass of Port wine, a tablespoonful of mushroom catsup, and a little salt. Give it one boil up, put the giblets in to get hot, and serve it.--You may make this much better by using plain stock in place of water, and a ham bone. You may add a pint of Madeira also; squeeze a small Seville orange into the tureen, and add three lumps of sugar and a little cayenne. _Soup Maigre._ Cut the white part of eight-loaved lettuces small as dice, wash and drain them, also a handful of purslain, the same of parsley. Cut six large cucumbers into pieces the size of a crown piece, peel and mince four large onions, and have three pints of young peas. Put ¾ lb. of fresh butter into a stewpan, brown it of a high colour, and put in all the vegetables, with thirty whole peppers, and stew it ten minutes, stirring all the time, to prevent burning. Add a gallon of boiling water, and one or two French rolls, cut in three pieces, and toasted of a light brown. Cover the stew-pan, and let the soup stew gradually two hours. Put in ½ drachm of beaten mace, two cloves bruised, nutmeg and salt to your taste; boil it up, and just before you serve, squeeze the juice of one lemon into it: do not strain it.--Soup may be made of any, and of every sort of vegetable, in the same manner, but they must be thoroughly cooked. Cream is an improvement, and French rolls, if not stewed in the soup, may be cut in slices, toasted, and put into the tureen before the soup. _Stock for Fish Soup._ This may be made of either meat or fish, the latter for maigre days. If meat, make it the same as for meat soup. If fish be used, it may be cod's head, haddocks, whitings, {112}eels, skate, and all white fish. Boil the fish for stock in two quarts of water, with two onions, some salt, a piece of lemon peel, and a bunch of sweet herbs. Scum carefully, and strain it. If the soup is to be brown, you may brown the fish for stock in the frying-pan before you boil it. Fish stock will not keep. _Lobster Soup._ For this there should be a good stock, of beef, ham, onions, and fresh fish trimmings; strain it and pulp back the onions. Pound the spawn and all the body of the lobster, and stir it smoothly into the soup. Cut all the meat of the claws in small pieces, and put it in the soup also. Add cayenne, white pepper, and a glass of sherry. _Or_--Having a stock of fish prepared, cut up the meat of the lobster in pieces, and mix the coral with it. Bruise the spawn with a little flour in a mortar, wet it with a little of the strained stock, and mix it by degrees into the rest. Take half of the cut up meat and coral, add oysters, an anchovy, a blade of mace, nutmeg, lemon peel grated, and a little cayenne; pound all together, with the yolks of two eggs, and a very little flour, and make forcemeat balls for the soup; fry or brown them in a Dutch oven, or use them without being browned or fried. Put the balls and the remainder of the cut up meat into the soup, let it simmer half an hour, then serve it, first squeezing half a lemon or Seville orange in the tureen. Madeira may be added. _Oyster Soup._ Veal makes the most delicate stock; it should be strong and clear: put to it a quart of the hard part of fresh juicy oysters, which have been pounded in a mortar with the yolks of six hard-boiled eggs. Simmer for half an hour, then strain it into a fresh stewpan, and put in another quart or more of oysters, trimmed, and washed from their shells, also some mace and cayenne, and let it simmer ten minutes. Beat the yolks of three eggs, take out a little soup in a cup, let it cool, mix it by degrees with the eggs, and stir into the soup, having first drawn that aside from the fire; stir all the time until you send it to table, or it will curdle. Give {113}this soup any additional flavour you like. The oysters put in whole, may be first run on fine wire skewers, and fried. _Another Maigre._ Into four pints of water put five onions fried in butter, some mace, salt, pepper, and what herbs you like, in a small quantity. When this has boiled, and been carefully scummed, put in 1 lb. of fresh butter, a few mushrooms, and a 100 oysters; thicken with vermicelli, and let the soup boil gently a quarter of an hour. _Cray Fish Soup._ If to be maigre, the stock must be made of fish alone; it must be quite fresh, and 3 lbs. will make two quarts; put in an onion or two, and some black and Jamaica peppers. Boil the fish to a mash, and keep straining the liquor till clear. About four dozen cray fish will be enough, pick and stew them in the soup, after it has been strained, till done; add a little cayenne, and the spawn of a lobster pounded, and stirred in to thicken as well as flavour the soup. _Prawns_, _cockles_, and _muscles_, in the same way. It may be made of meat stock, and flavoured to be richer. _Eel Soup._ To 3 lbs. of eels, cut in pieces, allow three quarts of water; after this has boiled and been scummed, add two rather large crusts of toasted bread, eight blades of mace, three onions, a few whole peppercorns, and a faggot of herbs. Let this boil gently till half wasted, and then serve it with dice of toasted bread. You may add ¼ pint of cream, with a dessert-spoonful of flour, rubbed smooth in it. (_For fish forcemeats see in the Index._) {114}CHAPTER XIII. FISH. _To Boil._ THE fish-kettle ought to be roomy: the water should, according to some, be cold, and spring water, and be slow in coming to a boil. I incline to this: according to others, it ought to be hot at the time of putting in the fish, upon the supposition that the shorter time it is in water the better. Experience must, however, be the best instructor; and much depends on the size, and sort of the fish. A handful of salt in the water, helps to draw the slime from the fish, and gives it firmness. Vinegar is used for the latter purpose, particularly for cod and turbot.--When the water boils, take off the scum, and place the fish-kettle by the side of the fire, to simmer gently; the usual allowance of time is twelve minutes to the pound, but there is no certain rule. Run a sharp knife into the thick part, and if it divide easily from the bone, it is done. When you think the fish done, lift up the strainer, and place it across the kettle to drain, and if it have to wait, put a heated cover on it, and over that, several folds of flannel; this is the best substitute for a _Bain Marie_. It must not stay an instant in water, after it is done. Serve on a fish drainer, which, as well as the dish, ought to be quite hot, for half cold fish is very bad. Crisp parsley, slices of lemon and barberries, also picked red cabbage, are used to garnish. Some cooks say that _salt fish_ should scarcely _boil_ at all, but remain till tender, in hot water, just coming to a boil; put it on in cold water, and let it be a long time heating through. Stock for gravy, for stewing, or sauce, is made of meat or fish, according to whether it be to be maigre or not. Any white fish, and the trimmings of all quite fresh fish, may be used. These may be browned first, in the {115}frying-pan, then put into 1 or 2 quarts of water, according to the quantity you require, with a bunch of sweet herbs, onion, eschalot, mace, and lemon peel; boil it and scum well; then strain it, and put in the fish to stew. Fish stock is best made on the morning it is wanted. _Court Bouillon_, for boiling or stewing fish, is as follows: to a gallon of water, a handful of salt, 2 onions, 2 carrots, and eschalots, a bunch of parsley, thyme, and basil, 2 bay leaves, 12 peppercorns, and 6 cloves, also a large piece of butter. Stew, then strain it. This may be enriched as required. It keeps well, and is a good basis for stock. _To Fry._ This is rather difficult, and requires exceeding care and attention. Some people consider that lard is essential, but clarified dripping is as good. Oil is used in countries where the olive tree grows. Wash, and lay the fish in the folds of a clean cloth, for it must be quite dry. Flour it lightly, if to be covered with bread-crumbs, for if not quite dry, the bread will not adhere to it. The crumbs of stale bread; or to be very delicate in appearance, use biscuit powder. Having floured the fish, brush over with yolk and white of egg, then strew over the crumbs or powder, so as to cover every part of the fish. The frying-pan of an oval shape. The fire hot, but not fierce. If not hot enough, the fish will be soddened, if too hot, it will catch and burn. There should be fat enough to cover the fish; let it boil, (for frying is, in fact, _boiling in fat_,) skim it with an egg slice, as it becomes hot, then dip the tail of the fish in to ascertain the heat; if it become crisp at once the pan is ready, then lay in the fish. When done, lay it before the fire to dry, either on whity brown paper or a soft cloth; turn it two or three times, and if the frying fat has not been sufficiently hot, this will, in some measure, remedy the defect.--Fat in which veal or lamb has been fried may be used for fish, when it has settled long enough to be poured from the sediment. _Turbot to Boil._ First wash well, and soak it in salt and water; when quite clean, score the skin of the back, or the belly will crack {116}when the fish begins to swell. Do not take off the fins, as they are a delicacy. Place it on a fish-strainer, in a roomy turbot-kettle, the back downwards. You may rub it over with lemon juice, to keep it white. Cover the fish with cold water, and throw in salt. Allow 1 lb. salt to a gallon and a half of water. It should be quite half an hour in coming to a boil, scum well, then draw the kettle to the side, and if a fish of 10 lbs. weight (larger are not so good), let it simmer 30 minutes, but if it do not simmer _gently_ the fish will be spoiled and the skin cracked. When done, garnish with slices of lemon, scraped horse-radish, parsley, barberries, whole capers, or the pea of a lobster, forced through a sieve. A very few smelts or sprats fried, laid round the turbot. Lobster sauce is most esteemed, but shrimp or anchovy sauce answer very well. (_See to dress Cold Turbot._) _Brill._ The same as turbot, except that you put it into boiling water, the flesh being softer. _Or_: parboiled, covered with egg and crumbs, and browned before the fire, or in the frying-pan. If 6 lbs. simmer it ½ an hour, but when it begins to crack it is done. _John Dory._ The same as brill. _Sole to Boil._ Wash clean, cover it with cold water, put in a handful of salt, and let it come gently to a boil, take off the scum, and set the fish-kettle aside; let it simmer very gently five minutes, and it is done, unless very large, then eight or ten minutes. Oyster sauce. _Cod to Boil._ Wash clean, and rub the inside with salt; cover it with water, in the kettle. A small fish will be done in fifteen minutes after the water boils; a large one will take half an hour; but the tail being much thinner than the thick part, it will be done too much if boiled all at once; {117}therefore, the best way is to cut the tail in slices, to fry, and garnish the head and shoulders, or serve separately. Lay the roe on one side, the liver on the other side of the fish. Serve oyster, shrimp sauce, or plain melted butter; also scalloped oysters.--Garnish with lemon, and horse-radish. If the fish be in _slices_, the water should be made to boil as soon as possible after they are in it, and 10 minutes will cook them: pour shrimp or anchovy sauce over the slices. If you wish it to be rich, having some clear broth, put in a boned anchovy, some pickled oysters, chopped fine, pepper, salt, a glass of Port wine, and a thickening of butter and flour; boil this up, skim it, and pour over the slices of cod. _Cod to Boil Crimp._ Put it into boiling hot salt and water, draw it to the side, and let it simmer 15 or 20 minutes, according to its size. Slices less. Oyster sauce. _Salt Cod and Ling._ Soak it, according to the time it has been salted. If hard and dry, two nights, changing the water two or three times. The best _Dogger Bank_ split fish require less. Let there be plenty of water, and the fish a long time in becoming heated through. Then simmer _very gently_, or it will be tough. Garnish with hard-boiled eggs, in quarters. Serve egg sauce, parsnips, or beet-root. _Cod to Fry._ Cut in thick slices; flour or egg, and cover with bread-crumbs or biscuit powder. Fry in hot dripping or lard. _Cod's Head and Shoulders._ Wash clean, then quickly dash boiling water over it, which will cause the slime to ooze out; this should be carefully removed with a knife, but take care not to break the skin; wipe the head clean, and lay it on a strainer, in a turbot-kettle of boiling water; put in salt and a tea-cupful of vinegar. Take care that it is quite covered. Simmer {118}from thirty to forty minutes. Drain, and put it into a rather deep dish; glaze it with beaten yolk of egg, strew bread-crumbs, pepper, salt, and lemon-peel over, stick in bits of butter, and brown it before the fire; baste with butter, constantly strewing more bread-crumbs and chopped parsley over.--A rich sauce for this is made as follows; have a quart of beef or veal stock; or, if to be maigre, a rich well-seasoned fish stock; thicken with flour rubbed in butter, and strain it; add 50 oysters, picked and bearded, or the hard meat of a boiled lobster cut up, and the soft part pounded, 2 glasses of sherry, and the juice of a lemon. Boil it altogether, five minutes, skim and pour part into the dish where the fish is: the rest serve in a sauce tureen. It may be garnished with fried smelts, flounders, or oysters. The French stuff it with meat or fish forcemeat, with some balls of the same fried, as a garnish.--_Cold cod_ may be dressed as cold turbot. The head may be baked; bits of butter stuck all over it. _Cod Sounds._ Scald, clean, and rub them with salt; take off the outer coat, and parboil, then flour and broil them. Pour over a thickened gravy, which has a tea-spoonful of made mustard, cayenne, and what other seasoning you like.--_Or,_ fried, and served with the same kind of sauce.--_Or_, dressed in _ragout_, parboiled, cut in pieces, and stewed in good gravy, or in white sauce. Serve mustard and lemon. _Cabeached Cod._ Boil vinegar enough to cover the pieces of fish, a little mace, a few peppercorns, a few cloves, and a little salt; when this is cold put a tea-cupful of olive oil. Cut the tail part of a cod fish in slices, rub pepper and salt on each, fry them in oil, then lay them on a plate to cool; when cold, put them into a pan or jar, and pour the pickle over. If you like, lay thin slices of onion between the fish. _Salmon_ is good in this way. Serve salad with this. _Cod to Stew._ Lay three slices of cod in a stewpan, with ½ pint of weak {119}white wine, _not_ sweet, 6 oz. butter, two dozen oysters and their liquor, three blades of mace, salt, pepper, and a few crumbs of bread; stew this gently, and thicken with flour before you serve it. _Salmon to Boil_, Should be well cleaned and scaled (the less washing the better), and cut open as little as possible. Let there be water enough to well cover the fish, and salt in the proportion of 1 lb. to a gallon and a half. When it begins to boil, scum well, and put the fish in; for most cooks, I believe, are of opinion that salmon eats _firmer_ when put on in hot or boiling water. A fish of 10 lbs. will take a full hour, or a little more, but it must only simmer all the time. Let the drainer be hot, put a folded napkin on it, and serve the fish directly. Garnish with curled parsley, horseradish, or slices of lemon. Serve shrimp, anchovy, or lobster sauce, also plain melted butter. Cucumber, and also salad, are eaten with salmon. _To boil Crimp._ Cut off the head, with about two inches of the neck, and clean the fish, opening it as little as possible, and do not cut it up the breast; also cut off the tail. Then cut the fish in circular slices, wash them, and lay them in salt and water. Put the head and tail on the strainer of the kettle, and pour in boiling water, with a little salt, and a very little vinegar; boil it five minutes, then put in the slices, and boil fifteen minutes, scumming all the time. Put the head and tail in the middle of the dish, the slices round. Sauces the same as the last.--Mustard is good with salmon. _Salmon to Grill._ Split the salmon, and endeavour not to mangle it in taking out the bone. Cut it into fillets four inches in breadth. Dry, but do not beat or press them, in the folds of a linen cloth, or dust them with flour to dry them. Have a clear fire, as for steaks, rub the gridiron with chalk, lay on the slices, and turn them occasionally. Serve very hot, with anchovy or shrimp sauce. French cooks steep the {120}slices in oil, cover them with seasonings and fine herbs, and broil them, basting the while with oil. Caper sauce with this. Salmon may be thus prepared, then _fried_.--Some put the slices in paper to broil. _Salmon, Trout, Haddock, or Gurnet to bake._ Mix a seasoning of salt, pepper, and allspice, and rub a little in the fish. If a small salmon, turn the tail round to the mouth, and run a skewer through the fish to keep it in form. Place it on a stand, in a deep dish, cover with bits of butter, and strew the remainder of the seasoning over. Put it in the oven (an American or Dutch oven, before the fire, is very good for this), and baste occasionally with the liquor which runs from it. Garnish and serve the same sauce as boiled salmon. _Slices_ of salmon may be baked this way.--Or: make it richer as follows: boil in a quart of vinegar, a piece of butter, 2 onions, the same of eschalot and carrots, a bunch of parsley, a sprig of thyme, a bay leaf, some basil, cloves, and allspice. Having cleaned and scaled the fish, fill it with fish forcemeat, sew it up, turn the tail into the mouth and skewer it. Place it on a stand in a baking dish, and pour the liquor over. Baste it from time to time. When the fish is done, pour off the liquor, and boil it up with an anchovy, cayenne, lemon juice, and a little thickening of butter rolled in flour. Place the fish in a rather deep dish, and strain the liquor round it. A _salmon peel_ is best suited to this, being less rich than large salmon. (_See Haddock to stew._) _Salmon to Pickle._ Cut the fish in pieces, not very small, and boil them in a little water and salt, scumming carefully all the time. When done, lift the fish out into a pan, and boil the liquor up with vinegar and spices to your taste, with black pepper, mace and ginger. Pour it cold over the fish.--_Or_: into the best vinegar, put 1 pint of white wine (supposing there to be 2 quarts of liquor or water to 1 of vinegar), add mace, ginger, horse-radish, cloves, allspice, a bay leaf, a sprig of lemon thyme, salt, and pepper. Pour it cold over the fish. Put away carefully, in a vegetable dish, any salmon left at table, strew over it ½ a salt-spoonful of cayenne; boil 12 {121}allspice in a pint of white wine vinegar, and pour it scalding hot over the salmon. Keep it in a cool place. _Salmon to Dry._ Cut the fish down, take out the roe, and rub the whole with common salt; let it hang twenty-four hours to drain. Pound 3 oz. saltpetre, 2 oz. bay salt, and 2 oz. coarse sugar; rub these into the salmon, and lay it on a large dish for two days; then rub with common salt, and in twenty-four hours it will be fit to dry. Drain it, wipe it dry, stretch it open and fasten it with pieces of stick, in order that it may dry equally; hang it in a chimney corner where wood or peat is burnt, and it will be smoked in five days. Broil slices for breakfast. If too much smoked, or too dry, soak the slices in lukewarm water, before you broil them. To make this more relishing, dip the slices in oil, then in a seasoning of herbs and spices, and broil them. _Salmon to Collar._ Clean, scale, and bone the fish, then season it highly with mace, cloves, pepper and salt, roll it up into a handsome collar, and bandage it; then bake it with vinegar and butter, or simmer in vinegar and water. Serve melted butter, and anchovy sauce. _Salmon to Pot._ Do not wash, but clean with a cloth, and scale the fish, rub with salt, and let it lie three hours; then drain, and cut it into pieces. Sprinkle over them a seasoning of mace, black and Jamaica pepper, pounded, and lay them in a dish; cover them with melted butter, and set the dish in the oven. When done, drain the fat from the fish, and lay the pieces into little pots; when cold, cover with clarified butter. _Sturgeon_ Is generally roasted or baked, if the former, tie a piece of 3 or 4 lbs. on a lark spit, and fasten that to a large one, baste with butter, and serve with a rich meat or maigre gravy highly flavoured. Serve besides, or instead of gravy, {122}oyster, lobster, or anchovy sauce. _Slices_ of sturgeon may be egged, rolled in bread-crumbs, seasonings, and herbs, then broiled in buttered papers. Also it is _stewed_ in good beef gravy. _Skate._ This should be broad, thick, and of a bluish cream colour. It must be quite fresh, if to be crimp, and put on in hot water. It will keep, in cold weather, two or three days, but will eat tender. Shrimp, lobster, or caper sauce, parsley and butter, or onion sauce.--_Or_: put into a stew-pan ½ pint of water, ½ pint of vinegar, all the trimmings of the skate, two onions, a clove of garlic, some parsley, and a little basil. Boil till the trimmings are cooked to a mash, then strain and put the skate into the liquor; it should just come to a boil, and stand by the side of the fire ten minutes. Garnish with the liver. Serve caper sauce. _Skate to Fry._ Parboil it first, then cut in thin slices, and dip them in egg and bread-crumbs. Then either fried or broiled. Both ways skate is good _cold,_ with mustard, pepper, oil and vinegar. _Thornback and Maids._ Dress the same as Skate. _Trout to Boil._ Put a good-sized fish into boiling water, in which there is a handful of salt, and simmer gently 20 minutes. Melted butter plain, or with chopped gherkins. _Haddock to Boil._ The night before, fill the eyes with salt, and hang the fish up. _Or_, for a few hours before cooking, sprinkle them with salt. Serve egg sauce. It may be stuffed, as in the next receipt. _Haddocks to Stew, Bake, or Roast._ If you have six small ones, take the heads, tails and {123}trimmings of all, and one whole fish, boil these in a quart of water or broth, with an onion, sweet herbs, and cayenne; boil well, and thicken with brown flour; add spices, and mushroom catsup, or essence of anchovy; strain this, boil again, and skim well; then lay in the rest of your haddocks, cut in pieces. If there require more sauce, add as much as is necessary, of any broth or gravy you have; some oysters, or oyster-pickle. When done, take the fish out with a slice, lay it in a dish, and pour the sauce, which ought to be thick, round. This fish may be stuffed with meat, or rich forcemeat, and dressed whole in the above gravy.--_Another_: the fish being well cleaned, dry it, and put in the stuffing directed for fillet of veal; tie the tail to the mouth, put the haddock in a pie-dish, rub it over with flour, half fill the dish with veal stock, and bake it in a slow oven 40 minutes. A glass of white wine, or half a one of brandy, oyster-pickle, or lemon juice, either of these may be used, according to taste. _Gurnet_ the same. _To Roast_: Stuff a good-sized one with veal stuffing, and dangle it before the fire; baste with butter, and when nearly done, take the gravy out of the pan, skim off the fat, then boil up the gravy with pepper, salt, and a wine-glassful of Port wine. _Haddocks to Bake, quite plain._ Boil and mash some potatoes. Season the fish, and put a piece of butter inside, lay it in the middle of the dish, and put a thick border of the potatoes round. Brush over the whole with egg, stick bits of butter over the fish, and bake for half an hour; when in the oven a short time, pour a little melted butter and catsup in the dish. _Haddock or Mackerel to Broil._ Split the fish, bone the haddock, salt it, and hang it for two days in the chimney corner. _Haddocks, Soles, Flounders, Plaice, Perch, Tench, Trout, Whitings, and Herrings to Fry._ Haddocks, soles, and generally whitings, are skinned. Plaice wiped, not washed, and must lie three or four hours {124}after being rubbed with salt. When the fish is cleaned and wiped dry, dust with flour, and lay it gently into the boiling fat; having first egged and dipped it into bread-crumbs. The fat may be either lard, butter, dripping, or oil. Turn it carefully, lift it out when done, and lay it on a sheet of paper in a sieve, whilst you fry the rest; or put it before the fire, if it require drying. Garnish with curled parsley, and slices of lemon. Serve very hot. Shrimp or anchovy sauce, and plain butter. _Whitings_ and _haddocks_ should have the tail skewered into the mouth. _Mackerel and Herrings to Boil._ The fresher these are eaten the better. They require a great deal of cleaning. Choose soft roes to boil. A small mackerel will be done in a quarter of an hour. When the eye starts it is done, and should not stand in the water. Serve fennel boiled and chopped, in melted butter, and garnish with lumps of chopped fennel. Both these may be broiled, whole or split, and sprinkled during the cooking with chopped herbs and seasonings. _Mackerel and Herrings to Bake._ Choose fine ones, in season, cut off the heads and take out the roes. Pound together some mace, nutmeg, Jamaica pepper, cloves, and salt; put a little of this into each fish, then put a layer of them into a pan, and a layer of the mixture upon them, then another layer of fish, and so on. Fill the vessel with vinegar, and tie over close with brown paper. Bake them 6 or 8 hours. To be eaten cold. _Mackerel and Herrings to Pickle._ The same as salmon.--_Or_: as follows: get them as fresh as possible. Take off the heads, split the fish open, and lay them in salt and water an hour; prepare the following pickle: for 1½ dozen mackerel, take 1 lb. common and 1 lb. bay salt, 1 oz. saltpetre, 1 oz. lump sugar broken, and mix well together. Take the fish out of the water, drain and wipe them. Sprinkle a little salt over them, put a layer into a jar or cask (the skin side downwards), then a layer of {125}the mixture, till the vessel is full. Press it down, and cover close. Ready in three months. _Red Herrings and Sardinias to Broil._ Open and trim them, skin them or not, as you like. If hard, soak in lukewarm water. Broil them, either over or before the fire, and rub butter over as they broil. _Carp, Perch, and Tench to Stew._ If very large, divide the fish. Rub the inside with salt and mixed spices, stick in a few cloves, and a blade or two of mace, in pieces, lay them in a stew-pan, and cover with good fish, or meat stock. Put in 2 onions, an anchovy chopped, cayenne, 3 glasses of claret, or 2 of Port. When done, take the fish up, and keep it hot, while you thicken the gravy with butter and browned flour; add mushroom catsup, oyster-pickle, chili vinegar, or the juice of a lemon; simmer the sauce, skim and pour it over the fish. The roe may be kept back and fried, to garnish the fish, with sippets of bread fried. Use horse-radish and slices of lemon also, to garnish. Where meat gravy is not used, more wine is required.--_Cod's skull, Soles, Eels, Flounders, Trout, Whitings and fillets of Turbot, Cod and Halibut_, may be dressed the same way. _Or_: having parboiled the fish, brown it in the frying-pan, and stew it in good gravy seasoned with sweet marjoram, lemon thyme, basil, onions, pepper, salt, and spices: when nearly done, thicken the sauce, and flavour it, with a small portion each, of Worcester, Harvey's and Reading sauces, soy, anchovy sauce, oyster-pickle, catsup, and an equal portion of Port and white wine. The carp's blood should not be omitted. _Carp and Pike (or Jack) to Boil or Bake._ If to be maigre, make a forcemeat of the yolks of 3 eggs, some oysters bearded, 3 anchovies, an onion and some parsley, all chopped; mace, black pepper, allspice, and salt, pounded; mix this with biscuit flour, or crumbs of bread, and the fish being well cleaned and scaled, fill it with the stuffing, and sew it up. If to bake, lay it in a deep dish, {126}stick butter over, and baste plentifully, as it bakes, in a moderate oven. Serve anchovy sauce. _Or_: you may take the fish out, and keep it hot, whilst you make a rich sauce thus: thicken the gravy in the dish, and boil it up with parsley and sweet herbs; then strain it, add made mustard, a glass of Port wine, and one of chili or any other flavouring vinegar, also pounded mace, salt, and cayenne. Pour this over the fish. _Eels to Stew._ Skin and cut them in pieces. They may be egged and rolled in bread-crumbs, or merely floured. If to be maigre, stew them in fish stock; if otherwise, in good clear beef gravy, in which seasoning herbs, and roots have been boiled. Stew the fish gently, until done, then take them out, keep them hot, and thicken the gravy with browned flour, or what you like; add a glass of white wine, and one of mushroom catsup, also a spoonful of made mustard; boil it up, strain and pour it over the fish. Garnish with scraped horse-radish, and barberries. _Whiting_, also _slices of Turbot_, in the same way. _Lampreys to Stew._ After cleaning the fish carefully, remove the cartilage which runs down the back, and season well with cloves, mace, nutmeg, allspice, a tea-spoonful of mushroom powder, a little black pepper and cayenne; put it into a stew-pan with good gravy to cover it, and sherry or Madeira; keep the pan covered till the fish is tender, then take it out, and keep it hot while you boil up the liquor with essence of anchovy, lemon pickle, Gloucester sauce, and thickening; add the juice of a lemon, a spoonful of made mustard, 1 of soy, and 1 of chili vinegar. Fry the spawn to put round the fish. _Eels to Fry._ They should always be _gently parboiled_, before they are either fried or broiled, then allowed to be cold, before they are cut up; but if very small, turn the tail round to the mouth, and fry it whole. Rub with a mixture of spices, {127}brush with egg, and cover them with bread-crumbs. Fry of a light brown, and lay them on a sieve to drain.--Small eels are sometimes boiled, and served with dried sage and parsley strewed over. _Eels to Collar._ Choose a large eel. Slit open the belly and take out the bone. Rub it well with a mixture of pepper, salt, parsley, sage, thyme, and lemon peel. Roll up, quite tight, and bind it with tape; then boil it gently, in salt, a little vinegar, and water to cover it, till tender. It will keep in the pickle it was boiled in. _Eels to Spitchcock._ They are not skinned, but well cleaned, and rubbed with salt. Take out the bone, wash and dry them in a cloth. Either cut in pieces, or roll them round and cook them whole. First (parboiled) dip the fish into a thick batter of eggs, chopped parsley, sage, eschalot, lemon peel, pepper and salt; then roll them in bread-crumbs or biscuit powder, dip again in batter, and again in the crumbs. Broil over a clear fire. Garnish with curled parsley or slices of lemon, and serve anchovy sauce, or butter flavoured with cucumber vinegar. _Trout to Stew._ The fish being cleaned, put it into a stew-pan, with half champagne and half rhenish, or half moselle and half sherry, in all a tumbler full; season with pepper, salt, an onion with 3 cloves in it, and a very little parsley and thyme, also a crust of bread. When the fish is done, lift it out whilst you thicken the sauce; bruise the bread, but if that be not enough, add a little flour rubbed smooth, and a bit of butter, boil it up and pour over the trout in the dish. Garnish with sliced lemon and fried bread. _Sprats, Smelts, and Gudgeon to Bake, Boil, or Fry._ Rub the gridiron with chalk or mutton suet, and set it over a clear fire. Run a long thin skewer through the heads of the sprats, and lay them on the gridiron. They {128}should be eaten quite hot.--To _bake_, lay them in a deep dish, strew bits of butter, pepper, salt and spices over, cover with vinegar, and set them in the oven.--To _fry_, dip them in batter, then in a mixture of seasoning, chopped herbs, and biscuit powder, and fry them. _Allice or Shad._ These are broiled and eaten with caper sauce. _Red Mullet._ The inside is not taken out. Wash the outside of the fish, fold it in oiled paper, lay in a rather shallow dish, and bake it gently. Make a sauce of the liquor, a piece of butter rolled in flour, a little anchovy essence, and a glass of sherry. Boil it up, and serve in a tureen. Send the fish to table in the paper. _Water Souchy._ _Eels, whitings, soles, flounders, and mackerel_ are generally used. Stew it in clear fish stock, until done, eight minutes will be enough; add cayenne, catsup, an anchovy, and any other flavouring ingredient; let it boil up, skim, and serve hot altogether in a tureen. _Pipers to dress._ Stuff the fish with a forcemeat of suet, bread-crumbs, 2 eggs, chopped parsley, pepper, salt and cayenne. Skewer the tail in the mouth, flour and egg the fish, and bake in a hot oven. Drain it, and serve with Dutch sauce. _Cray Fish to Boil._ Boil in the shell; five minutes is enough. Some cooks put a bunch of herbs in the water. Serve on a napkin. _Lobsters and Crabs to Boil._ Have plenty of water, make it quite salt, brush the lobster or crab, and put it in. From forty to fifty minutes {129}for the middling size, more if very large, less if very small. They will throw up a great deal of scum, which must be taken off. Wipe the lobster with a damp cloth, rub a piece of butter over, then wipe it with a dry cloth. Take off the large claws, and crack them; split down the tail, and place the whole neatly in a dish. A very nice sauce, as follows: boil hard 2 eggs, pound the yolk in a mortar, with a little vinegar, and the spawn of the lobster, make it quite smooth, add a large spoonful of salad oil, 3 spoonsful of good vinegar, a tea-spoonful of made mustard, and a little cayenne and salt. _Lobster or Crab, to eat hot._ Cut the meat in pieces, or mince it fine; season with spices, nutmeg, cayenne and salt, and warm it in a little good gravy, thickened: or if maigre, fish stock, or just enough water to moisten the meat, and a good-sized piece of butter rolled in flour, a little cream, and some catsup. Serve on toasted sippets; or have the shell of a lobster or crab cleaned, and serve the meat in it.--_Another way_ is, not to warm the mince _over_ the fire, but to put it into the shell, and set that before the fire in a Dutch oven, strew some fine bread-crumbs or biscuit powder over all, and stick some bits of butter over that; brown with a salamander, and serve quite hot. _Prawns_ the same way.--Lobster is sometimes fricasseed, in rich veal gravy; or with cream, and yolk of egg. Garnish with pickled cucumber, or other pickle.--Lobster may be cooked as follows: chop the meat of a large one, and mix with it a very little lemon peel, pepper, salt, nutmeg, butter, cream, and crumbs of stale bread; roll this well, and divide it into small quantities; put each one into light puff paste, the size of sausages, rub them over with yolk of egg, then with bread-crumbs; fry of a yellow brown, and serve with crisped parsley.--_Or_: wash and clean some spinach and put it into a saucepan, with the meat of a lobster, or a pint of picked shrimps cut small, an onion, a clove of garlic minced, salt and cayenne; when nearly done, add 2 onions sliced and fried; cover close a few minutes; garnish with slices of lemon. _Lobsters and Crabs to Pot._ Parboil the fish, cut it into small pieces, put a layer into {130}a potting can, or deep tin dish, sprinkle salt, pepper, cayenne and pounded mace over, then a layer of the spawn and coral, then a layer of the meat, and so on, till all is in, press it down, pour melted butter over, and put it half an hour in a slow oven. Let it then get cold, take off the butter, take out the meat and pack it into small pots; clarify the butter, and pour over. The butter left may turn to account in sauces, as it will be highly flavoured. If for sandwiches, the meat must be pounded in a mortar before it is baked, that it may spread more easily. _Prawns, Shrimps, and Cray Fish to Pot._ Boil them in salt and water, pick them carefully, then pound in a mortar, with, to 1 lb. fish, a salt-spoonful of mace, the same of allspice, half the quantity of salt and cayenne, the ¼ of a nutmeg grated, and butter to make it a thick paste. Put into pots, pour clarified butter over, and tie it down close. _Prawns and Shrimps to Butter._ Take them out of their shells, and warm them in gravy, with a bit of butter rolled in flour, nutmeg, salt, and pepper. Simmer it a little, stir all the time, and serve with toasted sippets. _Prawns or Cray Fish in Jelly._ Make a good calf's-feet or cow-heel jelly, and boil in it some trimmings of cod, turbot, and skate, a little horse-radish, lemon peel, an onion, a piece of pounded mace, grated nutmeg and grated tongue, hung beef, or ham. Boil it well, strain, and let it get cold. Take off the fat, pour the jelly from the sediment, and boil it up with 2 glasses of white wine, and the whites of 4 eggs whisked to a froth. Do not stir this as it boils. When done, let it stand a quarter of an hour to settle; then pass it through a jelly bag: pour some of it into a mould, or deep dish, to become firm; then stick in the fish, neatly picked, in any form you like, and fill up the dish with jelly. When quite cold, turn it out. _Fish Cake._ Pick the fish from the bones, add 1 lb. of mashed {131}potatoes to 2 lbs. fish, a little white pepper, mace, cayenne, and lemon peel; flavour either with essence of anchovy, of lobster, of shrimp, or of oyster, according to taste and the sort of fish; add Harvey's or Camp or Gloucester sauce, also lemon pickle and eschalot vinegar, to your taste: mix the whole with a little melted butter and an egg, dip in bread-crumbs, and fry of a light brown. Use no salt with the above sauces.--_Another_: Having some cold boiled fish, add to it the third of its weight in bread-crumbs, a little butter beaten with a spoon, a small onion, parboiled and minced fine, pepper, salt, and the whites of 2 eggs to bind; mixed well together, make it in the form of a thick cake, and fry on both sides of a light brown: stew it in good gravy, made from either meat or fish stock, and flavoured with onion, pepper, and salt. Thicken the sauce, and add mushroom catsup. _Fish to Pull._ When cold, pick the fish clean from the bones, and to 1 lb. add two table-spoonsful of anchovy, two of lemon pickle, one of Harvey's, one of Camp sauce, one of chili vinegar, a little cayenne, white pepper, and mace; when nearly hot, add a piece of butter rolled in flour to thicken it, then make it quite hot, put it in a dish, grate bread-crumbs over, and baste with melted butter, to moisten them, then brown with a salamander, or in a Dutch oven, or on a tin before the fire, with a Scotch bonnet behind it.--_Or_: Pick from the bones, in flakes, any cold or boiled fish, salmon, cod, turbot, sole, skate or pike; and to 1 lb. fish, add ½ pint of cream, or ¼ lb. of butter, a table-spoonful of mustard, the same of essence of anchovy, mushroom catsup, any flavouring sauce you like, salt and pepper; heat it in a saucepan, put it into a hot dish, strew crumbs of bread over, moisten the top with thin melted butter, and brown in a Dutch oven. _A Salmagundi._ Wash and cut open, then take out the meat from the bones of two large herrings, mince the fish with cold chicken, two hard-boiled eggs, one onion, a boned anchovy, and a little grated ham, season with cayenne, vinegar, and oil, salt, if necessary; and serve the mince, garnished with {132}heaps of chopped boiled egg, parsley and pickles, also spun butter. _Oysters to Stew._ Choose plump natives, beard and stew two dozen in their own liquor, till just coming to a boil; take them out and lay them in a dish, whilst you strain the liquor into a saucepan; add a little piece of butter rubbed in flour, a blade of mace, a few peppercorns, lemon peel, three table-spoonsful of cream, and a little cayenne. Lay the oysters in, cover the saucepan, and let them simmer five minutes, very gently. Have toasted sippets in a deep dish, take out the oysters when done with a silver spoon, lay them in and pour the gravy over.--The French strew grated parmesan over the oysters, before the sauce. _Oysters to Grill._--Toss them in a stew-pan in a little of their own liquor, a piece of butter, and a little chopped parsley, but do not let them boil. Clean their own shells, lay an oyster in each, and some little bits of butter. Put the shells on the gridiron, in two minutes they will be done. _Oysters to Brown._--Open carefully, lift them out of their liquor, and dip each one in yolk of egg, beaten up with flour, pepper and salt, then brown them in a frying-pan, with a piece of butter; take them out, pour the liquor into the pan, thicken with a piece of butter rolled in flour, add a little catsup, minced lemon peel, and parsley, let it boil up, put in the oysters, and stir them in it a few minutes. Serve on toasted sippets. _Oysters to Fry._--Make a batter of three or four eggs, a table-spoonful of flour, a tea-spoonful of salt, and the ¼ of one of cayenne, also a very little mace. Cover the oysters well with this, and fry in boiling lard of a light brown; then grate toasted or brown bread over them, and put before the fire for three minutes in a Dutch oven. _Oysters or Cockles to Scallop._--Stew the oysters in their own gravy. Have ready some bread-crumbs, put a layer into the scallop shells, or dish, moisten with the oyster liquor, and put some little bits of butter, then a layer of oysters, then of crumbs, till the shell is full; a light sprinkling of salt, pepper, and cayenne; let bread-crumbs be at the top, and lay on some little bits of butter. Brown before the fire in a Dutch oven. _Cold fish_ may be re-cooked in this way for supper or luncheon. _Oysters in Dean Swift's way._--Wash the shells {133}clean, and put the oysters, unopened, into an earthen pot, with their hollow sides downwards; set the pot, covered, in a kettle of water, and make that boil. Do not let the water get into the shells; three or four minutes will cook the oysters. _Oysters to Keep._ Wash them clean, lay them, bottom downwards, into a tub, and cover them with strong salt and water, in the proportion of a large handful of salt to a pail of water. Some persons sprinkle them with flour or oatmeal; this fattens them, but does not always improve the flavour. See in the Index for _Curry of Fish_. CHAPTER XIV. MADE DISHES. WHAT is generally understood in England to represent a "made dish" is something too rich, or too highly seasoned, to be available for a family dinner; but this is an error. Made dishes are not of necessity rich or costly, but judgment is required in compounding them, and, by a little practice, a cook will acquire this judgment, and then will be able to convert the remains of joints, and much that would not appear to advantage if plainly cooked, into nice palatable dishes. It is the proper application of seasonings and flavouring ingredients, and not the superabundance of them, which constitutes the excellence of "made dishes."--(_See in the Index for Sauces._) It has been directed, in making soup, that it must not boil fast. Made dishes should never boil at all; _very_ gentle simmering, and the lid of the stewpan must not be removed, {134}after the necessary scumming is over. Time should be allowed for gradual cooking, and that over, the stewpan ought to stand by the fire a few minutes, that the fat risen to the top be taken off, before the dish is served. Indeed, ragouts are better made the day before, because then the fat is more completely taken off. Shake the stewpan if there be danger of burning, but if the lid be removed, the savoury steams escape, and also much of the succulent qualities of the meat. Great delicacy is required in re-warming made dishes; they should be merely heated through; and the safest mode is to place the stewpan in a vessel of boiling water. All made dishes require gravy, more or less good, and, in most houses, this, by a little previous forethought, may always be ready; for if the liquor in which meat has been boiled be saved, that seasoned, flavoured, and thickened, the cook will always be provided with gravy for a ragout or fricassee. (_See the Chapter on Soup, and also that on Gravy._) The following is a good store gravy.--Boil a ham, or part of one, in water to cover it, with four onions, a clove of garlic, six eschalots, a bay leaf, a bunch of sweet herbs, six cloves, and a few peppercorns. Keep the pot covered, and let it simmer three hours. The liquor is strained, and kept till poultry or meat of any kind is boiled; put the two together, and boil down fast till reduced to three pints; when cold, it will be a jelly, and suits any sort of ragout or hash. Every cook ought to learn the art of _larding_, and also of _braising_, as they are both used in made dishes. _To Lard._ Have larding pins of various sizes. Cut strips of bacon, with a sharp knife, put one into the pin, pierce the skin and a very little of the flesh, and draw it through; the rows may be either near together or far apart. The bacon is sometimes rolled in seasonings to suit the meat. _To Blanch, either Meat or Vegetables._ This gives plumpness as well as whiteness. Put whatever it be into a saucepan with cold water to cover, and let {135}it come to a boil; take it out, plunge it into cold water, and let it remain till cold. _To Braise._ This is, in fact, to stew in highly seasoned fat. Poultry must be trussed as for boiling. Either lard, or stuff it, with good forcemeat, and provide a thick-bottomed stew-pan, large enough to hold it. Line this with slices of bacon, or fat beef, sliced onion, carrot, and turnip. Strew in a few chopped herbs, salt, mace, black and Jamaica pepper, 2 bay leaves, and a clove of garlic. (The seasoning to suit the meat.) Lay the meat in, and cover it, first with the same quantity of herbs and spices as above, then with thin slices of bacon, and, over all, white paper; wrap a cloth about the lid of the stew-pan, and press it down, setting a weight on the top. Place the stew-pan over a slow fire, and put embers on the lid. The cooking process should be very slow. Braised joints are generally glazed. _To Glaze._ When the meat is sufficiently cooked, take it out of the stew-pan and keep it covered. Strain the gravy into a clean stew-pan, put it on the fire, and let it boil quickly, uncovered, a few minutes; brush the meat over with this, let it cool, and then brush again. What is not used may be kept in a jar tied down, in a cool place.--_Fowls_, _Hams_, and _Tongues_, cooked by plain boiling, are often glazed, to be eaten cold.--_Another way_ is, to prepare a glaze beforehand, for _Hams_, _Tongues_, or _Fricandeaux_, thus: break the bone of a knuckle of veal, cut the meat in pieces, the same with shin of beef, add any poultry or game trimmings, and a few slices of bacon; put them in a stew-pan over a quick fire, and let them _catch_, then put in a little broth of cow-heels, or calf's-head, or feet. Let this stew to a strong jelly; then strain, and put it by in jars. It may be flavoured to suit the dish, at the time it is heated to be used. Glaze should be heated in a vessel of boiling water, and when quite hot, brushed over the meat. When _cream_ is used, it should be first heated (not boil), poured in by degrees, and stirred, to prevent curdling. In making a stew, remember to let it stand by the fire nearly ten minutes, not simmering, that {136}you may remove the fat, before you put in the thickening. The _flour_ for this should be of the finest kind, well dried. For _Ragouts_, you may brown it, before the fire, or in the oven, and keep it ready prepared. It is convenient to keep spices ready pounded; the quantity so prepared, as to be proportioned to the usual consumption. _Kitchen pepper_ is: 1 oz. ginger, ½ oz. each, of nutmeg, black and Jamaica pepper, and cinnamon; pound or grind, and keep them in small phials, corked, and labelled. For _white sauces_, white pepper, nutmeg, mace, and grated lemon peel, in equal proportion, may also be kept prepared; cayenne, added or not, as taste requires; cayenne is used in preparations of brains, kidneys, or liver. Made dishes are sometimes served on a _Purée_ of mushrooms or vegetables. This is: boiled to a mash, just thicker than a sauce, and much used in French cookery. To _Marinade_ is to _steep_ meat or fish, in a mixture of wine, vinegar, herbs and spices. _Onions_, small silver ones, are blanched, peeled and boiled in good broth to serve as garnish to _bouilli_ and many other made dishes; or not blanched, but stewed with butter, if to be brown. When very strong you may parboil them with a turnip, for a stew, or forcemeat. Some persons use _brandy_ in made dishes. _Wine_ in the proportion of a wine-glassful to a pint of gravy; the quantity of brandy small in proportion. _Truffles_ and _Morells_ are a valuable addition to gravy and soup. Wash 1 oz. of each, boil them five minutes in water, then put them and the liquor into the stew. _Rump of Beef to Stew, Ragout, or Braise._ Cut out the bone, break it, and put it on in cold water, with any trimmings you can cut off the rump; season with onion, sweet herbs, a carrot, and a turnip. Scum, and let it simmer an hour; then strain it into the stew-pan in which you stew the beef. Season the rump highly with kitchen pepper (_which see_), and cayenne; skewer and bind it with tape. Lay skewers at the bottom of the stew-pan, place the meat upon them, and pour the gravy over. When it has simmered, rather more than an hour, turn it, put in a carrot, turnip, and 3 onions, all sliced, an eschalot, and a glass of flavouring vinegar. Keep the lid quite close, and {137}let it simmer 2 hours. Before you take it up, put in a little catsup, made mustard, and some brown _roux_, or butter rolled in flour, to thicken the gravy.--_Or_: having taken out the bone, lard the beef with fat bacon, and stew it for as many hours, as the beef weighs pounds, in good gravy, or plain water, with vegetables and seasoning, as in the other receipt, to which you may add a head of celery. This dish should be nicely garnished; for which purpose have carrots boiled, and cut into any shapes you like, also button onions, Brussels sprouts, sprigs of cauliflower, &c., &c.; a border of mashed potatoes round the meat, and carrot or green vegetables disposed upon it, is also nice. Stewed tomatas also, or tomata sauce. _Brisket of Beef to Stew._ Wash, then rub the beef with salt and vinegar, put it into a stew-pan to just hold it, with water or broth; when it boils scum well, and let it stew an hour; add carrots, turnips, and onions, cut up. Stew it 6 hours, take out the bones, skim the gravy, add butter rolled in flour, a little catsup and mixed spices. Put the meat into a dish; add made mustard, and more catsup, to the gravy, pour some into the dish, and the rest in a tureen. This may be enriched by walnut and mushroom catsup, truffles, morells, and Port wine; also, carrots and turnips cut in shapes, boiled separately, and, when the meat is dished, spread over and round it. Serve pickles. _Beef, or Veal à la Mode._ The rump, the thick part of the flank, the mouse buttock, and the clod, are dressed as follows; take from 8 to 10 lbs. beef, rub well with mixed spices and salt, and dredge it with flour. Put some skewers at the bottom of a stew-pan, and on them thin slices of bacon, 2 table-spoonsful of vinegar, and a pint of good gravy or broth; then put in the beef, and more bacon. Cover close, and let it stew slowly 3 hours; then turn the meat, and put in cloves, black and Jamaica peppers, 2 bay leaves, and a few mushrooms, or catsup, also a few button onions, browned in the frying-pan, and a head of celery. Let it stew till the meat is tender, then take out the bay leaves, put in a tea-cupful of Port {138}wine, and serve the meat with the gravy in the dish. The gravy will have thickened to a glaze. Some cooks lard the beef with thick slices of fat bacon, first dipped in vinegar, then in a mixture ready prepared, of black pepper, allspice, a clove and parsley, chives, thyme, savoury and knotted marjoram, all chopped very fine. Serve _salad_ or _cucumber_. When veal is dressed this way (the breast is best), flavour with oyster catsup, lemon peel, lemon pickle, mace, bay leaf, and white wine. Garnish with pickled mushrooms, barberries, and lemon. This may be cooked in the oven, in a baking dish with a close fitting lid. _Beef to Collar._ The thin flank is best; the meat young, tender, not very fat. Rub it with salt and a very little saltpetre, lay it across a deep dish one night, to drain; rub in a mixture of brown sugar, salt, pounded pepper and allspice; let it lie a week in the pickle; rub and turn it every day. Then take out the bones, cut off the coarse and gristly parts, and the inner skin, dry it, and spread over the inside some chopped herbs of whatever flavour you choose, and mixed spices; roll it up as tight as you can, and bind with tape; allow it four or five hours' slow, but constant boiling. When done press it under a heavy weight, and put by to eat cold. It is sometimes served hot. _Boeuf Royale._ Bone the brisket, then scoop holes or cut slits in the meat, about an inch asunder, fill one with small rolls of fat bacon, a second with chopped parsley and sweet herbs, seasoned with pepper and salt, the third with oyster cut small and powdered with a very little mace and nutmeg. When all the apertures are stuffed, tie up the meat in a roll, put it into a baking pan, pour over it a pint of sherry, quite hot, and six cloves, flour the meat, cover close and set it in the oven for three hours; pour off the gravy, and put it by to cool that you may skim off the fat; if it is not already in a jelly, which it should be, boil it a little longer. Serve the beef cold, and the jelly round it. _Beef to Fricandeau._ Lard a piece of lean beef with strips of bacon, seasoned {139}with salt, pepper, cloves, mace, and allspice; put it into a stew-pan, with a pint of broth, a faggot of herbs, parsley, half a clove of garlic (if you like), one eschalot, four cloves, pepper and salt. Let it stew till tender, take it out and keep hot by the fire; strain the gravy, and boil it quickly, till reduced to a glaze; and glaze the larded side of the beef. Serve on stewed sorrel or cucumbers. _Ox Cheek to Stew._ Having washed the cheek, tie it up round, and stew it in good gravy, or water, with two bay leaves, a little garlic (if approved), two onions, mushrooms, two turnips, two carrots, half a small cabbage, a bunch of sweet herbs, six whole peppers, a little allspice, and a blade of mace. Scum well, and when nearly done, take out the cheek, cut off the tapes, put it into a fresh stew-pan; strain the liquor, skim off the fat, add lemon juice, or vinegar, salt, cayenne, and catsup; whisk in some white of egg to clear it, pour it through a strainer, to the cheek; and stew it till quite tender. _Ox Palates._ Parboil them till the upper skin will easily come off, and either divide, or cut them in slices. Stew them slowly, in gravy thickened with browned flour, with a little minced eschalot or onion, or a spoonful of onion pickle, some catsup, and cayenne. If to be dressed high, add wine, mushrooms, truffles, and morells to the sauce, and forcemeat balls in the dish. Stewed cucumbers with this.--_Beef skirts_ the same way.--_Or_: boil the palates in milk, and serve them in white sauce, flavoured with mushroom powder and mace. _To Pickle Ox Palates._ Clean and simmer them in water, scum well, then put as much mace, cloves, pepper, salt, and sweet herbs, as will make them highly seasoned, and let them boil gently 4 hours, or till quite tender; then take the skin off, cut them into small pieces, and set them by, to cool. Cover them with a pickle of half white wine, half vinegar, and spices as above: when this is cold, strain it, and pour over the palates; add 2 bay leaves, if you like. Cover very close. {140}_Bouilli._ See this in direction for soup. But if to be dressed without soup, boil a piece of the flank or brisket in water to cover it, with a sufficiency of cut carrot and turnip to garnish, also a head of celery and 12 or 16 button onions, browned; add a small table-spoonful of black and Jamaica peppers tied in muslin; simmer it gently; and it requires a long time to cook it enough. When it has boiled till tender, take out enough of the liquor to make sauce; thicken it with brown _roux_, or flour rubbed in butter, add catsup, cayenne, and made mustard. Garnish with the vegetables. Caper, walnut, or tomata sauce. Pickled gherkins on the table. _Tongue to Stew._ Cut off the root, and boil a salted tongue tender enough to peel. Stew it in good gravy, with herbs, celery, soy, mushroom catsup, and cayenne. To be very rich this is served with truffles, morells, and mushrooms. Lard it if you like.--_Or_: put the tongue into a pan that will just hold it, strew over a mixture of pepper, cloves, mace, and allspice, and thin slices of butter, put a coarse paste over, and bake it slowly, till you think a straw will pass through it. To eat cold. _Ox Tails to Stew._ Divide them at the joints. Scald or parboil, then brown them in a stew-pan, with a little piece of butter, to keep from burning. Stew them slowly till tender, in broth or water, enough to make sufficient gravy, seasoned with salt, pepper, cayenne, chopped parsley, and a spoonful of made mustard. Thicken the gravy with brown flour. If you approve, put into the stew three onions (one brown), two carrots, and a bay leaf; or you may boil some cut carrots and turnips, stew them in melted butter, and serve round the pieces of meat in the gravy. _Irish Stew._ This excellent dish is made of mutton or beef. Chops cut from a loin or neck of mutton, trimmed of most of the {141}fat, and well seasoned with salt, pepper, and spices. Parboil and skin as many potatoes as you think enough, the proportion is 4 lbs. weight to 2 lbs. of meat. Peel 8 or 10 onions (for 4 lbs. meat), lay some sliced suet at the bottom of the stew-pan, or a tea-cupful of melted butter, put in a layer of potatoes sliced, a layer of chops, slice a layer of onions over, then potatoes and mutton, and so on, the top layer potato; pour in half a pint of broth or water. A shank or small piece of ham is an improvement. This should stew very slowly; when the meat is tender the potatoes _may_ be boiled to a mash, therefore have some boiled whole, by themselves. Beef steaks, and any of the coarser parts, make a better stew than mutton. _Rump Steaks to Stew._ The steaks should be of one thickness, about ¾ of an inch. Put about 1 oz. of butter into a stew-pan, and 2 onions sliced, lay in the steaks, and let them brown nicely on one side, then turn them to brown on the other side. Boil a large tea-cupful of button onions three quarters of an hour, strain, and pour the liquor over the steaks; if not enough to cover them, put a little more water or broth, add salt, and 10 peppercorns. Stew them very gently half an hour, then strain off as much of the liquor as you want for sauce; put it into a saucepan, thicken with brown flour, or _roux_, add catsup, a little cayenne, also a glass of red wine. Lay the steaks in a dish, and pour the sauce over. The boiled onions may be laid over the steaks. Mushrooms stewed with steaks are an improvement; 2 or 3 tomatas, also, will help to enrich the stew, and about 4 pickled walnuts may be put in. Harvey's and Reading sauces may be used to flavour, also chili or eschalot vinegar. _With Cucumbers, or Potatoes._--Having your steak either broiled or fried, pour over it the following:--3 large cucumbers and 3 onions, pared, sliced, browned in the frying-pan, and then stewed till tender in ½ pint of gravy or water.--_Or_: cut the under side of the sirloin into steaks, broil them three parts, rub a piece of butter over each, and finish in the Dutch oven: serve them on potatoes, parboiled, cut in slices and browned.--_Italian Steak_: have a large tender one, season it with salt, pepper, {142}and onion, or eschalot: put it, without any water, into an iron stew-pan, with a close-fitting lid, and set it by the side of a strong fire, but do not let it burn: in 2 hours, or a little more, it will be tender: serve, in its own gravy. _Rolled Beef Steaks._ Prepare a forcemeat of the breast of a fowl, ½ lb. veal, ¼ lb. ham, fat and lean, the kidney of a loin of veal, and a sweetbread, all cut very small, also a few truffles and morells stewed, an eschalot, a little parsley, thyme and grated lemon peel, the yolks of 2 eggs, ½ a nutmeg and ¼ pint of cream, stir this mixture over the fire ten minutes, then spread it on very tender steaks, roll them up and skewer them; fry them of a fine brown, then take them from the fat, and stew them a quarter of an hour with a pint of beef gravy, a spoonful of catsup, a wine-glassful of Port wine, and, if you can, a few mushrooms. Cut the steaks in two, serve them the cut side uppermost, and the gravy round. Garnish with lemon or pickled mushrooms.--The forcemeat may be less rich, according to what you have. A _fillet of beef_, namely, the under cut of the rump, makes very nice steaks; cut in pieces ¼ inch in thickness, put them on the gridiron over a sharp fire, season them whilst broiling with pepper and salt, and turn them often, to keep the gravy in. Make a sauce of the yolks of 4 eggs, ½ lb. butter, in slices, salt, pepper, the juice of ½ a lemon, and a little chopped parsley; keep stirring it over the fire in every direction, till rather thick, then take it off and keep stirring until the butter is melted; if too thick, add milk or cream, and pour round the steak. _Beef Olives._ Cut slices, of ½ an inch thick, about 5 long, and 3 inches broad. Beat, dip them in egg, then in a seasoning of chopped herbs, bread-crumbs, salt, mixed spices, and a little finely shred suet. Roll up and fasten them with thread. These may be roasted in a Dutch oven, or stewed in clear gravy, after being browned in the frying pan. Thicken the gravy, and add catsup and walnut pickle; dish {143}the olives, skim, and pour the gravy hot over them. They may be made of slices of cold roast beef, forcemeat spread over them, and when neatly tied up, stewed in gravy, or boiling water, with brown flour rubbed in butter, to thicken it.--_Or_: spread on the slices of beef this mixture; mashed potatoes worked to a paste, with cream, the yolks of 2 eggs, and 1 spoonful of flour, seasoned with salt and pepper; when this is spread on the slices, strew over each a very little finely chopped onion, parsley, and mushrooms; roll the olives up, fry in butter, or bake in a Dutch oven. _Beef Marrow Bones._ Fill up the opening with a piece of paste, tie a floured cloth over that, and place them upright in the pot. Two hours' boiling. Serve on a napkin, with slices of dry toast. _Beef Heart._ Soak it and cut off the lobes. Put in a good stuffing, and roast, or bake it, two hours. Serve gravy and currant jelly.--When cold, hash it like hare. _Hunter's Beef._ Take the bone out of a round, and rub in the following mixture, all in fine powder: ¼ lb. saltpetre, ¼ lb. lump sugar, 1 oz. cloves, 2 nutmegs, and 3 handfuls of salt; this for 25 lbs.; rub and turn it every day, till you think it salted enough to boil; take it out of the brine, wipe it with a sponge, and bind up firmly with tape. If you choose, a stuffing may be put into the place where the bone came out. Put the meat into an earthenware pan just to hold it, with a pint of broth or thin melted butter; put some pieces of butter or suet on the top of the beef, lay folds of brown paper over the pan, or a coarse crust is still better, and bake it at least five hours. This is generally eaten cold, but it may be eaten hot. The gravy left in the pan is preserved to flavour soups and sauces. It may be made of the _Ribs_: rub into a piece of 12 lbs., boned, 4 oz. bay salt, 3 oz. saltpetre, ½ lb. coarse brown sugar, 2 lbs. salt, and a teacupful of juniper berries bruised: rub and turn every day for three weeks, then bake it, covered with a coarse paste. {144}_Hamburgh Beef._ Rub a rump or round of beef well with brown sugar, and let it lie five days; turn it each day. Sponge, and rub into it a mixture of 4 oz. common salt, 4 oz. bay salt, and 2 oz. saltpetre, well beaten, and spices to your taste. Rub and turn it every other day, for a fortnight: then roll up, tie it, put it in a cloth, then under a heavy weight; that done, hang for a week in a wood-smoke chimney. Cut pieces to boil as it is wanted, and when boiled enough, press the meat again under a weight, to eat cold. _Hung Beef._ Rub the best end of the ribs well with lump sugar, or treacle, and saltpetre; on the third day rub with common salt and saltpetre; rub and turn it every day for a week; let it lie a fortnight, turning it every other day, pouring the brine over. Take it out, wipe, and dust bran over, then hang it to dry (not smoke) six or eight weeks. _Boeuf à la Flamande._ Lard a piece of ribs of beef of 8 lbs. weight, and braise it over a slow fire, a slice of bacon under and over it; then add a pint of fresh mushrooms, 2 lbs. truffles, 2 doz. forcemeat balls, made with plenty of eggs, and ½ pint Madeira. Carrots and turnips, cut small, boiled separately in broth till quite tender, also silver onions as directed for made dishes; all or any of these may be laid over the beef. _Beef to Press._ Bone the brisket, flank, or ribs, and rub it with a mixture of salt, sugar, and spices; let it be a week, then boil till tender, and press it under a heavy weight till cold. _Beef to Hash, or Mince._ Cut thin slices of the underdone part, leaving aside the gristly parts and burnt outside to make gravy, with the bones; put these on in a quart of water, pepper, salt, two onions, a little allspice, cayenne, sweet herbs, and parsley: when the water has wasted one half, thicken with flour, {145}mixing it in by degrees, a little at a time; when this has boiled up, skim off the fat, set it by the side of the fire to settle, strain it into another saucepan, and put it again on the fire; add mushroom catsup, pickle, or whatever ingredient you choose; when hot, put in the slices of meat, and all the gravy left of the joint; let the meat slowly warm through, but not _boil_, or it will become hard; a very few minutes will be sufficient. Toasted sippets round the dish. You may add any flavouring sauce you choose; eschalot vinegar is good, but use no onion. A table-spoonful of curry paste makes it a good curry. _Beef Cecils._ Mince cold meat very finely, and mix it with bread-crumbs, chopped onion, parsley, pepper, and salt. Put it into a stew-pan with a very little melted butter, and walnut pickle, stir it over the fire a few minutes, pour it in a dish, and when cool, put enough flour to make it into balls, the shape and size of large eggs; brush with egg, roll them in bread-crumbs, and brown before the fire. Pour good gravy over them. The minced beef may be warmed in scallop shells, between layers of mashed potatoes, or only a layer spread thinly over the top, and little bits of butter stuck on, and then browned before the fire: this may be moistened with any gravy you have, or walnut pickle.--_Or_: you may serve the mince on toasted bread, or under poached eggs. Chopped _onions_, previously parboiled, make this more relishing to some persons' tastes. _Beef Collops._ Cut thin slices of very tender beef, divide them in pieces three inches long, beat them with the blade of a knife, and flour them; fry them in butter three minutes, then stew them in a pint of water or gravy; if water add salt and pepper, half a pickled walnut, 3 small gherkins, or a table-spoonful of capers, a lump of butter and flour to thicken it. Take care it do not boil, but stew gently. The pickles all cut small.--_Or_: do not stew, but fry them in butter with 1 onion in slices, till cooked, about ten minutes; then put them in a hot dish, keep that covered, while you boil {146}up in the pan a table-spoonful of boiling water, a tea-spoonful of lemon pickle, of oyster pickle, walnut catsup, soy and made mustard; pour all hot over the collops. _Beef en Miroton._ Cut thin slices of cold boiled (not salted), or roast beef, or tongue. Put 6 onions chopped into a saucepan with ¼ lb. of butter, turn it round frequently, and in a few minutes add a little flour mixed in a tea-cup of broth, and a wine-glass of white wine; let it be on the fire until the onions are cooked; then put in the meat with salt, pepper, and a spoonful of vinegar. After one boil, stir in a spoonful of made mustard, and serve it; the edge of each slice lying a little over the other round the dish. _Bubble and Squeak._ Cold boiled beef is best, but roast meat is very good. Cut it in thin slices, pepper well and fry them in butter, then keep them hot, while you fry some boiled cabbage, chopped; when done, put this high in the middle of the dish, and lay the slices of meat round: if you like, an equal portion of cold potatoes, chopped and fried with the cabbage. Serve thick melted butter, with pickled cucumbers, or onion or capers, and a little made mustard. _Veal_ may be cooked this way, with spinach instead of cabbage.--_Or_: what is more delicate, cut bits of cold veal without any skin, about an inch long, and warm them in the frying pan with the white part of a boiled cauliflower in little bits, ½ pint of cream, and a light sprinkling of salt and cayenne. _Beef to Pot._ Lean meat is best. Salt, and let it lie two days. Drain, season with pepper, and spices; bake it in a slow oven. When done, drain it from the gravy, and set it before the fire, to draw the moisture from it. Tear in pieces, and beat it up well in a mortar, with mixed spices, and enough oiled butter to make it the proper consistence. Flavour with mushroom powder, anchovy or minced eschalot. Put it into potting-cans, and pour clarified butter {147}over, which may afterwards be used for various purposes. _Potted Beef_ is generally made of meat which has been used to make clear gravy, _or_ the remains of a joint. _Mock Hare._ Put the inside of a sirloin of beef into an earthen pan, cover it with Port wine, and let it lie 24 hours: then spread over it a forcemeat of veal, suet, and anchovies, chopped, also grated bread, mace, pepper, and mushroom powder, lemon peel, lemon thyme, eschalot, and the yolks of two eggs: roll up the beef tight, and roast it, by dangling before the fire: baste with the wine in which it was soaked, till half done, then with cream, or milk and butter, and froth it, till well coated, like hare. Serve a rich gravy, flavoured with walnut or mushroom catsup, and a table-spoonful of eschalot vinegar. Sweet sauce.--_Or_: a cold uncut inside of a roasted sirloin may be re-warmed whole, in gravy flavoured with eschalot vinegar, walnut or mushroom catsup, and Port wine. _Fillet of Veal to Stew._ Stuff it with a good forcemeat, roll tightly, and skewer it. Lay skewers at the bottom of a stew-pan, place the meat on them, put in a quart of broth, or soft water, lay some bits of butter on the top of the fillet, cover the stew-pan close, after taking off all the scum, and let it simmer slowly till the meat is tender; take it out, strain the sauce, thicken it, and put it on the fire to re-warm; season with white pepper, mace, nutmeg, a glass of white wine, and the juice of a lemon, pour it hot over the meat; lay slices of lemon, forcemeat balls, pickled mushrooms, or fresh ones stewed, over the meat, and round the dish. Serve white sauce.--This dish is made more savoury if you put mushrooms, and ham or tongue, in the forcemeat. Also, you make it richer by putting the best part of a boiled tongue, whole, where you take the bone out, fill up the cavities round the fillet with forcemeat; tie it up in a good shape, and either stew or bake it, in gravy, as above; or roast it, basting well. This may be served with a wall of mashed potatoes round, and that ornamented with pieces of tongue and bacon, cut in dice, alternately, with sprigs of green {148}vegetable; or pieces of stewed cucumber; or Jerusalem artichokes cooked in white sauce; or garnish with lumps of young green peas. _Neck of Veal to Braise._ Lard the best end with bacon rolled in a mixture of parsley, salt, pepper, and nutmeg: put it into a stew-pan with the scrag end, a slice of lean ham, 1 onion, 2 carrots, and 2 heads of celery, nearly cover with water, and stew it till tender, about two hours. Strain off the liquor, and put the larded veal (the upper side downwards) into another stew-pan, in which you have browned a piece of butter, then set it over the fire, till the meat is sufficiently coloured; keep it hot in a dish whilst you boil up quickly a little of the strained liquor; skim it, put in a glass of Madeira, some orange or lemon juice, and pour it hot over the veal. Garnish with slices of lemon.--This joint may be covered with a veal caul and roasted; ten minutes before it is done, uncover it to brown. Serve it on sorrel sauce, celery, or asparagus tops: or with mushrooms fricasseed, or in sauce. _Breast of Veal to Stew, Ragout, or Collar._ An elegant dish for the second course. Put on the scrag and any bones of veal you have, to make gravy; put a well seasoned forcemeat into the thin part, sew it in; egg the top of the breast, brown it before the fire, and let it stew in the strained gravy an hour; when done, take it out and keep it hot over boiling water, while you thicken the sauce, and put to it 50 oysters cut up, a few mushrooms chopped, lemon juice, white pepper and mace; or catsup and anchovy sauce may be used to flavour it; also cream, white wine, truffles, and morells, at discretion. Pour the sauce hot over the meat, and garnish with slices of lemon and forcemeat balls, also pickled mushrooms.--A _Scrag_ of veal is very good, stewed in thin broth or water, till very tender; make a sauce of celery, boiled in two waters to make it white, then put into very thick melted butter, stir in a coffee-cupful of cream, shake it two minutes over the fire, and pour it over the veal. _Or_ tomata or onion sauce. _To Ragout_--Make a little gravy of the scrag and bones of {149}the breast, cut the meat into neat pieces, rather long than broad, and brown them in fresh butter. Drain off the fat, and stew them in the gravy, with a bunch of sweet herbs, a piece of lemon peel, a few cloves, a blade of mace, two onions, white pepper, salt, and a little allspice. Simmer slowly, keeping it covered close. When done, take out the meat, skim off the fat, strain and thicken the gravy, add the juice of a lemon and a glass of white wine, and pour it hot over the veal, holding back the sediment. _Breast_ and _neck of veal_ may be stewed in water, or weak broth, without forcemeat. _Veal_ is sometimes stewed with green peas, chopped lettuce, and young onions.--_Lamb_ may be dressed this way, and served with cucumber sauce.--_Rabbit_ the same, with white onion sauce. _To Collar_--Bone it, take off the skin, and beat the meat with a rolling pin; season it with pepper, salt, pounded mace, and a mixture of herbs, chopped very fine, then lay on thick slices of ham or 2 calves' tongues, boiled and skinned; bind it up in a cloth, and fasten it well with tape. Simmer it in enough water to cover it, over a slow fire, till quite tender, which will be about three hours and a half; then put it under a weight till cold. You may put in, in different parts, pigs' and calves' feet boiled and taken from the bones; also yolk of hard-boiled egg, grated ham, chopped parsley, and slices of beet root. _Collared Veal to be eaten Hot_--Spread a forcemeat over the breast (boned), then roll, bind it up tight, and stew it in water or weak broth. Serve it in good veal gravy, or on fricasseed mushrooms, and artichoke bottoms. This is sometimes roasted. _Veal Olives or Veal Rolls._ Cut long thin slices and beat them, lay on each one a very thin slice of bacon, and then a layer of highly seasoned forcemeat, in which there is a little eschalot. Roll them tight the size of two fingers 3 inches long; fasten them with a skewer, rub egg over, and either fry them of a light brown, or stew them, slowly, in gravy. Add a wine-glassful of white wine, and a little lemon juice.--If you do not choose the bacon, put only forcemeat strongly flavoured with ham; or grate ham thickly over the slices. Garnish with fried balls and pickled mushrooms. {150}_Scotch Collops._ Cut small slices of the fillet, flour and brown them in fresh butter in the frying-pan, and simmer them very gently in a little weak broth or boiling water; when nearly done, add the juice of a lemon, a spoonful of catsup, a little mace, pepper and salt; take out the collops, keep them hot in the dish; thicken the sauce with browned flour, and pour it hot over the collops; garnish with curled slices of bacon. _Veal en Fricandeau._ The fat fleshy side of the knuckle, a little thin slice from the fillet, or the lean part of the neck boned. Take off the skin, beat the meat flat, and stuff with forcemeat; lard it, or not, as you like. Lay some slices of bacon at the bottom of a stew-pan, the veal on them, and slices of bacon on the top; put in 1½ pint of broth, or water, the bones of the meat, or 2 shanks of mutton; a bunch of herbs, 1 turnip, 1 carrot, 3 onions sliced, a blade of mace, 2 bay leaves, some white pepper, and lastly, more slices of bacon. Let this stew slowly, after being scummed, two hours, keeping the stew-pan closely covered, except when you baste the upper side of the fricandeau. The meat ought to be cooked to eat with a spoon. Take it out, when done, and keep it hot while you take all the bones out of the gravy, skim off the fat, and let it boil quickly till it thickens, and becomes a glaze; pour it over the meat. Mushrooms, morells and truffles may be added. Sorrel or tomata sauce.--_Another_: put the veal into a stew-pan, the larded side uppermost, add 2 tumblers of water, 2 carrots and onions in slices, 2 cloves, pepper and salt to taste, and a bunch of parsley: boil slowly three hours and a half; then brown the veal with a salamander; served with stewed mushrooms. _Knuckle of Veal to Ragout, or with Rice._ Break the bone and put it into a stew-pan with water to make a quart of broth, with the skin, gristles, and trimmings of the meat, a bunch of parsley, a head of celery, one onion, one turnip, one carrot, and a small bunch of lemon {151}thyme; this being ready, cut the meat off the knuckle, the cross way of the grain, in slices smaller than cutlets, season with salt and kitchen pepper, dredge with flour, and brown them in another stew-pan. Then strain the broth, pour it over them, and stew it _very_ slowly half an hour; thicken the gravy with white _roux_, and add the juice of half a lemon. _With Rice_--Cut off steaks for cutlets, or a pie, so as to leave no more meat on the bone than will be eaten hot. Break and wash the shank bone; put it into a stew-pan, with two quarts of water, salt, an onion, a blade of mace, and a bunch of parsley. When it boils, scum well, put in ¼ lb. of well-washed rice, and stew it at least two hours. Put the meat in a deep dish, and lay the drained rice round. Serve bacon and greens. _Granadin of Veal._ Line a dish, or shape, with veal caul, letting it hang over the sides of the dish; put in, first a layer of thin slices of bacon, then a layer of forcemeat, made of herbs, suet, and crumbs of bread, then a layer of thin slices of veal, well seasoned, and so on till the dish is filled; turn the caul over the whole, tie a paper over the dish, and bake it. Mushrooms may be added. When done, turn it out of the dish, and serve with a clear brown gravy. _Veal à la Daube._ Cut off the chump, and take out the edge-bone of a loin of veal; raise the skin and put in a forcemeat; bind the loin up with tape, cover with slices of bacon, and put it into a stew-pan, with all the bones and trimmings, one or two shanks of mutton, and just cover with water, or broth; a bunch of sweet herbs, two anchovies, some white pepper, and a blade of mace. Put a cloth over the stew-pan, and fit the lid tight, with a weight on the top. Simmer it slowly two hours, but shake the pan occasionally. The gravy will have become a strong glaze; take out the veal, the bacon, and herbs; glaze the veal, and serve it with tomata or mushroom sauce, or stewed mushrooms. _Veal to Haricot._ Shorten the bones of the best end of the neck; you may {152}cut it in chops, or dress it whole. Stew it in good brown gravy, and when nearly done, add a pint of green peas, a large cucumber pared and sliced, a blanched lettuce quartered, pepper, salt, a very little cayenne, and boiling water, or broth, to cover the stew. Simmer it till the vegetables are done, put the meat in a hash dish, and pour the stew over. Forcemeat balls to garnish, if you choose. _Veal Cutlets à la Maintenon._ _See Mutton Steaks à la Maintenon_; or cook them without paper as follows: first flatten, and then season them with mixed spices, dipped in egg first, then in bread-crumbs mixed with powdered sweet herbs, grated nutmeg, and lemon peel. Broil them over a quick, clear fire, and serve directly they are done, with good gravy well flavoured with different sauces; or catsup in melted butter, or mushroom sauce. Garnish with lemon and curled parsley. They may be dressed in the Dutch oven, moistened, from time to time, with melted butter. The fat should be first pared off pretty closely. Serve pickles. _Calf's Heart._ Stuff it with a rich forcemeat, put the caul, or a well buttered paper over, and roast it an hour. Pour a sauce of melted butter and catsup over it.--_Or_: stuff, and brown it in a stew-pan, with a little butter, or a slice of bacon under it; put in enough broth or water to make a very little gravy, and let it simmer gently till done; take out the bacon, simmer and thicken the gravy, and pour it over the heart. Sweet sauce, or currant jelly.--_Sheep's_ hearts are very nice, in the same way; a wine-glassful of catsup, or of Port wine, in the gravy. _Calf's Pluck._ Parboil half the liver and lights, and mince them. Stuff the heart with forcemeat, cover with the caul, or a buttered paper, or, instead of either, lay some slices of bacon on, and bake it. Simmer the mince of the liver in gravy or broth, add salt, pepper, chopped parsley, the juice of a lemon and catsup: fry the rest of the liver in slices, with parsley. {153}When done, put the mince in a dish, the heart in the middle, the slices round. Garnish with fried parsley, or toasted sippets.--_Or_: cut the liver into oblong slices an inch thick, turn these round, and fasten with thread, or form them into any shape you like. Chop onions very fine, also mushrooms and parsley, fry these in butter, pepper and salt; then dredge flour over the pieces of liver, and put them into the frying-pan; when done enough, lay them in a dish, pepper slightly and keep them hot, whilst you pour enough broth or boiling water into the frying-pan to moisten the herbs; stew this a few minutes, and pour it over the liver. A nice supper or breakfast dish.--_Lamb's pluck_ the same way.--_Calf's liver_ is very good stewed. This is made rich, according to the herbs, spices, and sauces used. Chili vinegar is good. _Veal Sweetbreads._ Parboil a very little, then divide and stew them in veal broth, or milk and water. When done, season the sauce with salt and white pepper, and thicken with flour; add a little hot cream, and pour it over the sweetbreads.--_Or_: when parboiled, egg the sweetbreads, dip them in a seasoned mixture of bread-crumbs, and chopped herbs; roast them gently in a Dutch oven, and pour over a sauce of melted butter and catsup.--_Or_: do not parboil, but brown them, in a stew-pan, with a piece of butter, then pour over just enough good gravy to cover them; let them simmer gently, till done, add salt, pepper, allspice and mushroom catsup; take out the sweetbreads, thicken the sauce with browned flour, and strain it over them. Mushroom sauce and melted butter are served with sweetbreads.--_Or_: par-roast before the fire, cut them in thin slices, then baste with thin melted butter, strew bread-crumbs over, and finish by broiling before the fire.--Truffles and morells may be added to enrich the gravy. _Calf's Tails._ Clean and parboil the tails, brown them in butter, then drain and stew them in good broth, with a bunch of parsley, a few onions, and a bay leaf. Green peas, sliced {154}cucumber, or lettuce, may be added and served altogether, when done, and the fat skimmed off. _Calf's Head._ Wash and soak it in warm water, take out the brains, and the black part of the eyes. Boil it in a large fish-kettle, with plenty of water and some salt. Scum well, and let it simmer gently nearly two hours. Lift it out, carefully sponge it to take off any scum that may have adhered, take out the tongue, and slightly score the head, in diamonds; brush it with egg, and sprinkle it with a mixture of bread-crumbs, herbs, pepper, salt and spices; strew some little bits of butter over, and put it in the Dutch oven to brown. Wash and parboil the brains; skin, and chop them with parsley and sage (parboiled); add pepper and salt, with melted butter, to a little more than moisten it, add the juice of a lemon, and a small quantity of cayenne; turn this a few minutes over the fire: skin the tongue, place it in the middle of a small dish, the brains round it; garnish with very small sprigs of curled parsley, and slices of lemon; serve the head in another dish, garnish the same. Serve melted butter and parsley. If you have boiled the whole head, half may be dressed as above, and the other half as follows:--cut the meat into neat pieces along with the tongue, and re-warm it in a little good broth, well seasoned with spices and lemon peel; when it is done, put in the juice of a lemon, pour it into your dish, lay the half head on it, garnish with brain cakes and lemon.--_Calf's Head to Stew_--Prepare it as in the last receipt to boil; take out the bones, put in a delicate forcemeat, tie it up carefully, and stew it in veal broth or water; season well with mace, mushroom powder and a very little cayenne. Stew very slowly, and when done, serve it with fried forcemeat balls, and a fricassee of mushrooms. It may be enriched to almost any degree, by flavouring sauces, truffles and morells, also oysters. _A Collared Calf's Head_ in the same way: when boned season as in the last receipt; put parsley in a thick layer, then thick slices of ham or the tongue, roll it up, tie as firmly as you can in a cloth and boil it, and put it under a weight till cold. {155}_Brain Cakes._ Take off all the fibres and skins which hang about the brains and scald them; beat them in a bason, with the yolks of two eggs (or more, according to the quantity of brains), one spoonful of flour, the same of bread-crumbs, a little lemon peel grated, and two tea-spoonsful of chopped parsley; add pepper, salt, nutmeg, and what spices you like; beat well together, with enough melted butter to make a batter; then drop it, in small cakes, into boiling lard, and fry of a light brown. Calf's or lamb's brains, in this way, for garnishing, or a small side dish. _Brains à la Maître d'Hotel_: Skin the brains and soak them in several waters, then boil them in salt and water, with a little piece of butter, and a table-spoonful of vinegar. Fry in butter, some thin slices of bread, in the shape of scollop shells. Lay these in a dish, the brains divided in two on them, and pour over a Maître d'Hotel sauce. _Calf's Head to Fricassee, and to Hash._ First parboil, then cut the meat into small pieces, and stew it, in a very little of the liquor in which it was boiled, or in rich white gravy, seasoned with white pepper, salt, onion and sweet herbs. Simmer gently, and, when nearly done, thicken with butter, rolled in flour, and just before you dish it, add a tea-cupful of hot cream, or the yolks of two eggs beaten; let it simmer, but not boil. Garnish with brain cakes, or curled slices of bacon.--_To Hash_: Calf's head cold, makes an excellent hash, and may be enriched to any degree, by adding to the following plain hash, some highly flavouring ingredients, such as sweetbreads, truffles, artichoke bottoms, button mushrooms, forcemeat and egg balls.--Cut the head and the tongue into slices. Take rather more than a quart of the liquor in which it was boiled, two shanks of mutton, or bones or trimmings of veal, and of the head; a bunch of sweet herbs, parsley, one large onion, a piece of lemon peel and some white pepper; boil this slowly, so that it may not waste too much, till it is well flavoured gravy, then thicken it with butter rubbed in flour, and strain it into a clean saucepan, add pounded mace, a large spoonful of oyster catsup or lemon pickle, sherry, and {156}any sauce you like; put in the slices of meat, and warm them by gently simmering. Garnish with forcemeat balls, curled slices of bacon, or fried bread, in sippets, or brain cakes. _Mock Turtle._ Soak a large head, with the skin on, in hot water, then parboil it, in sufficient water to cover it, with a bunch of sweet herbs, 2 onions and a carrot; and after it has boiled to throw up the scum, simmer it gently half an hour. Then take the head out and let it get nearly cold before you cut it up. Take out the black parts of the eyes, and cut the other part into thin round slices, the gristly parts of the head into strips, and the peeled tongue into dice or square bits. Put the bones and trimmings of the head back into the stew-pan, and keep it simmering by the fire. Fry some minced eschalot or onion, in plenty of butter dredged with browned flour; then put it into a clean stew-pan, with all the cut meat, toss it over the fire a few minutes, then strain into it, a sufficient quantity of the stock to make the dish a stew-soup; season with pounded mace, pepper, salt, and a pint of Madeira; simmer it very slowly, till the meat is done, add a large spoonful of catsup or soy, a little chopped basil, tarragon and parsley. It must be skimmed before it is served; add the juice of a lemon, and pour it into a tureen. Forcemeat balls may be used as garnish: this is made richer by a cow heel, and also, by sweetbreads parboiled, or oysters and anchovies being added. _Veal to Mince._ Cold veal is generally used to mince, but undressed meat is the most savoury. Mince it finely, only the white part, and heat it in a little broth, or water (a piece of butter rolled in flour, if the latter), salt, white pepper, pounded mace, and plenty of finely chopped or grated lemon peel; when warm, put to it a small coffee-cupful of hot cream, and serve with sippets round the dish. This preparation does for _patties_ or _cecils_ or _scallops_, the same as directed for _beef_.--You may mix with the mince some stewed mushrooms. _Veal_ may be _hashed_ the same as beef; adding to the gravy, mace, nutmeg, and lemon peel. {157}_Veal to Pot._ Season a thick slice of an undressed fillet, with mace, peppercorns and 3 cloves, bake or stew nearly four hours, pound it quite small in a mortar, with salt, and butter sufficient, just melted. Put it in pots, and cover with clarified butter. A portion of ham is an improvement. _Veal Cake._ Boil 8 eggs hard, cut two in half, the others in rings, put some of the latter and the halves round the bottom of a deep dish or shallow mould, and between each, a light sprig of parsley to make a layer; then a layer of very thin small pieces of cold veal, ham or tongue, and sprigs of parsley between, and more egg, moisten as you go on with a very good savoury jelly, flavoured with cayenne.--_Or_: make a very pretty dish; having boiled two calf's feet or a cow heel for jelly, or other purpose, put some nice little bits of the meat at the bottom of a deep round pudding mould, and little bits of ham or tongue and sprigs of parsley between, season to taste, then another layer, till full, moisten as you go on with some of the liquor. Set in a rather cool oven just to stiffen, then in a cool place, and turn it out of the shape. Bunches of barberries to garnish it. _Mutton to Haricot._ Cut the neck or loin, into chops, and trim off all the fat and bones. Have 3 pints of good broth, in which a turnip, carrot, bunch of parsley and 3 onions have been boiled. Season the chops well with kitchen pepper, and flour them; then brown them in the frying-pan, with a piece of butter, put them in a stew-pan, and pour the strained broth over. Let them stew very slowly half an hour, then put in 2 large carrots, cut in slices, and notched on the edges, 10 or 12 pieces of turnip, cut in fanciful shapes, 6 button onions, previously half roasted in the frying-pan, or parboiled, also a head of celery, cut up. When the chops are tender, skim the gravy, thicken it with browned flour; add pepper and salt, and a table-spoonful of walnut catsup, the same of camp sauce, of universal sauce, {158}of chili or eschalot vinegar, and a wine-glassful of either Port or white wine. Lay the chops in a hash dish, the vegetables on them, and pour the gravy hot over. _Cucumbers_ sliced, _endive_ parboiled and cut up, or _haricots_ parboiled, are good in this. _Veal cutlets_, _beef steaks_, and _lamb chops_, in the same way. Young lettuces and celery are more suitable to veal than turnip and carrot. Garnish with pickled mushrooms. _Leg of Mutton with Carrots._ Lard the leg and put it in a stew-pan just large enough to hold it, with a piece of butter. Set it over the fire five or ten minutes, and turn it to every side; take it out, and mix in the saucepan, with the butter, a spoonful of flour, and two tea-cupsful of broth or boiling water; let this simmer, turning the saucepan often; put in the mutton, and fill up with broth or boiling water; add salt and pepper, and a small bunch of herbs. Boil it slowly two hours, then put in a large plate of carrots cut in small pieces, and browned in another saucepan. Boil the mutton another hour after the carrots are added, and then serve it. Any lean joint of mutton may be cooked in this way. _Loin of Mutton to Roll or to Stew._ Keep it till quite tender, take out the bones, and put them on in water to cover them, with an onion and herbs, to make a good gravy. Season the meat highly with black and Jamaica pepper, mace, nutmeg and cloves, and let it lie all night. Flatten the meat with a rolling-pin, and cover it with a forcemeat, as directed for roast hare; roll it up and bind with tape; bake it in a slow oven, or half roast it before the fire, and baste from time to time with the made gravy. Let it get cold, skim off the fat which will have settled on it, dredge it with flour, then finish the cooking by stewing it in the gravy with which you basted, which must be carefully preserved, after the roasting or baking be over. When cooked enough, put to the gravy an anchovy pounded, a wine-glass of catsup, one of Port wine, and a table-spoonful of lemon pickle. Mushrooms are an improvement.--_The Loin_ may be boned, larded, stuffed with {159}forcemeat, then rolled, and stewed in white stock, with plenty of delicate vegetables, and served with spinach round it, and a sharp sauce. _Shoulder of Mutton._ The same as the loin; or stuffed with oysters solely (bearded); the meat rolled up, bound with tape, and stewed in broth, with a few peppercorns, a head of celery, and one or two onions. When done, take off the tape, and pour oyster sauce over.--_Or_: half roast a well-kept shoulder of mutton, let it get nearly cold, then score it on both sides, put it in a Dutch oven, before the fire, with a clean dish under to catch the gravy, and let it continue to roast. Bone and chop four anchovies, melt them in the basting ladle, add pepper and salt, then mix it into ½ pint of hot gravy, ¼ pint of Port wine, a spoonful of mushroom, the same of walnut catsup, and ½ a spoonful of lemon pickle; baste the meat with this as it roasts; when done, lay it on a clean hot dish, skim the dropped gravy, heat it, if necessary, and pour over the mutton.--_Or_: bone the shoulder, and steep it in wine, vinegar, herbs, and spices; have ready a stuffing, in which there are either oysters or mushrooms, put it in, cover the shoulder with a veal caul, and braise it. Serve with venison gravy, and sauce. Some like the flavour of garlic in this. _Breast of Mutton to Grill._ Cut off all fat which will not be eaten with the lean, score that in diamonds, and season with pepper and salt. Brush it with egg, and strew a mixture of bread-crumbs and chopped parsley over. Either roast or broil it in a Dutch oven, baste well with butter, strewing more crumbs and parsley over. Serve with chopped walnut or capers in butter. _Neck of Mutton to Stew._ Cut off some of the fat, and the meat into chops, put it into a stew-pan with water or broth to cover it, pepper, salt, an onion, and what herbs you like, cover close, and let it stew very gently; when half the water is wasted, put it by the side to let the fat rise, take that off, put in ½ pint claret, {160}12 oysters, and let it stew till quite tender; take out the herbs, thicken the gravy, and add the juice of ½ a lemon, and what catsup you like. _To Dress Kidneys._ Skin and split mutton kidneys, rub with salt and pepper, and pin them out with small wire skewers, to keep them open. Dip in melted butter, then lay them on the gridiron, the inside downwards first, that when you turn them the gravy may be saved. Put the kidneys in a very hot dish, and pour melted butter into each one.--_Or_: cut a fresh kidney into slices or mouthfuls; soak in warm water and well dry them, dust them with flour, and then brown with butter in the frying-pan: put them in a stew-pan with the white of 3 young onions chopped, salt, pepper, parsley, a table-spoonful of eschalot vinegar, and then let them simmer till the kidney is quite done. Mushroom or walnut catsup may be used. Serve mustard with this.--_Or_: mince the kidney and season well with salt, pepper, and cayenne; fry this, and moisten it with gravy or boiling water, or use what catsup or flavouring vinegar you like. Serve on a hot dish for breakfast.--_Or_: put the mince into a stew-pan with a bunch of sweet herbs and an onion tied up in muslin, as soon as it is just browned cover with boiling water and let it simmer 3 hours, then take out the herbs, and sprinkle over the mince a table-spoonful of sweet herbs in powder. _Mutton or Lamb Chops and Collops._ _Cutlets_ for a supper or breakfast dish may be cut from a rather underdone leg: put a good sized piece of butter in the frying-pan, when hot lay the slices of meat in, and turn them often till done, then take them out and keep them hot, while you make a little gravy in the pan, of parsley, other herbs if you like, and a very little broth or boiling water; any flavouring sauce you have, and cayenne. The gravy should be thick of herbs; dish the cutlets in the centre, and the herbs round.--_Or_: pare and slice some cucumbers, sprinkle them with salt and pepper, pour a little vinegar over, and let them lie an hour; then stew them with the collops in broth, enough to make sufficient gravy; season {161}with catsup and what flavouring ingredient you prefer, skim the gravy when the meat is done, and serve in a hash dish.--_Or_: chop the leaves of 6 sprigs of parsley with 2 eschalots, very fine, season with salt and cayenne, and mix all well together with a table-spoonful of salad oil, cover the cutlets on both sides with this, then shake grated bread-crumbs over, and fry them in fresh butter. _Cutlets à la Maintenon._ Lightly season and lay them in a pan with 3 table-spoonsful of oil; fry over a moderate fire till 3 parts cooked, then take them out, and fry 2 table-spoonsful of chopped onions of a light brown, pour off the oil and put in a pint of good brown sauce, 3 table-spoonsful of tomata sauce, a tea-cupful of chopped parsley, a little sugar, nutmeg, pepper and salt, reduce it till rather thick, then put in the cutlets for about 5 minutes: take them out, let them be cold in the sauce, and fold each one (the gravy about it), in white paper (oiled), and broil them 10 minutes over a moderate fire. Serve in the papers. Sauces for cutlets may be made of oysters, mushrooms, tomatas, anchovies, &c., &c., by stewing them in gravy, suitably seasoned; always add some lump sugar. Serve with Jerusalem artichokes, cooked in white sauce, round them: _or_, a bunch of asparagus in the centre, the cutlets round, and more grass cut in points to garnish: _or_, French beans or peas the same way: _or_ (a very pretty dish), divide in 8 or 10 pieces 2 nicely boiled small cauliflowers, and put them into a saucepan with a tea-cupful of white sauce, a tea-spoonful of lump sugar, and a little salt; when it boils, pour in the yolk of an egg mixed with 4 table-spoonsful of cream, and serve it as above. _Mutton to Hash._ When a leg of mutton comes from the table, cut slices to hash the next day, and leave them in the gravy; if the joint be underdone, all the better. Make a gravy of the gristles, trimmings and any bones of mutton, pepper, salt, parsley, and 1 or 2 cut onions; skim off the fat, strain it, and put in the meat (having well floured each slice), with salt to {162}your taste, and cayenne: simmer very gently about five minutes, to warm the meat through, and serve with toasted sippets round the dish. This may have walnut catsup or any other you choose: or 2 pickled walnuts, cut up, and a little of the liquor; or, and this is a great improvement, when the gravy is ready, put in 4 tomatas, and simmer for a quarter of an hour before you put in the meat. Stewed mushrooms are a nice accompaniment. Mutton may be minced and warmed in a pulp of cucumbers or endive, which has been stewed in weak broth.--_Or_: put a good sized piece of butter into a stewpan with ½ pint of mushrooms, ½ an eschalot minced, and boil them gently; then mix in, by degrees, a table-spoonful flour, ½ pint broth, and stew till all the flavour be extracted; let it cool a little, and put in some minced underdone mutton, to heat through, without boiling. _Hunter's Pie._ Line a mould with mashed potatoes, fill it with slices of cold beef or mutton, or mutton or lamb chops, well seasoned, cover with mashed potatoes, and bake it. Some add a very little minced onion. _Leg of Lamb with Vegetables._ Cut the loin of a small hind quarter into chops, and fry them. Boil the leg, delicately white, place it in the middle of the dish, a border of spinach round, and the fried chops upon that.--_Or_: instead of spinach, put a sprig of boiled cauliflower between each chop. Pour hot melted butter over the leg.--_Or_: season the chops, brush them with egg, and roll them in a mixture of bread-crumbs, chopped parsley, grated lemon peel, nutmeg, and salt; fry them in butter, and pour over a good gravy, with oysters or mushrooms. Serve hot; garnish with forcemeat balls. _Breast of Lamb._ Stew it in good broth twenty minutes, let it cool, then score it in diamonds. Season well with pepper, salt, and mixed spices; dredge flour over, stick on some little bits of butter, finish in the Dutch oven, and serve on spinach, stewed cucumbers, or green peas. {163}_Lamb Cutlets and Steaks._ Flatten, season, and stew them in veal broth, and a little milk; season with white pepper and mace. When nearly done, thicken the sauce with mushroom powder, a bit of butter rolled in flour, and add a tea-cupful of hot cream.--_Lamb Chops with Potatoes_--Cut handsome chops from the neck, and trim the bone. Season, egg, and dip them in bread-crumbs and parsley, and fry of a pale yellow. Mash some potatoes thin, with butter or cream, place this high in the centre of a dish, score it, and arrange the chops round, leaning each one on the side of the adjoining one. Garnish with lemon slices, and pickled mushrooms. _Shoulder of Lamb Stuffed._ Take out the bone, and fill the vacancy with forcemeat. This may be roasted; or, if to be rich, stewed in good gravy, or braised. Glaze it, if you like, and serve with sorrel, or tomata sauce.--_Or_: parboiled, allowed to cool, scored in diamonds, seasoned with pepper, salt, and kitchen pepper, and finished on the gridiron, or in a Dutch oven. _Sauce Robert_, mushroom, or sorrel sauce, or a clear gravy. _Or_: bone a small shoulder, lard the under side, with strips of bacon, rolled in a mixture of cloves, mace, cinnamon, nutmeg, pepper, and salt, in small proportions. Roll the meat up, tie, and stew it in veal broth: or braise, and then glaze it. Serve it on cucumbers stewed in cream, or on stewed mushrooms. _Lamb's Head_ May be dressed the same as _Calf's Head_.--_Or_: parboil, then score, season and egg it, cover with a mixture of bread-crumbs and parsley, and brown it before the fire. Mince part of the liver, the tongue, and heart, and stew till tender, in a little broth or water, with pepper and salt. Fry the rest of the liver with parsley. Put the mince in a dish, the head on it, and the fried liver round. _Lamb Fricassee._ Cut the best part of the brisket into square pieces of 4 {164}inches each; wash, dry, and flour them. Simmer for ten minutes 4 oz. butter, 1 of fat bacon, and some parsley, then put in the meat, an onion cut small, pepper, salt, and the juice of half a lemon: simmer this two hours, then add the yolks of two eggs, shake the pan over the fire five minutes, and serve it. _Lamb's Sweetbreads._ Blanch, then stew them in clear gravy twenty minutes; put in white pepper, salt, and mace; thicken with butter rolled in flour, and add the yolks of two eggs well beaten, and stirred into a coffee-cup of cream, a little nutmeg and finely chopped parsley; pour the cream and eggs in by degrees, then heat it over the fire, but stir all the time. _Veal sweetbreads_ in the same way. The best mode of re-warming _Lamb_ is to _broil_, either over or before the fire. _Venison to Hash._ Cut in thin slices, and warm it in its own gravy; season with pepper, salt, mace, grated lemon peel, one wine-glassful of port and white wine mixed, and a table-spoonful each, of mushroom and walnut catsup and soy. Serve toasted sippets round it. If lean, mix with it some thin small slices of the firm fat of mutton. Cold venison may be minced and dressed as directed for beef. _Shoulder of Venison to Stew._ If too lean to roast, then bone and flatten it, lay over some thin slices of fat, well-flavoured mutton; season well with white pepper, salt, and mixed spices, roll it up tight, bind with tape, and stew it slowly in beef or mutton gravy, in a stew-pan which will just hold it; the lid close. When nearly done, put in a very little cayenne, allspice, and ½ pint of claret or Port. Stew three hours. Take off the tape, place the meat in a dish, and strain the gravy over. Venison sauce. _Venison Collops and Steaks._ A good way to dress what is too lean to roast well. Having cut thin long slices from the haunch, neck, or loin; {165}make a good gravy of the bones and trimmings, strain it into a small stew-pan, put in a little piece of butter rolled in flour to thicken it, then a very little lemon, a wine-glassful of port or claret, pepper, salt, cayenne, and nutmeg; whilst this simmers gently, fry the collops, and pour the sauce hot over. You may add tarragon or eschalot vinegar, also soy and mushroom catsup. Garnish with fried crumbs. Season the steaks, and dip them in melted butter, then in bread-crumbs, and broil them in buttered papers, over a quick fire. Serve very hot, with good gravy in a tureen. _Pig to Collar._ It should be three or four weeks older than for roasting. Bone it, and season well with mixed spices; then spread over a layer of thin forcemeat of herbs, hard-boiled eggs, chopped fine, and a _little_ suet, then a layer of thin slices of veal, a layer of seasoning, and so on; roll it up, tie in a cloth, and stew it three hours, in just enough water to cover the pig. It will then require to be tied tighter at each end, and put under a weight till cold. _Pork to Roll._ Bone the neck, spread over the inside a forcemeat of sage, crumbs, salt, pepper, and a very little allspice. Tie it up, and roast very slowly. _Pork Chops with Onions._ Season the chops on both sides with pepper and salt, brush them over with olive oil, and roll them in bread-crumbs; put them on the gridiron, taking care that the fire be clear, and do not turn the chops more than once. Put 12 large onions in slices, into a saucepan with a large piece of butter, turn the saucepan frequently that the onions may imbibe the butter equally; add half a tea-cupful of boiling water, some pepper and salt, and let the onions simmer three quarters of an hour; strain and mix with them a little made mustard. Place the onions in a dish and the chops on them. _Pig's Head Roasted._ Divide the head of a young porker in half, take out the {166}brains and clean the inside; stuff it with bread-crumbs, sweet herbs, lemon peel, a very little suet, and an egg, to bind it, tie the head up carefully, and roast it. Serve with brain and currant sauce. _Pig's Feet and Ears soused._ Clean carefully, soak them some hours, then boil them tender, and when cold pour over the following pickle: some of the liquor they were boiled in, ¼ part of vinegar and some salt. Cut the feet in two, slice the ears, dip them in batter and fry them. Serve melted butter, vinegar and mustard. _To Fricassee._ Boil, and when cold cut in pieces, and simmer them in a very little veal broth, with onion, mace and lemon peel; just before you serve it, add a little cream, and a bit of butter rolled in flour. _Corned Pork with Peas._ Put a large piece of butter into a stew-pan with half a table-spoonful of flour, and when it is melted add a tea-cupful of boiling water, chopped herbs and pepper. Wash in three waters a small piece of corned pork, put it in the stew-pan, and when it has cooked half an hour add three pints of green peas, and let it cook one hour. Take out the herbs and pork, pass the rest through a sieve; serve the peas round the pork. _Hare to Jug._ A tender young hare is better jugged than an old one, but one that is too old to roast, may be good jugged. Cut it in rather small pieces, season with salt and pepper, and you may lard them if you like, if not put into the jar two slices of good bacon, then put in the pieces of hare with the following mixture; half a tea-spoonful of cayenne, a blade of mace and a very small bunch of sweet herbs, four silver onions, one stuck with six cloves, two wine-glassfuls of Port wine, half a pint of water, or thin broth, and a table-spoonful of currant jelly. Set the jug in a saucepan of boiling {167}water, or put it in the oven for two or three hours, according to its age. Lay the meat on a dish before the fire, strain the liquor, boil it up, and pour hot over the hare; you may add lemon juice, walnut or mushroom catsup, and another glass of Port wine.--_Or_: you may put 2 lbs. of coarse beef in, to make the gravy better. This, and especially if the hare be an old one, will require an hour longer. _Hare to Stew._ Cut off the legs and shoulders, cut down the back and divide each side into three. Season these with pepper, salt, and mixed spices, and steep them 4 or 5 hours in eschalot vinegar, and 2 or 3 bay leaves. Make about 1½ pint of good gravy, of beef or mutton stock, the neck, head, liver, heart and trimmings of the hare, 3 onions, a carrot, a bunch of sweet herbs, 12 black peppers, the same of allspice, and a slice of bacon, in small pieces. Strain this into a clean stew-pan, and put the hare and the vinegar into it; let it stew slowly, until done. If required, add salt, more spices, and cayenne; also good sauces, and Port wine if you choose. Thicken with browned flour. An _old hare_ may be larded and stewed in a braise. _Hare to Hash._ Into a pint of gravy put 2 silver onions, 4 cloves, and a very little salt and cayenne, simmer gently till the flavour of the spice and vegetables is extracted, then take them out, add 2 table-spoonsful of red currant jelly, the same of Port wine, and when quite hot, put in the slices of hare, and any stuffing there may be. Serve it hot with sippets and currant jelly. _Rabbits with fine herbs._ Joint 2 white young rabbits, and fry the pieces in butter with some rasped bacon, a handful of chopped mushrooms, parsley, eschalot, pepper, salt, and allspice; when of a nice brown put it into a stew-pan, with a tea-cupful of good gravy and a tea-spoonful of flour. Stew slowly till done, skim and strain the sauce, and serve it hot about the {168}meat; the livers minced and cooked with it. When you serve it, add the juice of ½ a lemon and a very little cayenne. _Rabbits to Fricassee._ Cut them in joints and parboil them; take off the skin, and stew them in gravy of knuckle of veal, lean ham, sweet herbs, mace, nutmeg, white pepper, lemon peel and mushroom powder; when the meat is tender, thicken the gravy with the yolks of 3 or 4 eggs in a pint of cream; stir in gradually 2 table-spoonsful of oyster, 1 of lemon pickle, and 1 of essence of anchovy. Serve very hot. Stewed mushrooms are good with this. Garnish with slices of lemon and pickled barberries. _Rabbit, Hare, and Game to Pot._ _Rabbit_ must be seasoned with pepper, salt, cayenne, mace, and allspice, all in fine powder.--_Hare_ with salt, pepper, and mace.--_Partridges_, with mace, allspice, white pepper, and salt in fine powder.--Read directions to pot beef, and proceed in the same way. _Turkey to Braise._ Truss it as for boiling: put 3 onions, a carrot, turnip, and a head of celery, all sliced, at the bottom of a stew-pan, with a bunch of parsley, a sprig of thyme, 2 bay leaves, 3 cloves, and a blade of mace, also ½ lb. of lean ham, and 2 lbs. of veal cut small, put in 2 quarts of water, and then the turkey (the breast downwards), cover close, and let it simmer over a slow fire about two hours, according to its size; then take it up, and keep it hot, strain the stock into a stew-pan, boil it over the fire, and skim off all the fat; have 2 oz. butter melted in another stew-pan, stir in enough flour to make it thickish, and keep stirring till it is cooked enough, but keep it white, then take it from the fire, and keep stirring till half cold, pour in the stock, add a little sugar, and boil it all up, stirring all the time: place the turkey on the dish, with either some cauliflower heads or Brussels sprouts round it, and pour the sauce over. {169}_Fowls, with Mushroom Sauce._ Braise them the same as directed for turkey, and when the stock is strained into the stew-pan, put in some mushrooms, and stew it till they are cooked, add lump sugar, and, at the last, stir in the yolk of 1 egg, beat up with a table-spoonful of cream, take it off the fire, and pour over the fowl in the dish.--_Or_: do not braise, but stew the fowl, in good stock, and when done, thicken the gravy, and put in enough button mushrooms; serve mushroom sauce with this, or a white fricassee of mushrooms round it.--_Fowl with Oysters_: the same as either of the above, using oysters in the place of mushrooms. _Fowl to Force._ Bone, then stuff a large fowl with a forcemeat made of ¼ lb. of veal, fowl, or turkey; 2 oz. grated ham, 2 oz. yolk of hard-boiled egg, lemon peel, mixed spices, and cayenne to taste; beat the whole in a mortar, to a paste, adding 2 raw eggs to bind it. Sew up the fowl, form it into its own natural shape, draw in the legs, and truss the wings. Stew it slowly in clear white broth; when nearly done, thicken the sauce with butter, rolled in flour; just before you serve it, add a little hot cream, by degrees, to the sauce, stirring all the time. Squeeze the juice of a lemon into a dish, lay the fowl in the centre, and pour the sauce over it.--_Or_: the stuffing may be of pork sausage, and the fowl roasted; serve good gravy in the dish, and bread sauce in a tureen. _Chickens, Pigeons, or Rabbits, to Braise._ Bone and stuff them as directed in the last receipt, and lay slices of bacon on them. Brown a few sliced onions in a stew-pan, and add all the bones and trimmings, with, if you can, two shanks or a scrag of mutton, or a shank of veal, a bunch of sweet herbs, mace, and a pint of broth or soft water; simmer gently one hour. Then put in the chicken, cover the lid of the stew-pan with a cloth in thick folds, and let it stew very gently till done. If you wish to glaze the chicken, pigeon, or rabbit, take it out, and keep it hot while you strain the gravy, and boil it quickly to a jelly; {170}glaze the chicken, and serve with a brown fricassee of mushrooms. _Chickens to Fricassee._ Cut them up, and season the joints with mixed spices and white pepper. Put into a pint of clear gravy or stock, two onions, three blades of mace, a large piece of lemon peel, and a bunch of sweet herbs. When ready put in the chickens, and stew them gently half an hour, covered close. When done, take them out, keep hot over boiling water, strain the sauce, thicken it with butter rolled in flour, and add salt and nutmeg. Just before you serve it, pour in, by degrees, ¼ pint of cream, heated, and the yolks of two eggs, beaten; keep stirring least it curdle, and do not let it boil: pour it over the chickens. A glass of white wine may be added. Garnish with lemon. You may put into the stew-pan, a quarter of an hour after the chickens, some quite young green peas and lettuce.--The French _Fricassée Naturel_ is as follows: cut up the chickens, blanch them in hot water a few minutes, then dip them into cold water, and put them into a stew-pan with 4 oz. butter, parsley, green onions, and a tea-cupful of trimmed button mushrooms, to warm through, and slightly brown; add salt and white pepper, and dredge flour over them; then put in a little of the liquor they were blanched in, and let it simmer half an hour, or till the chickens are done: take them out, and keep hot, strain the sauce, give it a quick boil, add the yolks of two eggs, and pour it over the chickens. _Fowl à la Chingara._ Cut a fat fowl down the back and breast, then across, to be in four equal parts. Melt a very little piece of butter in a stew-pan, put in four slices from the thickest part of a boiled ham, then the fowl, and stew it gently, till done; take out, keep it hot, pour the fat off the glaze at the bottom of the stew-pan, and pour in a little good gravy, salt, pepper, and cayenne. Simmer gently a few minutes, during which, fry, in the fat you have poured off, four toasts, dust over them a little pepper and salt, place them in a dish, a quarter of the fowl on each; either with the ham or not. Skim the sauce, and serve in a tureen. {171}_Cold Fowl or Turkey to Pull._ Take off the skin, and pull the meat off the breast and wings, in long flakes; brown these in the frying-pan with a piece of butter, drain them from the fat, put them into a saucepan with a little gravy previously seasoned with salt, pepper, nutmeg and mace. Simmer gently, to warm the meat; during which, score and season the legs, if turkey, and broil them, with the sidebones and back. Thicken the sauce with the yolks of two eggs, and add a tea-cupful of hot cream. Serve the hash in the middle, the broil round. Garnish with toasted sippets. Mushroom sauce good with this. _Boudins_ are made thus: mince the meat which is left on fowl or turkey; put a tea-spoonful of chopped onion and a piece of butter into a stew-pan and turn it over the fire, for a minute or two, then put in a table-spoonful of flour and mix it well, a pint of stock and the mince, season with pepper, salt, and sugar; simmer it till heated through, and then stir quickly in, the yolks of three eggs well beaten, stir it over the fire, but do not let it boil, and pour it out on a dish to get cold; divide it into equal parts, and roll them round or to your fancy, egg and bread-crumb them two or three times, and fry of a light brown. These may be flavoured with ham, tongue or mushroom cut up in the mince. _Goose or Hare to Braise._ Stuff it for roasting, lay thin slices of bacon over it; line a stew-pan with bacon, put the goose and giblets in the centre, 5 or 6 onions, 2 carrots and turnips, a clove of garlic, all sliced, salt, black and Jamaica peppers, 2 bay leaves, and a slight sprinkling of finely chopped herbs. Moisten with boiling water. Lay a sheet of paper over, cover close, lay a folded cloth over the lid, put a weight on the top to keep it tight, and stew gently. (_See instructions for braising._) Apple, pear, or currant jelly sauce. _Turkey or Hare en Daube._ Lard the breast and legs of the turkey with strips of bacon, with salt, pepper, spices, and herbs; and lay slices of bacon over the breast. Line a stew-pan with bacon, {172}and put in the turkey, with a hock of ham or a calf's foot (both if you can), also the head and feet of the turkey, 4 onions, 2 carrots, young onions, a few sprigs of thyme, a bunch of parsley, and 6 cloves; moisten this, with a tea-cupful of melted butter, and cover it with white paper. Simmer it five hours; take it off the fire, and let it stand by the side twenty minutes, or half an hour. Take out the turkey, strain the gravy, and boil it down quickly; beat up an egg, stir it into the gravy, put it on the fire, and let it come nearly to a boil, then stand by the side of the fire half an hour, and it will be a jelly; strain it again if not clear, and pour it over the turkey. _Pigeons to Stew._ Put a piece of butter, rolled in flour, a little chopped parsley, and the liver, into each pigeon, truss, then place them on slices of bacon, in a stew-pan; cover with more slices of bacon, and stew them three quarters of an hour. Serve good brown gravy. Stewed mushrooms, if liked. Garnish with sprigs of boiled cauliflower, or small heads of brocoli. _Or_: add bread-crumbs to the stuffing, truss them for roasting, and brown them in the frying-pan; then put them into the stew-pan, with good stock of beef, flavoured with herbs, mace, anchovies, mushroom powder, onions, and pepper; stew till tender, then add oyster, mushroom and walnut catsup, Port and white wine, soy, Gloucester and camp sauces. Garnish with egg balls and pickled mushrooms.--_Or_: first stuff them with bread-crumbs, spices, parsley, and a little fresh butter; half roast them in a Dutch oven, and finish in the stew-pan, in good gravy; to which wine, lemon peel, and mushrooms may be added. Pour it over the pigeons. Asparagus may be laid round and between them.--_Pigeons in Jelly_--Pick, wash, and singe two plump pigeons; leave the heads and feet on, clean them well, clip the nails close to the claws, and truss them, propping the heads up with skewers; season inside with pepper and salt, and a bit of butter in each. Put a quart of the liquor of boiled knuckle of veal, or calf's head or feet, into a baking-dish, with a slice of lean ham, a blade of mace, a faggot of sweet herbs, white pepper, lemon peel, and the pigeons. Bake them in a moderate oven; when done, take them out {173}of the jelly, and set by to get cold, but cover them to preserve their colour. Skim the fat off the jelly when cold, then boil it up with the whites of 2 eggs beaten, to clear it, and strain through a bag. Place the pigeons in a dish, the clear jelly round, and over them, in rough heaps. Instead of baking, you may roast the pigeons, and when cold, put a sprig of anything you like into their bills, place them on some of the jelly, and heap more of it round.--_Pigeons in Forcemeat_--Spread a savoury forcemeat in a dish, then in layers, very thin slices of fat bacon, young pigeons cut up, sliced sweetbreads blanched, 2 palates boiled tender and cut up, mushrooms, asparagus tops, cockscombs and the yolks of 4 eggs boiled hard; spread more forcemeat on the top, bake it, and turn it out in a dish, with rich gravy poured round. _Pigeons en Compote._--Parboil 2 large pigeons; take them out of the water, and squeeze the juice of half a lemon over the breast of each. Have prepared in a stew-pan ¼ lb. of butter, a table-spoonful of flour, and 2 tea-cupsful of weak broth, a faggot of herbs, pepper, salt, a piece of ham and 8 mushrooms in quarters: place the pigeons in this, and stew them slowly till tender. Blanch 12 button onions, and a ¼ of an hour before they are done, put them in the stew-pan. When done, take out the herbs and ham, skim the gravy, pour it over the pigeons, in a dish, and the onions round. _Ducks with Peas._ Season them with salt, pepper, cayenne and mixed spices. Lay some very thin slices of bacon in a stew-pan, the ducks on them, more slices over them, moisten with broth, or water, and stew them from half to a whole hour, according to their age, and size. While they are stewing, parboil, and fry in butter, or with bits of bacon, 2 or 3 pints of young green peas, pour off the fat, put them in a stew-pan with a very little water or broth, salt, pepper, sugar, a bunch of parsley, and some young onions. Take the onions and parsley out from the peas, skim off the fat, and pour the gravy over the ducks.--_Or_: half roast the ducks, and stew them in a pint of good gravy, a little mint, and 3 sage leaves chopped small, cover close and let it stew half an hour. Boil a pint of green peas as for eating, and put them in, after you have thickened the {174}gravy: put the ducks into a dish, and pour the gravy and peas over. _Ducks to Ragout._ Prepare them the same as pigeons to stew, brown them all round, in the frying-pan, then stew them in good broth, till tender. Season well with pepper, salt, onions, sage, and what other herbs you like. Thicken the sauce with browned flour and butter. Add a glass of Port, if you like, and pour it over them. _Ducks to Hash._ Cut them up, as at table, and if you have not any gravy suitable, prepare some of the trimmings, 3 onions, a bunch of herbs, pepper, salt, sugar, and spices. Strain, thicken it, and put in the pieces of duck; do not let the gravy even simmer, but keep hot by the side of the fire until the meat is heated through. Port wine or catsup, and cayenne may be added.--_Goose_ may be hashed in this way, the legs scored, seasoned and broiled, laid on the hash, or served by themselves. _Wild Fowl to Ragout._ Half roast the bird, score the breast in 3 at each side, lightly strew mixed spices and cayenne into each cut, squeeze lemon juice over the spices. Stew it till tender, in good brown gravy, take it out and keep hot; add 1 or 2 finely shred eschalots to the gravy, also a glass of Port wine, and pour it over the wild fowl; any game may be re-warmed cut up, in good gravy, boiling hot, thickened with bread-crumbs, and seasoned with salt, spices to taste, wine, and lemon juice, or pickle. _Snipes, Landrails or Woodcocks to Ragout._ Pick 2 or 3 very carefully, take out the trail, and lard them with slices of fat and lean ham, dredge well with flour, and fry in butter of a light brown: then stew in good gravy, flavoured with sherry or Madeira, Port or claret, anchovy, oyster, and lemon pickle, and walnut catsup, 2 table-spoonsful of soy, cayenne and Gloucester sauce. Thicken with {175}flour and butter. Just before serving add the juice of a lemon, and 1 table-spoonful of eschalot vinegar. Pound the trail with salt, lay it on slices of buttered toast, before the fire, put it in a deep dish, serve the ragout over. _Partridge or Wild Duck Salmi._ Par-roast two partridges, which have been kept long _enough_, when cold, skin and carve them, put them into a small saucepan with one eschalot, a bit of lemon peel, a very little dressed ham in small bits, all the trimmings of the birds, a large glass of Madeira, half a wine-glassful of the best olive oil, pepper, salt, cayenne and the juice of a lemon. When just heated through, dish the birds on a very hot dish, pour the strained sauce over, and serve very hot, with grilled toasts. A little good sauce of veal gravy, the trimmings, cayenne, and the juice of a bitter orange; then put in the pieces of duck, and simmer till hot. _Tripe to Fricassee._ Stew a piece of the thick part in well-seasoned veal stock. Cut it in strips, shake it over the fire in white sauce, five minutes; squeeze the juice of a lemon in the dish, pour the fricassee in, and garnish with slices of lemon. If maigre, cream and yolk of egg will enrich it. _Mock Brawn._ Having cleaned a hog's head, split it, take out the brains, cut off the ears, and rub the head well with salt. Let it drain for twelve hours, spread 2 oz. common salt and 1½ oz. bay salt over it, and the next day put it into a pan, cover with cold water, and let it stand a day and night. Then wash well, and boil it until the bone comes out; skin the head and tongue, and cut both into bits. Put half of the skin into a pan, spread the meat in layers, season with salt and pepper, press it down hard, and cover with the other half of the skin. If too fat, add bits of lean pork. Make a pickle of 2 oz. salt, a pint of vinegar, and a quart of the liquor; boil it three times, and when cold pour it over. {176}_Tripe in the Scotch Fashion._ First boiled and cold; then simmer it gently in milk and water, with salt, and a piece of butter. When quite tender, take it out, and let it cool, whilst you prepare a thick batter of three eggs, three spoonsful of flour and some milk; add green onions or chives, parsley chopped fine, and ginger. Cut the tripe in square cutlets or strips, dip them in the batter, thick enough to form a thick crust, and fry in beef dripping. _A Scotch Haggis._ Having cleaned a sheep's pluck, cut some places in the heart and liver, to let out the blood, and parboil it all (during which the windpipe should hang over the side of the pot in a bowl, that it may empty itself). Scum the water, as the pluck boils: indeed, it ought to be changed. From half to three quarters of an hour will be sufficient. Take it all out, cut off about half of the liver, and put it back to boil longer. Trim away all pieces of skin and black-looking parts from the other half of the liver, the heart, and part of the lights, and mince all together, with 1 lb. of beef suet and three or four onions. The other half of the liver having boiled half an hour longer, put it in the air to get cold; then grate it to the mince, and put more onions if you like, but slightly parboiled. Toast a large tea-cupful of oatmeal flour; turn it often with a spoon, that it may be dried equally of a light brown. Spread the mince on a board, and strew the meal lightly over, with salt, pepper and cayenne. Have ready the haggis bag (it is better to have two, for one may burst), put in the meat, with broth to make a thick stew; the richer the broth the better; add a little vinegar, but take care that the bag be not too full, for the meat must have room to swell. When it begins to boil, prick the bag with a needle; boil it slowly, three hours. The _head_ may be parboiled, minced and added. _Curry of Chicken, Rabbit, or Veal._ _Read in the Chapter on Seasonings, the part relating to Curry Powder._--Curry may be made of cold meat, and makes a variety with the common mode of re-warming {177}meat, but not so good a _Curry_ as when made of undressed meat. Cut the meat into pieces, as are served at table, and brown them, in butter, with 1 or 2 sliced onions, over a quick fire. When of a fine amber colour, put it and the onions in a saucepan, with some veal, mutton broth, or stock of poultry and veal, or mutton trimmings; when this has simmered long enough to cook the meat, put in the curry powder, from 2 to 3 dessert-spoonsful, according to the quantity of meat, rubbed and mixed very smooth with a spoonful of flour; stir this carefully in the sauce, and simmer it five minutes; when done, put in the juice of a lemon, and stir in by degrees a coffee-cupful of thick cream. A small part of the meat and the livers of poultry may be pounded to thicken the sauce.--_Or_: rub the powder into a thin paste, with cream, and rub each piece of meat with it, when half cooked, then return it to the saucepan to finish stewing.--_Another_--Fry 4 large sliced onions in 2 oz. of butter, and put all into a stew-pan, with either a loin of lamb in steaks, a breast of veal cut up, chicken, duck or rabbit jointed, or any thing undressed and _lean_, with a pint of good stock, or more, according to the quantity of meat; stew till tender: then take out the meat, and mix with the gravy about 2 dessert-spoonsful of turmeric powder, 6 pounded coriander seeds, cayenne to taste, and 2 table-spoonsful of chili, or eschalot vinegar. Boil these till thoroughly mixed and thick, and till the turmeric has lost the raw flavour; then put in the meat, and give it one boil. Squeeze in the juice of a lemon or a lime, and serve it _very hot_, in a deep dish, with plenty of gravy; the rice in another.--Stewed onions, stewed cucumbers, or stewed celery, _brown_, are good with curry. Serve pickles (melon mangoes most suitable), and chili vinegar.--_Veal cutlets_ fried with onions in butter, and stewed in gravy as above. _Lamb_, _Duck_, _Cow-heel_, and _Lobster_ make good curries. Indeed tender _steaks_ and _mutton chops_ are also very good dressed in curry. _Curry Kebobbed._ Cut into bits, either chicken and tongue, or veal and ham; season with eschalot, and fasten them in alternate slices on small skewers. Mix with flour and butter 2 dessert-spoonsful of curry powder, or 1 of curry paste, 1 of {178}turmeric, and add by degrees ½ pint of good gravy. Fry the meat with 3 onions, chopped in butter, and put all into a stew-pan with the gravy, a tea-spoonful of mushroom powder, a wine-glassful of sherry or Madeira, 2 table-spoonsful of lemon pickle, 2 of garlic or tarragon vinegar, 1 of soy, 1 of walnut pickle, 1 of claret or Port, and a tea-spoonful of cayenne vinegar.--Garnish with pickles. _Curry of Fish._ Slices of _cod_, _turbot_, _brill_, and _halibut_, also _whitings, haddocks_, and _codlings_, may all be curried. To be maigre, make the gravy of well-seasoned fish stock; if not, of beef or veal broth, in which an onion and carrot have been boiled; thicken with butter rubbed in browned flour. Bone the fish, and cut them into neat pieces, rub with flour, and fry them in butter, of a light brown. Drain them on a sieve. Mix very smoothly a table-spoonful of curry powder (more or less according to the quantity of fish), with a dessert-spoonful of flour, and mix it to a paste with a little of the broth; add 2 onions, beaten in a mortar, and ¼ pint of thick cream, mix this in the gravy, or roll the piece of fish in it, then put them in the gravy, and stew them gently till tender; place them in a dish, skim the fat off the sauce, and pour over the fish.--_Lobsters_, _prawns_, _shrimps_, _oysters_, and _muscles_ are curried in the same way, to form a dish by themselves, or with other fish.--Slices of _cold_ cod, turbot, or brill are re-warmed in curry sauce. _Beef or Ham Chutney._ To 1 oz. of grated meat, put 1 small onion chopped very fine, 1 tea-spoonful of grated ginger, and cayenne to taste; mix well together, adding vinegar or lemon juice. _Fish Chutney._ Parboil an onion, chop it very fine, and add to the fish, which should be rather salted, and chopped fine, or grated; add cayenne and vinegar to taste. _Rice to Boil for Curry._ Pick, and soak it in water; then boil very quickly, with a {179}little salt in the water, till tender, but not soft; drain, and lay it on a sieve reversed, before the fire, to dry. Turn it with a fork, as lightly as possible, but do not use a spoon. Serve it in a dish by itself; or round the dish in light heaps, the curry in the middle. After it is boiled, some cooks pour cold water over, and then set it before the fire to dry. Every particle ought to be distinct, yet perfectly tender.--_Another_ way is, to wash it in warm water, pick it carefully, pour boiling water over it in a stew-pan, cover that close, and keep it by the side of the fire to be quite hot. In an hour's time, pour off the water, set the stew-pan on the fire, and stir briskly with a fork till the rice is dry, but not hard.--The _Hindostanee_ mode is this: when well picked, soak it in cold water a quarter of an hour; strain and put it into boiling water rather more than enough to cover it; boil it ten minutes, skimming, if necessary; then add a gill of milk for each lb. of rice, and boil it two or three minutes; take it off the fire, strain, and put it back into the saucepan over a slow fire; pour on it ½ oz. of butter melted, and a table-spoonful of the water in which it was boiled; boil it slowly, another eight minutes, and it will be ready.--In _Carolina_ they soak the rice two hours in salt and water, wash it, put it in a bag of cheese cloth, then steam it twenty minutes, and each grain will be separated. _A Pillau._ Stew some rice in broth, or melted butter, till tender, season with salt, pepper, and mace. Prepare a boiled fowl, or mutton chops, or veal cutlets, dressed as you like; place them in a hot dish, and if fowl or veal, slices of boiled bacon over; cover the meat with the rice, glaze it with beaten egg, and place it before the fire, to brown. Garnish with hard-boiled egg and slices of lemon.--_Or_: half roast a breast of veal, cut it in pieces, season with pepper and salt (curry powder, if you like), and stew them in gravy, or broth. Place a high border of rice round a dish, the veal in the centre, thin slices of bacon on it, and cover with rice, glaze with yoke of egg, and brown it. A turkey capon, or old fowl, larded, may be dressed in this way; or cold poultry, or rabbit. {180}_Sausages._ To the following receipts saltpetre may be added, to give a red hue. Mushrooms and oysters give a nice flavour, but the sausages do not keep well. Sausage meat may be cooked without skins: mould it into flat cakes, moistening with yolk of egg, to bind, and then fry them. These cakes form a pretty supper dish, garnished with curled parsley; also a garnish for roast turkey or fowl. The ingredients must be _well mixed_. Herbs ought to be used sparingly. _Pork Sausages._--Cut 3 lbs. of fat, and 3 lbs. of lean pork, into thin slices, scrape each one, and throw away the skin; cut the meat altogether, as small as possible, with 2 oz. salt, ½ oz. pepper, 6 tea-spoonsful of sage, chopped fine, 2 nutmegs, and 2 eggs. Boil a pint of water, let it get cold, put in the crumb of a penny roll, to soak all night; the next morning mix it with the other ingredients, and fill the skins. _Oxford Sausages._--To 1 lb. pork, add 1 lb. veal, 12 oz. beef suet, 3 oz. grated bread, 3 eggs, well beaten, with mace, black pepper, salt, and sweet herbs, these last chopped, then pounded in a mortar, before they are put to the other ingredients. Anchovy is an improvement.--_Or_: leave out the bread, herbs and suet, have plenty of fat to mix with the lean, mix it with yolk of egg, into long thin cakes, and fry them. _Epping Sausages._--Equal portions of young tender pork, and beef suet. Mince them very finely, season with salt, pepper, grated nutmeg, and a little chopped sage. _Veal Sausages._--Equal quantities of lean veal and fat bacon, ½ a handful of sage leaves, salt, pepper, and a few anchovies; beat all well in a mortar. Roll this into cakes and fry them. _Bologna Sausages._--An equal portion of beef, veal, lean pork and fat of bacon, minced and mixed well together. Season with pepper, salt, and spices; fill a large skin, and boil it an hour. _Rissoles._ Any sort of cold meat, but veal, chicken, turkey and sweetbreads are best. Mince the meat, season with salt and pepper, and stew it two minutes in well-seasoned gravy; use no more than sufficient to moisten the mince. Let it get cold, then roll into balls; dip these into egg beaten; then into bread-crumbs, and fry them of a light {181}brown. When done, place them in a dish, and pour good gravy into it.--_Or_: roll out thin puff paste, spread some mince on it, and roll up, in what shape you please; fry of a light brown. Rissoles may be made of cold turbot, shrimps, lobster and cod; season with cayenne and thin melted butter; add the yolk of an egg to bind it, then roll up in thin puff paste and fry them. _A Bread Border._ Cut slices of firm stale bread, the thickness of the blade of a knife, into any shape you like. Heat some top fat, or oil, in a saucepan, and put in the sippets. Take some out before they are much browned, and let the rest brown more. Drain well, fasten each one up with white paper, until you are ready to use them; then pierce the end of an egg, let out a little of the white, beat it up with a knife, and mix in a little flour. Heat a dish, dip one side or point of each sippet in the egg, and stick them, one by one, on the dish, in what form you please, and put the ragout or fricassee in the centre. _A Rice Border._ Soak the rice well, then stew it with salt and a blade of mace; to be richer, use butter and yolk of egg. When just tender, and no more, place it round the dish, as an edging; glaze with beaten yolk of egg, and set it in the oven, or before the fire, a few minutes; then put in the curry, or hash, &c. &c. _Potatoe Border._ Mash them nicely; and form a neat border round the edge of the dish; mark it and glaze with yolk of egg; brown it in the oven, and put the hash in the centre. _Omelets._ These with practice, are easily made, and are convenient to make out a dinner or supper, especially in the country, where fresh eggs may almost always be obtained. Omelets are so common in France, that the poorest inn by the road {182}side will always furnish one. _Fresh_ eggs are essential; the frying-pan should be round and small. The basis of most omelets is the following: beat well the yolks of 6 and the whites of 3 eggs, put to them a little salt and 2 table-spoonsful of water; put 1½ oz. fresh butter into the frying-pan, and hold it over the fire; when the butter is hot, pour in the eggs, shake the pan constantly, or keep stirring the eggs till they become firm, then with a knife lift the edge all round, that the butter may get under. If over done, it will be hard and dry. Gather the border up, roll the omelet, and serve in a hot dish. This may be flavoured in various ways: with grated lemon peel, nutmeg and mace; _or_ with the juice of a Seville orange; _or_ with grated ham, tongue, _or_ veal kidney, pepper and salt; _or_ finely chopped parsley, green onions, chives and herbs: _also_, for maigre dinners, lobster meat, shrimps or the soft parts of oysters may be pounded, seasoned and put into the eggs. A pounded anchovy, and, also, mushroom powder, may be used to give flavour. Potatoe or wheaten flour, about a table-spoonful, is sometimes added to the eggs. _Eggs to Poach._ Boil some spring water, skim it, and put in a table-spoonful of vinegar. Break off the top of the egg with a knife, and let it slip gently into the boiling water, turning the shell over the egg, to gather in the white; this is said to be a better way than to break the egg into a cup, then turn it into the water. Let the saucepan stand by the side of the fire till the white is set, then put it over the fire for two minutes. Take them up, with a slice; trim them, and serve on toasts, spinach, brocoli, sorrel, slices of broiled ham, or in the centre of a dish, with pork sausages round. _Eggs to Fry._ Melt a piece of butter in a frying-pan, and slip the eggs in.--_Or_: lay some thin slices of bacon in a dish before the fire, to toast; break the eggs into tea-cups, and slip them gently into boiling lard, in a frying-pan. When done, little more than two minutes, trim the white, and lay each one on a slice of bacon. Make a sauce of weak broth, cayenne, made mustard and vinegar. {183}_Eggs to Butter._ Beat 12 eggs with 2 table-spoonsful of gravy; melt ¼ lb. butter, stir the eggs and this together, in a bason with pepper, salt, and finely minced onion, if liked. Pour this backwards and forwards from one bason to another, then into a stew-pan on the fire, and stir constantly with a wooden spoon, to prevent burning. When of a proper thickness, serve on toast. _Eggs to Fricassee._ Boil them hard, then cut the eggs in slices, pour a good white sauce over, and serve with sippets round the dish. _Eggs to Ragout._ Boil 8 eggs hard, take off the shell, cut them in quarters. Have ready a pint of gravy, well seasoned and thickened, and pour it hot over the eggs.--_Or_: melt some butter, thicken with flour, season with nutmeg and mace, add a tea-cupful of cream, and pour hot over the eggs. _Swiss Eggs._ Put a piece of butter the size of a small egg into a saucepan with ¼ lb. grated cheese, a little nutmeg, parsley and chives finely chopped, and ½ a glass of white wine. Stir it over a slow fire, till the cheese is melted; then mix in 6 eggs well beaten, set it on the fire, and keep stirring till done. Serve in the centre of a small dish, with toasted sippets round. _Scotch Eggs._ Boil 4 eggs hard, as for salad, peel and dip them, first in beaten egg, then in a forcemeat of grated ham, crumbs and spices. Fry in clarified dripping, and serve in gravy. _Or_: in white sauce. _Eggs à la Tripe._ Fry 4 sliced Spanish onions in butter, then dust in some flour, let it catch to a light brown, put in a breakfast {184}cupful of hot milk, salt and pepper, and let it reduce. Then add 12 hard-boiled eggs, some in halves or quarters, others in slices, mix these gently in the sauce (a tea-spoonful of made mustard if you like), and serve it. _Eggs à la Maitre d'Hotel._ Fry onions as in the last receipt, add melted butter, with plenty of parsley chopped in it, put in the eggs and serve quite hot. _Fondu._ Mix an equal quantity of grated parmesan and Gloucester cheese, add double the weight in beaten yolk of egg and cream, or melted butter; beat all well together, add pepper and salt, then the whites of the eggs, which have been beaten separately: stir them lightly in, and bake in deep tin dish, or in paper cases, but fill only half full, as it will rise very much. Serve quite hot. _Ramakins._ Beat an equal portion of Gloucester and Cheshire cheese in a mortar, with the crumb of a French roll, soaked in milk, and the yolks of 3 eggs; season with salt and pepper, and when beaten to a paste, add the whites of 2 eggs, and bake them in saucers, in the Dutch oven.--_Or_: roll paste out thin, lay a thin slice of cheese on it, cover with paste, and bake like puffs.--_Or_: beat ¼ lb. Cheshire cheese with 2 eggs and 2 oz. butter, and form it into cakes to cover thin pieces of bread cut round with a wine-glass. Lay these on a dish, not touching one another, put it on a chaffing dish of coals, hold a salamander over till quite brown, and serve hot. _Asparagus and Eggs._ Beat 4 eggs well, with pepper and salt. Cut some dressed asparagus into pieces the size of peas, and stir into the eggs. Melt 2 oz. of butter, in a small stew-pan, pour in the mixture, stir till it thickens, and serve hot on a toast. {185}_Mushrooms and Eggs._ Slice and fry some large onions and a few button mushrooms; drain them well; boil some eggs hard, and slice them; simmer in good gravy, or melted butter, with pepper, salt, mustard, and eschalot vinegar. _Devils._ These are made of legs, rumps, backs and gizzards of cold turkey, goose, capon, and all kinds of game, venison, mutton kidney, the back bone of mackerel well buttered, biscuits and rusks. The meat must be well scored for the seasonings to find their way into it: salt, pepper, cayenne, curry, mushroom, truffle, and anchovy powder, must be used according to taste. Broil, over a quick strong fire, and serve them dry, if to eat with wine; but they may be served with anchovy, or any _piquant_ sauce. Served in a hot water dish.--_Biscuits_ are spread with butter, heated before the fire and sprinkled with the seasonings. _Anchovy Toasts._ Fry thin slices of bread, without the crust, in butter. Spread them with pounded anchovies mixed with butter. _Mock Caviare._ Bone 6 anchovies, pound them in a mortar with dried parsley, a clove of garlic, cayenne, salt and salad oil, also lemon juice if you like. Serve on toast or biscuit. _Sandwiches._ The bread should be cut in thin slices with a sharp knife. Various things are used. Slices of beef, ham, or tongue, or either of the last two grated or scraped; also German or pork sausage, anchovies and shrimps; forcemeat, and all kinds of potted meat. Some persons cut the meat in very little pieces, and spread them over the bread; a mixture of ham and chicken in this way makes delicate sandwiches: or ham and hard-boiled yolk of egg, seasoned with salt, mustard, or curry powder, according to the meat. Cheese sandwiches are made thus: 2 parts of grated parmesan or {186}Cheshire cheese, one of butter, and a small portion of made mustard; pound them in a mortar; cover slices of bread with a little, then thin slices of ham, or any cured meat, cover with another slice of bread, and press it lightly down; cut these sandwiches small. _Maccaroni._ (_See to make the paste._) Boil 2 oz. in good broth or gravy, till tender; add a small piece of butter, and a little salt, give it a turn in the stew-pan, and put it in the dish. Scrape parmesan, stilton, or any other dry rich cheese over, and brown it before the fire.--_Or_: mix a pint of milk and a pint of water, put in 2 oz. maccaroni, and simmer it slowly three hours, till the liquor is wasted, and the maccaroni tender. Add grated cheese, salt, and cayenne, mix well, and brown it before the fire. Maccaroni plain boiled, with a little salt, till tender, and the gravy of roast or boiled meat poured over it, is light and nourishing for an invalid. _Maccaroni in the Italian way._--Mince about six livers of fowl or game with a very little celery, young onion, and parsley (blanched), and stew them in good butter. Then have six more livers cut small, not minced, and cooked in a little butter. Boil 2 oz. of maccaroni in white gravy, season it, if necessary, add powdered mace and cayenne; when done, put a layer of it in a deep hot dish, then a layer of the mince, a layer of grated parmesan, then maccaroni, and at top the chopped livers and more cheese, and enough of the gravy to moisten it sufficiently; put it before the fire a quarter of an hour, or on a slow stove: then brown it or not as you choose. _Another_ (_Italian_).--Boil it in water, pass it through a cullender, and having ready prepared some tomata sauce (_which see_), lift a layer of the maccaroni lightly with two forks out of the cullender into a deep vegetable or hash dish, put a light sprinkling of grated cheese, then tomata sauce, then maccaroni, and again tomata sauce, till the dish be full; if the maccaroni be dry, add butter in little bits, and cayenne, if you think proper. This is not browned. You may omit the cheese. _Maccaroni Maigre._--Simmer 2 oz. maccaroni in a pint of milk and a pint of water (mixed) three hours, and the liquor wasted: stir into it grated cheese, salt, and cayenne, and brown it before the fire. {187}_Toast and Cheese._ Toast a slice of stale bread half an inch thick, without the crust, butter one side, and lay on slices of toasting cheese; put it into a cheese-toaster before the fire; when done, lightly pepper and salt it, and serve it hot. _Welsh or Scotch Rabbit._ There are many receipts for this, and the following is a good one. Mix some butter with grated cheese (unless that be so fat that the butter is not required), add salt, pepper, made mustard, and a tea-cupful of brown stout or Port wine; put this into a cheese-toaster, stir till the cheese be dissolved, then brown, and serve it quite hot: toasts in a separate dish. CHAPTER XV. STUFFING AND FORCEMEAT. WITH regard to the flavouring ingredients to be used in making these, no precise instructions can be given, because what is disagreeable to one palate is indispensable to another one, therefore, practice alone will teach a cook how to succeed in the art of forcemeat making; and so many flavouring condiments may be used that she may vary her forcemeats to almost any variety of dishes, taking care that no one flavour predominates, but the whole be so blended that the proper zest be given without too much poignancy. Some choose the flavour of onions, thyme, and other herbs, to be strong, while others dislike even a very little of either. Onion is milder for being parboiled in two waters, and some think the flavour of eschalot preferable.--Suet is indispensable; but if it cannot be obtained, beef marrow, or good fresh butter, are the best substitutes.--Bread-crumbs are better soaked in milk, than grated dry; in the former case their quantity must be {188}judged by bulk, not by weight: the bread should be stale. The French use _Panada_, and prepare it thus: Soak slices of bread in hot milk, when moist press out the milk from the bread, and beat the latter up, with a little rich broth or white sauce, and a lump of butter. Stir till somewhat dry, add the yolks of 2 eggs, and pound the whole well together. Sweetbreads make delicate forcemeat flavoured with tongue. Stuffing and forcemeat require to be well pounded in a mortar, and thoroughly mixed: it ought to be firm enough to cut with a knife, but not heavy. The following flavouring ingredients may all be used. Ham. Tongue. Eggs, boiled hard. Anchovy. Oysters. Pickled ditto. Lobsters. Mushrooms. Truffles. Morells. Salt. White pepper. Jamaica pepper. Nutmeg. Mace. Mushroom powder. Cayenne. Cloves. Curry powder. Onion. Parsley. Tarragon. Savory. Knotted marjoram. Thyme and lemon thyme. Basil. Sage. Lemon peel. Chervil. Garlic. Eschalot. _The French preparation, called Godiveau._ Scrape 1 lb. of fillet of veal, mince 1½ lb. beef suet, chop scalded parsley, young onions and mushrooms, enough to season the meat, add pepper, salt, allspice, and mace; pound the whole well, mixing in 3 raw eggs at different times, with a little water. _Another, called Gratin._ ½ lb. fillet of veal (if for fowl the livers parboiled), veal udder skinned and parboiled, and panada, equal parts of each; pepper, salt, cayenne, and fine herbs; with 3 eggs. {189}_Forcemeat for Veal, Turkey, Fowls, or Rabbits._ Scrape fine 2 oz. of lean undressed veal, the same of ham, beef or veal suet, and bread-crumbs; add parsley, salt, pepper, and nutmeg or mace; pound well, and add the yolk of an egg to bind it. Add, if you like, a little onion, parboiled and chopped; sweet herbs, according to taste. For _boiled_ turkey, the soft parts of 12 oysters, or an anchovy may be added.--_Room should be given for stuffing to swell._ _Plain stuffing for Veal, Poultry, or Fish._ Chop ½ lb. of beef or veal suet, mix it with 4 oz. bread-crumbs, chopped parsley, thyme, marjoram, a bay leaf, salt and pepper, and 3 eggs. _Stuffing for Goose or Duck._ Mix together 4 oz. bread-crumbs, 2 oz. onion, parboiled, ½ oz. sage leaves, pepper and salt.--_Or_: the liver, some bread-crumbs, butter the size of a walnut, a sage leaf or two, a sprig of lemon thyme, pepper and salt. _For Hare._ About 2 oz. beef suet, 1 drachm of parsley leaves, the same of marjoram, lemon thyme, lemon peel, ½ a drachm of eschalot, and nutmeg, pepper, and salt; (an anchovy, and cayenne if you choose), mix with an egg; it must be a stiff stuffing; add the liver, parboiled and minced. _Forcemeat Balls for Made Dishes._ Pound a piece of veal with an equal quantity of udder, or a third part the quantity of butter; moisten bread-crumbs with milk; (or soak a piece of bread in warm milk), then mix in a little chopped parsley and eschalot, pound it together to a smooth paste; rub through a sieve, and when cold mix it with the veal and udder, and the yolks of three hard-boiled eggs; season with salt, pepper, curry powder or cayenne, add the raw yolks of two eggs, and mix well together in a mortar. This does for small balls to fry, or to boil in soup. {190}_Egg Balls._ Boil four eggs ten minutes and put them into cold water; when quite cold, pound the yolks in a mortar with a raw yolk, a tea-spoonful of flour, chopped parsley, salt, black pepper and cayenne; roll into small balls, and boil them two minutes. _Curry Balls._ Panada, hard-boiled yolk of egg, and fresh butter, pounded well, and seasoned with curry powder. Boil two minutes. _Stuffing for a Pike._ Grated bread-crumbs, herbs to taste, 2 oz. beef suet, salt, pepper, mace, ½ pint of cream and the yolks of 4 eggs; mix well, and stir over the fire till it thickens. _Fish Forcemeats, for Fish Soup, Stews, or Pies._ Put about 2 oz. of either turbot, sole, lobster, shrimps or oysters, free from skin, into a mortar with 2 oz. fresh butter, 1 oz. bread-crumbs, the yolks of 2 eggs boiled hard, a little eschalot, grated lemon peel, and parsley, minced fine; season with salt and cayenne. Break in the yolk and white of one egg, mix well, and add an anchovy pounded.--_Another_: beat the meat and the soft parts of a middling sized lobster, ½ an anchovy, a large piece of boiled celery, the yolk of a hard egg, a little cayenne, mace, salt, white pepper, 2 table-spoonsful of crumbs or panada, 1 of oyster liquor, 1 of mushroom catsup, 2 oz. warmed butter, and 2 eggs well beaten: make into balls, and fry of a fine brown. {191}CHAPTER XVI. GRAVIES AND SAUCES. READ the directions for making stock for soup.--A cook ought never to be without stock for gravy, as she may preserve all bones and trimmings of meat, poultry and game; also liquor in which meat (unsalted), and poultry have been boiled, and thus seldom buy meat expressly for the purpose. Sauces in which cream and eggs or acids are mixed, must be constantly stirred to prevent their curdling. Cream heated first, then stirred in by degrees.--The greatest nicety should be observed in thickening gravy, both for look and taste. The common method is to rub flour in butter; but the French _roux_ is better. The following is a list of store sauces, to keep in the house, to flavour hashes and stews. A bottle of each lasts some time, and the cost not very great.--The basis of all sauces for made dishes of _fish_ is soy and chili vinegar.--A little practice and _great attention_ will enable a cook to use these judiciously, to suit the dish, and the taste of her employers. Some like a combination of flavours, others prefer one, or two at most. Worcester Sauce. Camp Sauce. Gloucester Sauce. Harvey's Sauce. Oude Sauce. Reading Sauce. Tomata Sauce. Lopresti's Sauce. Essence of Shrimps. Oyster Catsup. Walnut Catsup. Mushroom Catsup. Chili Vinegar. Universal Sauce. Essence of Anchovy. Essence of Lobster. Eschalot Vinegar. Tarragon Vinegar. Lemon Pickle. Gravy ought to be perfectly clear and free from fat; flavoured, to suit the dish it is intended for; and always served hot; if in a tureen, that ought to be covered. {192}Some very good cooks use _brandy_ in making sauces, particularly for ragouts; _sugar_ also. _White Roux._ Melt slowly 1 lb. of good butter in a little water, then stir in 1 lb. of fine, well dried flour; stir till as thick as paste, then simmer it a quarter of an hour, stirring all the time, or it will burn. It will keep two or three days. The common mode of browning soup and gravy with burnt sugar is not so good as brown flour, but the browning is prepared thus: put ¼ lb. of fresh butter with ½ lb. of lump sugar into a saucepan, shake it often, and when of a clear brown bottle it for use. _To Brown Flour._ Spread flour on a plate, set it in the oven, or before the fire, and turn often, that it may brown equally, and any shade you like. Put it by in a jar for use. _Brown Roux._ Melt butter very slowly, and stir in browned flour; it will not require so long as to cook white _roux_, because the flour has been browned. Will keep two or three days. When you use either of these _Roux_, mix the quantity you wish (a table-spoonful for a tureen of soup), with a little of the soup or gravy quite smooth, then use it. The basis of most English sauces is melted butter, yet English cooks do not excel in making it, and the general fault is deficiency of butter. _To Melt Butter, the French Sauce Blanche._ Break ¼ lb. of good butter in small pieces, into a saucepan, with 3 table-spoonsful of sweet cream, or milk, milk and water, or water alone; dredge fine dried flour over, hold the saucepan over the fire, toss it quickly round (always one way) while the butter melts, and becomes as thick as very thick cream; let it just boil, turn the saucepan quickly, and it is done. Butter for oysters, shrimps, lobsters, eggs, or any {193}thickening ingredient, should be made rather thin, and if to be rich, a great proportion of cream. If for catsup or any flavouring ingredient, melt the butter with water only, and stir the ingredients in, by degrees, just before you serve it. _To Brown Butter._ Toss a lump of butter in a frying-pan, over the fire, till it becomes brown. Skim, then dredge browned flour over, stir round with a spoon till it boils; it ought to be quite smooth. This, adding cayenne, and some flavouring vinegar, is a good fish sauce. _Parsley and Butter, or Maitre d'Hotel Sauce._ Tie the parsley in a bunch, and boil it in salt and water, 5 or 10 minutes, according to its age, drain it, cut off the stalks, mince very fine, and stir it into melted butter. _Fennel_, _basil_, _burnet_, _cress_, _chervil_, and _tarragon_ the same. When you have not the fresh vegetable, boil celery or parsley seeds in the water to be used with the butter. _Ham Extract._ Cut away all skin and the fat of an undressed ham; cut out the bone, and put it into a large saucepan, with 3 quarts of water, 2 large carrots, 3 onions (2 in slices), a bunch of sweet basil and parsley, 3 cloves, and a table-spoonful of mushroom powder: let this simmer by the fire two hours; stirring up the vegetables from time to time; then take out the bone, put in the meat, and stew it 3 hours, or till the liquor, when strained and cold, is a jelly. A table-spoonful will flavour a tureenful of soup, and half the quantity in melted butter, is good sauce for poultry and game. Also good in veal and chicken pie. _To Draw Plain Gravy._ Notch and flour 1 lb. of gravy beef, or an ox melt, and put it in 1½ pint cold water; scum carefully, and stew gently, till all the juice is extracted from the meat, and about half an hour before it is done, put in a piece of crust of bread. When done, strain and clear it from the {194}fat, and pour it again into a saucepan to thicken, with butter rolled in flour; season with salt, black or cayenne pepper. _Beef Gravy._ This, the basis of many rich sauces, is made of lean juicy meat. Cut 4 lbs. into thin slices, and score them; place a slice of streaked bacon, or the knuckle of a ham, at the bottom of a stew-pan, the beef upon it, and bits of butter; add half a large carrot, 3 onions, half an eschalot, and 3 heads of celery, all cut up; also a bunch of sweet herbs. Brown it over the fire, shaking the saucepan occasionally; in half an hour the juices will be drawn; then put in 2 quarts of boiling water, scum well, and when that is no longer necessary, wipe the edges of the saucepan and lid, and cover close. Simmer 3 hours, by the side of the fire; let it stand to settle, then strain it into an earthen vessel, and put it by in a cool place. For hare, add an anchovy. _Savoury Gravy._ Line a stew-pan with thin slices of ham or bacon, and add 3 lbs. of fillet of veal, or 2 of beef, in slices, a carrot and onion; moisten this with a tea-cupful of broth. The juices will form a glaze. Take the meat out on a dish, pick it all over, put a little more broth, or boiling water, add young onions, parsley, and sweet herbs to taste, also celery, cayenne, a bay leaf, mushrooms, and garlic, if you like; and after it has been scummed, simmer very gently. Strain, and then stand it in a cool place. This gravy may be enriched and flavoured at the cook's discretion. Wine, flavoured vinegar, truffles, morells, curry powder, tarragon, anchovy, pickled mushrooms and oysters, may be used to suit the dish it is required for.--Some cooks use more carrots and onions than I have directed. _White Gravy Sauce._ Part of a knuckle of veal, and some gravy beef. (The quantity will depend upon the degree of richness required.) Cut it in pieces, and put it in a stew-pan, with any {195}trimmings of meat or poultry. Moisten with broth or water, and add a carrot, 3 onions, parsley, thyme, 2 bay leaves, and chopped mushrooms, if convenient. Let the meat heat through, without burning, and prick it, to let the juices flow. When the knuckle is sufficiently cooked for the table, take it out, let the stew-pan stand by the fire a few minutes, skim the fat off the sauce, strain, and boil it again till reduced to the quantity you require; thicken it with white _roux_ (it can be thinned afterwards), boil it again, and skim if needful; keep stirring, lifting it often in a spoon and letting it fall, to make it smooth and fine. Sweet thick cream is a nice substitute for white _roux_, in this sauce.--_Or_: put 2 lbs. of lean gristly veal, and ¼ lb. lean bacon or ham, in little bits, into a stew-pan, in which some butter has been melted, let the gravy flow, but do not brown the meat. Mix 2 table-spoonsful of potatoe or rice flour smooth, with a little water, put it into a stew-pan, with a quart or 3 pints of veal broth, water, or milk; also an onion, a bunch of parsley and lemon thyme, a bay leaf, a piece of lemon peel and a tea-spoonful of white peppercorns; stew it very slowly an hour and three quarters, then stand a few minutes to settle, strain it, add a tea-cupful of cream, boil it up, and strain again.--A nice sauce for boiled fowls is made of thin veal broth and milk, seasoned as above, and thickened with the yolk of an egg stirred in, just before you serve it.--Mushrooms may be put in this sauce.--_Another_ very good sauce for boiled fowls, veal, rabbits, and fricassees, is as follows: to ½ pint of the liquor in which either of these have been boiled, an onion sliced, a small bunch of parsley, lemon thyme and basil, a little pounded mace, nutmeg, and a few white peppercorns. Strain, boil it again, with a piece of butter rolled in flour, and at the last a little cream. If for boiled fowls, put the peel of a lemon in this, and add the juice just at the last. _Gravy without Meat._ Slice a large onion, flour, and fry it in butter; put it into a saucepan with a breakfast-cupful of good fresh beer, the same of water, a few peppercorns, salt, grated lemon peel, 2 cloves, and a table-spoonful of catsup. Simmer {196}nearly half an hour, then strain it. An anchovy may be added. _Gravy that will keep a Week._ Put some lean beef, in thin slices, into a stew-pan with butter, and what herbs and roots you like, strewed over: cover close, and set it over a slow fire. When the gravy is drawn, keep shaking the stew-pan backwards and forwards several minutes, that it may dry up again, then put in as much water as you require, let it simmer an hour and a half. Keep it in a cool place. A thin slice of lean ham may be added. _Jelly for Cold Meat_ May be made of the knuckle of a leg or shoulder of veal, or a piece of the scrag, and shanks of mutton, or a cow heel. Put the meat, a slice of lean ham or bacon, some herbs, 2 blades of mace, 2 onions, a tea-spoonful of Jamaica peppers bruised, the same of black pepper, and a piece of lemon peel, into a stew-pan; cover with about 3 pints of water, and let it boil; scum well, and let it simmer till the liquor is strong: strain it, and when nearly cold take off all the fat. Put it rough round cold poultry or veal. Eaten with cold meat pies. _Savoury Gravy for Venison._ Make a pint of good gravy, of the trimmings of venison, and mutton shanks; the meat should be browned first in the frying-pan, then stewed slowly, in water, to make the quantity required; scum carefully and strain it when done: add salt, pepper, walnut pickle, and a wine-glass of Port or claret. _Mutton Gravy, for Venison or Hare._ Broil a scrag of mutton, in pieces, rather brown; put them into a stew-pan, with a quart of boiling water; cover close, and simmer gently an hour: uncover the stew-pan, and let it reduce to ¾ pint; pour it through a hair sieve, take the fat off, add a little salt, and serve it quite hot. {197}_Orange Gravy Sauce, for Game and Wild Fowl._ Put into a pint of clear good veal broth, an onion, twelve leaves of basil, a large piece of orange or lemon peel, and boil it slowly ten minutes; then strain, and put it back into the saucepan, with the juice of a Seville orange or a lemon, ½ a tea-spoonful of salt, the same of pepper, and a wine-glass of Port. Serve quite hot. Add cayenne, unless it be the practice to introduce it into cuts in the breast of the birds, at table. _Relishing Sauce for Goose, Duck, or Pork._ Steep 2 oz. of fresh sage leaves, 1 oz. lemon peel, 1 oz. minced eschalot, the same of salt, ½ a drachm of cayenne and of citric acid, in a pint of claret, a fortnight; shake it well every day. Let it stand 24 hours, to settle, then strain into a clean bottle, and cork it close. A table-spoonful to ¼ pint gravy or melted butter, heat it up, and serve quite hot.--_Another_, to make at once: stir a tea-spoonful of mustard, ½ tea-spoonful of salt, a little cayenne, and a wine-glass of Port or claret, into a ¼ pint of good melted butter or gravy.--_Or_: the mixture may be heated by itself and poured into the goose, by a slit made in the apron, just before you serve it. _Sauce Robert, for Broils of every kind._ Put 1 oz. butter into a saucepan, with half a large onion, minced very fine; shake the saucepan frequently, or stir the butter with a wooden spoon, till the onion be of a light brown. Rub a table-spoonful of browned flour smooth, into a little broth or water, add salt and pepper, a table-spoonful of Port wine, and of mushroom catsup, and put this with ½ pint more of broth or water into the saucepan with the onions; boil it, add a tea-spoonful of made mustard, the juice of ½ a lemon, and two tea-spoonsful of any flavouring vinegar you like. _Another Grill Sauce_ is: To ½ pint of clear drawn gravy, add 1 oz. butter, rubbed smooth in flour, a table-spoonful of mushroom catsup, 2 tea-spoonsful of lemon juice, 1½ tea-spoonful of made mustard, the same of capers, 1 tea-spoonful of essence of cayenne, ½ a one of black peppers, and 1 of chili vinegar; simmer it a {198}few minutes, pour some over the grill, and serve the rest in a tureen. _Sauce for Turkey or Fowl._ Season veal gravy with pepper and salt, the juice of a Seville orange and a lemon, 2 wine-glassfuls of Port wine, and serve it in a sauce tureen. _Liver Sauce for Fowl._ Parboil the liver, and mince it fine; pare a lemon thin, take off the white part, and cut the lemon in small bits, picking out the seeds; mince a quarter part of the peel very fine, and put it with the lemon, the minced liver, and a little salt, to ½ pint of melted butter. Heat it over a gentle fire, but if it boil it will become oily. Parsley may be chopped with the liver.--_Or_: chop the parboiled liver, and stir into thin melted butter, boil it up, and then thicken it with the yolk of an egg; add a tea-spoonful of made mustard, and the same of walnut catsup. _Egg Sauce for Poultry and Salt Fish._ Boil 4 eggs hard, dip in cold water, and roll them under your hand, that the shell may come off easily; chop the whites and yolks separately, stir first the whites, then the yolks, into boiling hot melted butter. Serve directly. _Mushroom Sauce._ Wash and pick, a bason full of small button mushrooms, take off the thick skin, and stew them in veal broth, with pepper, cayenne, salt, mace, and nutmeg, 3 lumps of sugar, also enough butter rolled in flour, or arrow root, to thicken the sauce. Stew gently, till tender, stirring occasionally. When done, keep the sauce hot, and pour it over fowls, veal, or rabbit.--_Or_: stew the mushrooms in thin cream, instead of broth, and thicken as above. Pickled mushrooms, may be fried to make this sauce, instead of fresh ones. _Celery Sauce, for Boiled Turkey and Fowls._ Cut a young head of celery into slices of 1½ inch long, {199}season with salt, a very little white pepper, nutmeg and mace, and then simmer till the celery be quite tender, in weak broth, or water. Thicken with butter rolled in white flour. The juice of a lemon may be added, when the sauce is ready. Pour it over the fowls, or serve in a tureen. This may be made brown, by thickening with browned flour, and adding a glass of red wine. _Rimolade, for Cold Turkey or Fowl._ Chop an eschalot very fine with 5 sprigs of parsley; beat 2 yolks of egg, and mix 3 table-spoonsful of olive oil with them, beat the mixture till quite thick, then stir in the eschalot and parsley with a tea-spoonful of good vinegar, a salt-spoonful of salt and the same of cayenne. _Tomata Sauce._ Put the tomatas into a jar, and place it in a cool oven. When soft, take off the skins, pick out the seeds, beat up the pulp, with a capsicum, a clove of garlic, a very little ginger, cayenne, white pepper, salt and vinegar; rub it through a sieve, and simmer it, a very few minutes. A little beet root juice will improve the colour.--_Or_: stew them in weak broth or water with salt and pepper, when done, pass them through a rather wide sieve, add butter, stir well and serve it hot.--Italians, who use tomatas a great deal, cut them open, squeeze them gently to get rid of their liquor, and just rinse them in cold water, before they dress them. _Apple Sauce._ Pare, core, and slice 5 large apples, and boil them gently, in a saucepan, with a very little water, to keep them from burning; add lemon peel to taste. When they are soft, pour off the water, and beat them up, with a small bit of butter and some sugar. Some add a table-spoonful of brandy. _Gooseberry Sauce._ Cut off the tops and tails of a breakfast-cupful of gooseberries; scald them, till tender, then stir them into melted {200}butter.--_Or_: mash the gooseberries after they are scalded, sweeten to taste, and serve, without butter. _Cucumber Sauce._ Pare the cucumbers, slice, and cut them in small pieces, stew them in thin broth or melted butter, till tender, then press them through a sieve into melted butter, stir and beat it up; season with mace, nutmeg, lemon peel, and finely grated ham. A dish of _stewed_ cucumbers answers the purpose. _Onion Sauce._ Peel 12 onions, and lay them in salt and water a few minutes, to prevent their becoming black. Boil them in plenty of water, changing it once. When done, chop fine, and rub them with a wooden spoon, through a sieve; stir this pulp into thin melted butter, or cream, and heat it up. The onions may be roasted, then pulped, in place of being boiled. A very little mace, or nutmeg, may be added to onion sauce having cream in it. _Brown onion sauce_ is made by frying, in butter, some sliced Spanish onions; simmer them in brown gravy, or broth, over a slow fire, add salt, pepper, cayenne, and a piece of butter, rolled in browned flour. Skim the sauce, add ½ a glass of Port or claret, the same of mushroom catsup, or a dessert-spoonful of walnut pickle, or eschalot vinegar. To make the sauce milder, boil a turnip with the onions. _Eschalot Sauce._ Chop enough eschalot to fill a dessert-spoon, and scald it in hot water, over the fire; drain, and put it into ½ pint of good gravy or melted butter, add salt and pepper, and when done, a large spoonful of vinegar.--_Or_: stew the eschalots in a little of the liquor of boiled mutton, thicken with butter rolled in flour, add a spoonful of vinegar, and this is good sauce for the mutton. _Sauce Partout._ Take 1 pint of walnut pickle liquor, the same of {201}catsup, ½ pint of white wine, ½ lb. anchovies unwashed, 2 cloves of garlic, one stick of horse-radish, a faggot of sweet herbs, the rind of a lemon, and cayenne to cover a sixpence. Boil together till the anchovies are dissolved. Strain and bottle it for use. _Chetna Sauce._ Pour heated vinegar over 12 eschalots, let it stand twelve hours, then strain and add ½ pint of walnut, and ½ pint of mushroom catsup, 2 wine-glassfuls of soy, a tea-spoonful of cayenne, ½ a tea-spoonful of chili vinegar: boil five minutes, then bottle and rosin it. _Carrier Sauce, for Mutton._ Boil some chopped eschalots in gravy, seasoned with salt and pepper, and flavoured with vinegar. _Horse-radish Sauce._ Scrape fine, or grate, a tea-cupful of horse-radish, add salt, and a little cupful of bread-crumbs, stew this in white gravy, and add a little vinegar.--This may be made brown by using browned gravy; a tea-spoonful of made mustard is an improvement. Vinegar may be used alone, instead of gravy.--_Or_: to 3 table-spoonsful of cream, put 2 table-spoonsful vinegar, 1 tea-spoonful made mustard, a little salt, and grated horse-radish. _Mint Sauce._ Wash and pick some young mint, and mince the leaves very fine; mix them with powdered sugar, put these into the sauce tureen, and pour good white vinegar over. _Sauce for Cold Meat._ Chop some eschalots, parsley, and mint, and put to them an equal portion of olive oil, vinegar, and a little salt.--_Another_: chopped parsley, vinegar, oil, and a tea-spoonful of made mustard.--You may add to either of these an equal portion of tarragon and chervil. {202}_Coratch Sauce._ Half a clove, or less, according to taste, of garlic pounded, a large tea-spoonful of soy, the same of walnut pickle, a little cayenne, and good vinegar. _Miser's Sauce._ Chop 2 onions, and mix them with pepper, salt, vinegar, and melted butter. _Poor Man's Sauce._ Mince parsley and a few eschalots, and stew them in broth or water, with a few peppercorns; add a little vinegar when done. Good with broils of poultry and game. _Sauce for Roast Beef._ Mix 1½ table-spoonful of grated horse-radish with a dessert-spoonful of made mustard, the same of brown sugar; add vinegar to make it as thin as mustard. _Lemon Sauce._ Pare a lemon, and take off all the white part; cut the lemon in thick slices, take out the seeds, and cut the slices into small pieces; mix them by degrees into melted butter, and stir it, that the butter may not oil. _Caper Sauce._ Mince 1 table-spoonful of capers very fine, and another one not so fine, put a spoonful of good vinegar to them, and mix all into ½ pint of melted butter, or gravy. Stir it well or it may oil.--This is a good sauce for fish, with a little of the essence of anchovies.--A very good substitute for capers, is made by chopping pickled gherkins or nasturtiums or radish pods: a little lemon juice will improve these.--Walnut sauce made in the same way, is good with boiled mutton.--Some persons deem it better not to mince capers, but have them whole. {203}_Bread Sauce._ Put a small tea-cupful of grated bread-crumbs into a small saucepan, and sufficient to moisten them of the liquor in which fresh meat, or poultry, has been boiled; let it soak, then add a small onion (parboiled), salt, mace, and six or eight peppercorns. Beat it up from time to time, and when the bread is smooth and stiff, take out the onions and peppercorns, and put to the sauce two table-spoonsful of cream. Some persons add cayenne, a _little_. _Rice Sauce._ By some preferred to bread sauce. Wash and pick 2 oz. rice, and stew it in milk, with a parboiled onion, salt, and 6 peppercorns. When tender, take out the onion and peppercorns, rub the rice through a cullender, and heat in milk, cream, or melted butter. _Sweet Sauce._ Melt some white, or red currant jelly, with a glass or two of red, or white wine. _Or_: send the jelly to table in glasses, or glass dishes. _Sharp Sauce._ Melt ¼ lb. of loaf sugar-candy in ½ pint of champagne vinegar; take off the skim as the sugar dissolves. _Store Sauces for Ragouts, &c., &c._ To ¼ pint good mushroom catsup, add the same of walnut catsup, of eschalot and basil wine, and soy, 1 oz. of slices of lemon peel, 1 drachm of concrete of lemon, a wine-glassful of essence of anchovies, 1 drachm of the best cayenne, and 2 wine-glassfuls of tarragon or eschalot vinegar. Let these infuse ten days, then strain and bottle for use: 2 table-spoonsful will flavour a pint of gravy. _Another, for Roast Meat, Steaks, or Chops._--Take ½ pint of mushroom or oyster catsup, the same of walnut pickle, add ½ oz. Jamaica pepper in powder, the same of scraped horse-radish and of minced eschalot, and 4 grains cayenne. Infuse these {204}ten days, strain and bottle for use. A table-spoonful or two, according to the quantity of gravy. Melted butter flavoured with this, to pour over steaks or chops. _Sauce for Tench._ To ½ a tea-cupful of gravy an equal quantity of white wine, 2 anchovies, 2 eschalots and a small piece of horse-radish: simmer till the anchovies are dissolved, then strain and thicken it: add a tea-cupful of cream, also a little lemon juice. _A Good Store Sauce for Fish, Stews, &c._ To 1 pint of sherry add ½ pint of walnut pickle, ¼ pint of soy, ¼ pint of lemon pickle, 1 pint of white wine vinegar, a wine-glassful of eschalot and the same of chili vinegar, ¾ pint of essence of anchovy, the peel of 2 and the juice of 1 lemon, 10 eschalots, 10 blades of mace, 2 nutmegs, 12 black and 12 white peppers, some cayenne, and mushroom powder: boil ten minutes, and when cold strain and bottle it. Good with all fried fish, and with salmon. _An excellent Fish Sauce._ Chop 6 cloves of eschalot, 4 of garlic, a handful of horse-radish and 24 anchovies; put them into 1 pint of white, and 1 pint of Port wine, also 2 wine-glassfuls of soy, the same of walnut catsup, and 1 wine-glassful of chili vinegar. Boil well, strain, and when cold, bottle and rosin it. _A Plain Fish Sauce._ Boil in ¼ pint water 3 anchovies, 2 onions, and a faggot of herbs, all chopped, a little horse-radish (scraped), and a large spoonful of vinegar. Boil till the anchovies are dissolved, then strain it, and mix what proportion you like with melted butter, or send it to table in a cruet. _Lobster Sauce._ A hen lobster is best. Pound the coral and spawn with a bit of butter, and rub it through a coarse sieve into melted {205}butter, mix smooth, and season with cayenne; then add the meat of the tail, cut in very small dice, and let the sauce heat up, but not boil. A little essence of anchovy, or catsup, and spices may be added; also cream, heated first. _Crab sauce_ the same way. _Oyster Sauce._ Do not open them till ready to make the sauce, then save all the liquor; put it and the oysters into a small saucepan, and scald them; lift them out on a sieve with a spoon with holes in it; let the liquor settle, and pour all but the sediment into good melted butter; beard the oysters, put them into a saucepan, and pour the butter over them; let it nearly boil, then stand by the side of the fire till they are tender, for boiling makes them hard. When ready, stir in a little cream.--A very little mace, lemon peel, and a tea-spoonful of oyster catsup, or essence of anchovy, may be added. _Anchovy Sauce._ Bone and pound 3 anchovies, with a piece of butter, and stir into thick melted butter. Add cayenne, soy, essence of anchovy, mustard, horse-radish or vinegar. _Shrimp and Cockle Sauce._ Shell and wash carefully, put them into thick melted butter, let it boil, and then stand covered two minutes. _Roe Sauce._ Boil 2 or 3 soft roes, take off all the filaments which hang about them, bruise in a mortar with the yolk of an egg, and stir them in thin parsley, or fennel, and butter; add pepper, salt, and a small spoonful of walnut pickle. _Dutch Fish Sauce._ Boil equal quantities of water and vinegar, season with pepper and salt, and thicken with beaten yolk of egg; stir the egg in, but do not boil, or it will curdle. {206}_Sauce for Devils._ Thicken some good gravy (of either fish or meat stock,) with browned flour, till it is a batter, add a dessert-spoonful of walnut catsup, a tea-spoonful of essence of anchovies, the same of made mustard, 12 capers and a bit of eschalot, all finely minced, a tea-spoonful of grated lemon peel, and a little cayenne. Simmer for a minute, pour a little of it over the broil, and serve the rest in a tureen. CHAPTER XVII. SEASONINGS. EXCEPT in the matter of plain roasting, boiling, or baking, the test of good cooking is the taste and skill displayed in giving _flavour_ to the composition. Care is not all that is required here; there needs study, and practice. No rules can be given, except to avoid over flavouring, and to suit the ingredients, as much as possible, to the compound which is to be flavoured. In order to be able always to do this, some forethought is requisite on the part of the housekeeper, who will save herself much vexation and trouble by keeping a small assortment of seasonings always ready for use in her _Store Room_; and by taking some little pains, to have a sufficient _variety_. Many prefer cayenne made from English chilies to any other: they are in season in September and October; cut off the stalks, and lay them before the fire to dry for twelve hours. When dry, pound them in a mortar with one fourth their weight in salt, till they are as fine as possible, and put the mixture into a close stopped bottle. Before spices are rubbed into meat, they should be pounded, and well mixed. For the convenience of the cook they may be kept prepared in the following manner. {207}_Kitchen Pepper._ Fill little square bottles with an equal quantity of finely ground or pounded ginger, nutmeg, black pepper, allspice, cinnamon and cloves. Keep these corked tight, and when "kitchen pepper" is required, take the proper proportion of each, and mix them, with common salt. For _white sauces_, use white pepper, nutmeg, mace, lemon peel (dried), ginger and cayenne; pounded or grated, and kept in bottles. _Savoury Powder._ 1 oz. of salt, ½ oz. mustard, ¼ oz. allspice, ¼ oz. ginger, ¼ oz. nutmeg, ½ oz. black pepper, ½ oz. lemon peel, and 2 drachms cayenne; grate and pound well together, pass the mixture through a fine sieve and bottle it.--Some leave out allspice and ginger, substituting mace and cloves. _Curry Powder._ Take 12 oz. of coriander seeds, 2 oz. cummin seeds, 1 oz. fenugreek seeds, 1 oz. ginger, 1 oz. black pepper, 4 oz. cayenne, and 2 oz. pale turmeric. Pound the whole and mix well together. Put these ingredients before the fire, stir and rub them frequently, till quite dry. Then set them by to get cold, rub through a hair sieve, and put them into a dry bottle, cork close, and keep in a dry place. A table-spoonful will make curry sufficient for one fowl.--_Another_: Take ¼ lb. coriander seed, 2½ oz. turmeric, 1 oz. cummin seed, ½ oz. black pepper, and cayenne to taste; then proceed in the same way.--_Another_: 2 oz. coriander seeds, ¼ lb. turmeric; of black pepper, flour of mustard, cayenne and ginger, each 1 oz.; of lesser cardamoms ½ oz., cummin seed ¼ oz., and fenugreek seeds ¼ oz.--_Another_: 4 oz. turmeric in powder, 4 oz. of coriander, 2 oz. carraway seeds in powder, 2 oz. fenugreek, and cayenne to taste.--_Curry paste_ is very good, but it may be better to prepare curry powder at home; for different curries require different flavouring; as fish and veal require more acid than fowls, rabbit, &c., &c. The ingredients may be kept in bottles, and mixed when used. {208}_Herbs._ As these cannot always be procured green, it is convenient to have them in the house, dried and prepared, each in the proper season. The common method is to dry them in the sun, but their flavour is better preserved, by being put into a cool oven, or the meat screen, before a moderate fire, taking care not to scorch them. They should be gathered when just ripe, on a dry day. Cleanse them from dirt and dust, cut off the roots, put them before the fire, and dry them quickly, rather than by degrees. Pick off the leaves, pound and sift them; put the powder into bottles, and keep these closely stopped. Basil, from the middle of August, to the same time in September. Winter and Summer Savory, July and August. Knotted Marjoram, July. Thyme, Orange Thyme, and Lemon Thyme, June and July. Mint, end of June and through July. Sage, August and September. Tarragon, June, July, and August. Chervil, May, June, July. Burnet, June, July, August. Parsley, May, June, July. Fennel, May, June, July. Elder Flowers, May, June, July. Orange Flowers, May, June, and July. The following mixture of herb powder is good for soups or ragouts: 2 oz. each of parsley, winter savory, sweet marjoram, and lemon thyme, 1 oz. each of sweet basil and lemon peel, cut very thin. For made dishes, the cook may keep this mixture, with one fourth part of savory powder mixed in it. Dried herbs may be infused in spirits of wine or brandy ten days or a fortnight; then strained, the spirit closely corked, and put by for use.--Some recommend the following mixture: infuse in 1 pint of wine, brandy, vinegar, or spirits of wine, ½ oz. each of lemon thyme, winter savory, sweet marjoram, and sweet basil, 2 drachms grated lemon peel, 2 drachms minced eschalots, and 1 drachm celery seed: shake it every day for a fortnight, then strain and bottle it. {209}_Horse-Radish Powder._ In November and December, slice horse-radish the thickness of a shilling, and dry it, _very gradually_, in a Dutch oven; pound and bottle it. _Pea Powder._ This gives a relish to pea soup. Pound 1 drachm celery seed, ¼ drachm cayenne pepper, ½ oz. dried mint, ½ oz. of sage; when well mixed, rub through a fine sieve, and bottle it. _Mushroom Powder._ Wash ½ a peck of large mushrooms, quite fresh, and wipe them with a piece of flannel; scrape out the black clean, and put them into a saucepan without water, with 2 large onions, 4 cloves, ¼ oz. mace, and 2 tea-spoonsful of white pepper, all in powder; simmer and shake them till all the liquor be dried up, but do not let them burn; lay them on tins or sieves, in a slow oven, till dry enough to beat to a powder, then put it in small bottles, and keep them in a dry place. Cayenne, if you choose; a tea-spoonful sufficient for a tureen of soup. To flavour gravy for game, and for many made dishes. _Mushrooms to Dry._--Wipe them clean, and take off the brown and skin; dry them on paper, in a cool oven, and keep them in paper bags. They will swell, when simmered in gravy, to their own size. _Anchovy Powder._ Pound the anchovies, rub them through a hair sieve, then work them into thin cakes with flour, and a little flour of mustard. Toast the cakes very dry, rub them to a powder, and bottle it. For sauces, or to sprinkle over toasts, or sandwiches. {210}CHAPTER XVIII. VEGETABLES. PERSONS who live in the country, may generally have fresh vegetables; but in towns, and especially in London, the case is different; and vegetables not quite fresh are very inferior to those which have been only a short time out of the ground.--Take the outside leaves off all of the cabbage kind, and plunge the part you mean to cook into cold water, the heads downwards; let there be plenty of water, and a large piece of salt, which helps to draw out the insects. Examine the leaves well, and take off all the decayed parts. They should be boiled in soft water, to preserve their flavour, and alone, to preserve their colour. Allow as much water as the vessel will hold, the more the better; and a handful of salt. The shorter time they are in the water the better, therefore see that it boil fast, before you put the vegetables in, and keep it boiling at the same rate afterwards; let the vessel be uncovered, and take off all scum. When done, take them out of the water instantly, and drain them; they ought then to go to table, for vegetables, particularly green ones, suffer in look and in taste, every moment they wait. In dressing vegetables, as well as in making soup, the French greatly excel us, for they always cook them enough. Besides they make more of them than we do, by various ways of dressing them, with gravy and cream. Several receipts are here given, by which a side or supper dish, may be prepared at very little cost, particularly in the country, where fresh vegetables are always at hand. Salads, if mixed with oil, are not injurious, except in peculiar cases, for they are cooling and refreshing in hot weather, and beneficial in many respects, in the winter. Most persons, particularly the Londoners, eat cucumbers, but strange to say, they do not, generally, value a well made salad so highly. {211}_Potatoes to Boil._ The best way, upon the whole, is to _boil_, not steam them. Much depends upon the sort of potato, and it is unfair to condemn a cook's ability in the cooking of this article, until it be ascertained that the fault is really hers, for I have seen potatoes that no care or attention could boil enough, without their being watery, and others that it would be difficult for any species of cookery to spoil. They should be of equal size, or the small ones will be too much done before the large ones are done enough; do not pare or cut them; have a saucepan so large that they will only half fill it, and put in cold water sufficient to cover them about an inch, so that if it waste, they may still be covered; but too much water would injure them. Put the saucepan on the fire, and as soon as the water boils, set it on one side, to simmer slowly till the potatoes will admit a fork; the cracking of the skin being too uncertain a test; having tried them, if tender, pour the water off, and place the saucepan by the side of the fire, take off the cover, and lay a folded cloth, or coarse flannel, over the potatoes. Middling sized ones will be boiled enough in fifteen minutes. Some (and I believe it is the practice in Ireland), when they have poured off the water, lay the potatoes in a coarse cloth, sprinkle salt over, and cover them a few minutes, then squeeze them lightly, one by one, in the folds of a dry cloth, peel and serve them. Some peel potatoes for the next day's dinner and put them into cold water enough to cover them, over night; the water is poured off just before the potatoes are boiled. After the beginning of March potatoes should be peeled before they are boiled, and after April they should always be mashed. Potatoes may be dressed in various ways to make supper or side dishes, and there are sauces suitable to enrich them. _Young Potatoes._--Rub the skin off with a cloth, then pour boiling water over them in a saucepan, let it simmer, and they will soon be done. _Potatoes to Fry, Broil, or Stew._ Cold potatoes may be cut in slices and fried in dripping, or broiled on a gridiron, then laid on a sieve to drain; serve on a hot dish, and sprinkle a little pepper and salt {212}over them. Garnish with sprigs of curled parsley, or the parsley may be fried and strewed over.--_Or_: when the potatoes are nearly boiled enough, pour off the water, peel and flour them, brush with yolk of egg, and roll them in fine bread-crumbs or biscuit-powder, and fry in butter or nice dripping.--_Or_: stewed gently with butter; turn them, while stewing; pour a white sauce in the dish. _Potatoes to Mash._ Peel them, cut out the specks, and boil them: when done, and the water poured off, put them over the fire for two or three minutes, to dry, then put in some salt and butter, with milk enough to moisten sufficiently to beat them to a mash. The rolling-pin is better than anything else. Cream is better than butter, and then no milk need be used. Potatoes thus mashed may be put into a shape, or scallop-shells, with bits of butter on the top, then browned before the fire; either way makes a pretty dish.--_Or_: they may be rolled up, with a very little flour and yolk of egg into balls, and browned in the dripping-pan under roast meat. These balls are pretty as a garnish.--_Or_: make them up into a _Collar_, score it, and brown it before the fire, then serve it with a brown gravy in the dish. _Colcannan._ Boil 4 lbs. potatoes, also as many of the inside leaves of curled kale as will fill a saucer. Mash the two together in the saucepan the potatoes were boiled in, to keep them hot; put a piece of butter in the centre, when you serve it. Some prefer parsley to kale, but use less. _Potatoes to Roast._ Some cooks half boil them first. They should be washed and dried. If large, they will take two hours to roast, and should be all of a size, or they will not all be done alike.--_Or_: pour off the water, peel and lay them in a tin pan, before the fire, by the side of roasting meat. Baste, from the dripping-pan, and turn them to brown equally. {213}_Potatoe Pie._ Having washed and peeled the potatoes, slice them, and put a layer into the pie dish, strew, over a little chopped onion, small bits of butter, salt, and pepper (and, if you like, hard-boiled egg in slices), then put more potatoes, and so on, till the dish is full; add a little water, then stick over the top nearly ¼ lb. of fresh butter, in bits; cover with a light puff paste, and bake an hour and a half. _Potatoe Balls._ Mash quite smooth 7 or 8 mealy potatoes, with 3 oz. of butter, 2 table-spoonsful cream, 1 of essence of anchovy, and 1 or 2 eschalots _very finely_ chopped; make up into balls, dip them into egg beaten, and brown them. Garnish with curled parsley, for a side or supper dish. _Potatoe Ragout._ Mash 1 lb. of potatoes with butter (no milk or cream), and grate in some ham, nutmeg, salt, pepper, 2 eggs beaten, and a very little flour. Mix well together, and form it into loaves, or long thin rolls, fry or stew of a light brown, for a garnish to veal cutlets, or a dish by themselves. _Potatoes à la Maître d'Hotel._ Boil, peel, and cut the potatoes in slices ½ an inch thick, put them into a stew-pan with some young onions skinned, chopped parsley, butter (a large piece), pepper, salt, and a little broth to moisten the potatoes. Toss them till the parsley is cooked; serve with parsley and butter poured over. _Cabbages to Boil._ Wash well, and quarter them, if large. A young cabbage is done in from twenty minutes to half an hour, a full grown one will take nearly an hour. Have plenty of water, that they may be covered, all the time they are boiling; scum well. Serve melted butter. _Savoys, Sprouts, and Young Greens._--Boil the same as cabbages, but twenty minutes will be sufficient. {214}_Cabbage à la Bourgeoise._ Wash and pick quite clean a large cabbage; take the leaves off one by one, and spread upon each some forcemeat, made of veal, suet, parsley, salt, and pepper, mixed with a little cream and an egg; then put the leaves together, in the form of a whole cabbage, tie this up securely at each end, and stew it in a braise. When it is tender, take it out, and press in a linen cloth to clear it from the fat. Cut in two, in a dish, and pour good gravy over it. _Red Cabbage to Stew._ Melt sufficient butter, to stew the quantity of cabbage; cut it into shreds and put it into a saucepan, with a chopped onion, 2 cloves, a bay leaf, cayenne pepper and salt. Keep the saucepan covered close, and when done, add a good spoonful of vinegar. This may be spread in a dish, and sausages served on it. _Cabbage, Greens, or Spinach to Curry._ After they are boiled, drain, chop and stew them in butter with curry powder to taste; the powder previously mixed with salt, pepper, and vinegar. It is an improvement to spinach, to add sorrel; and some like a small quantity of chopped onion. To these curries you may add minced veal, chicken or rabbit, and serve with a gravy of veal; _or_, if to be maigre, minced cold fish, prawns or oysters, and fish gravy. _Spinach._ As spinach harbours insects, and is often gritty, wash it in two or three waters; then drain it on a sieve. Some boil it in very little water, but this is not a good way. Put a small handful of salt into the water, and when it boils, scum well; put in the spinach, and boil it quickly till quite tender, ten minutes will be enough. Pour it into a sieve, then squeeze between two plates or trenchers, chop fine, and put it into a small saucepan, with a piece of butter and a little salt. Stir with a spoon, five minutes over the fire, spread in a dish, score nicely, and serve it hot.--_Spinach, Sorrel, and Chicory_, may be stewed, the two former in equal {215}portions together, or all separately, for fricandeaus. Wash, pick, and stew very slowly, in an earthen vessel, with butter, oil, or broth, just enough to moisten them.--_Or_: do not put any liquid at all, but when tender, beat up the sorrel, &c. &c. with a bit of butter. _Spinach au Gras._ When boiled, pour through a sieve and press it, to squeeze the water out; put a large piece of butter or dripping into a saucepan, and, when it has melted, put in some sippets of toasted bread for a few minutes, take them out and put in the spinach chopped fine, and a little good gravy of the day before, or out of the dripping-pan, if you be roasting meat, or some good broth, pepper, salt, nutmeg, and flour; simmer a few minutes, and serve with the toasts round it. _Au Sucre._--Having boiled and squeezed all the water from spinach, chop, and put it into a saucepan with a good sized piece of butter, pepper, salt, nutmeg, and a little flour. Shake the saucepan over the fire a few minutes, then put in some cream or very good milk, to moisten the spinach, and 2 or 3 lumps of sugar, according to taste. Simmer very gently, and serve it garnished with toasts. _Asparagus and Sea Kale._ Scrape the stalks quite clean, and throw them into a large pan of cold water. Tie them in bundles of equal size with tape, not string, as that is likely to break off the heads; cut the ends of the asparagus even, and having a pot of boiling water ready (it ought to be scummed when the water boils), put in the bundles. When the stalks are tender, the asparagus is done; but loses flavour by being a minute too long in the water; indeed, it is the only one which will bear being a _little firm_. Before it is done, toast the round of a loaf, dip it into the boiling water, lay it in a dish, and the asparagus on it. Serve melted butter with asparagus and kale. The French, when the butter is melted, beat up the yolk of an egg, and stir in it, by degrees, a small quantity of vinegar, enough to flavour it; stir well for two minutes over the fire, and it is an excellent sauce for asparagus, or any green vegetable. {216}_Cauliflower and Brocoli._ Choose middling sized ones, close and white, trim off the outside leaves, and cut off the stalks at the bottom. Strip off all the side shoots, peel off the skin of the stalk, and cut it close at the bottom. Boil and scum the water, then put the vegetables in; cauliflower will be done in fifteen or twenty minutes, and spoiled if it boil longer. Brocoli in from ten to fifteen minutes. Lift out of the water with a slice. Serve melted butter. Both may be served on toasts, and the sauce for asparagus served with them, either for the second course or for supper. _Cauliflower with Parmesan._ Boil nicely and place it in a dish (not a close one), grate cheese over, and then pour white sauce over. Brown it, grate more cheese, then pour more white sauce over. Brown it again before the fire, or with a salamander. Serve it with white sauce, or melted butter in a dish. _Cauliflower to Stew._ Boil a large cauliflower till nearly done, then lift it out very gently, separate it into small pieces, put these into a stew-pan, with enough rich brown gravy to moisten, and let it stew till tender. Garnish with slices of lemon.--_Or_: if you have no gravy, put into a stew-pan a piece of fat bacon, 2 or 3 green onions, chopped small, a blade of mace, and a very little lemon thyme, shake the stew-pan over the fire, ten minutes, then put in the cauliflower, let it brown, add a very little water, and let it stew.--_Or_: if to be a maigre, put a lump of butter into a saucepan, an onion minced, some nutmeg, salt, and pepper, shake the saucepan over the fire a few minutes, then put in the pieces of cauliflower, and pour in enough boiling water to moisten; simmer it a few minutes, add the yolks of 3 eggs well beaten, turn the saucepan over the fire till the eggs are cooked, then serve the cauliflower. _Cauliflower or Brocoli to Fry._ Boil till nearly tender enough to eat, then pick it in nice {217}pieces, dip them in a batter made of ¼ lb. flour, the yolks of 3 eggs and a coffee-cupful of beer, pepper, and salt. Then fry the pieces in boiling lard, of a light brown, and put them on a sieve to drain and dry before the fire.--_Or_: dip them first in egg, then in fine crumbs of bread, and then egg again, before you fry them.--Celery and onions the same.--Serve white sauce. _Peas._ They should be shelled but a short time before they are cooked. The younger, of course, the better. When the water boils, scum it, put the peas in, with a little salt, and a piece of sugar, and let them boil quickly from fifteen to twenty minutes. When done, drain, and put them in a dish with some bits of fresh butter; stir the peas with a silver spoon, and cover the dish. Some like mint boiled with peas; others boiled alone, chopped, and laid in little lumps round them.--_Or_: after they are partly boiled, drain and stew the peas in a little broth, with a lettuce, a little green onion, and mint, or a sliced cucumber in the place of the lettuce; stew them till nearly done before you put in the peas; add a little salt, pepper, and brown or white sugar. Essence of ham, or mushroom catsup, may be added.--_Or_: when the peas are partly cooked, drain, and rub in some butter kneaded in flour, then stew them in weak broth, till quite done; add salt, a bunch of parsley, and green onions. Before you serve the peas, drain them, dip a lump of sugar into boiling water, stir it amongst them, and grate parmesan over. For maigre dinners, use more butter, instead of broth. _In White Sauce._--Put quite young peas into a stew-pan, with a piece of butter, a cabbage lettuce, and a little each of parsley and chives. Do not add any liquor, but stew them very gently over a slow fire. When done, stir, by degrees, ½ pint cream, and the beat yolks of 3 eggs, into the peas; let it thicken over the fire, but not boil, then serve it. The peas which are eaten in their shells may be dressed in this way. _Windsor Beans._ Boil in plenty of water, with salt, and a bunch of parsley. {218}Serve parsley and butter; garnish with chopped parsley. The French parboil them, take off the skins, stew them, and when done pour a rich veal gravy over. _French Beans._ Cut off the stalks, and if the beans are not young, string them, cut them in two, slantways; if old, split first, then cut them slantways; if very young, do not cut them at all. Lay them in water, with a little salt, for about half an hour. Then put them into water, boiling fast, and boil till tender. Serve melted butter. These beans may be stewed in all the ways directed for peas. _Beans à la Maitre d'Hotel._--Warm them up in parsley and butter. _Turnips._ Some think turnips are most tender when not pared before they are boiled, but the general practice is to cut off a thick peel. Most persons slice them also, but it is not the best way. An hour and a half of gentle boiling is enough. When done, lift them out with a slice, and lay them on a sieve to drain; when dry, serve them. To very young turnips leave about an inch of the green top. _To Mash Turnips._--Squeeze them as dry as possible between two trenchers, put them into a saucepan with a little new milk or cream, beat well with a wooden spoon, to mash them, add a piece of butter and a little salt; stir over the fire till the butter is melted, then serve them. It is an improvement to put in with the cream a table-spoonful of powdered sugar. _To Ragout._--Turnips may be made a ragout to serve under or round meat. Cut in slices an inch thick, and parboil them; then stew them in broth, which, if not already seasoned, may be seasoned at the time the turnips are put to it. When done, skim off the fat, and serve in the dish with any stew or braise, or by themselves. _Turnips and Parsnips to Stew White._--Parboil, cut in four, and stew them in weak broth, or milk and water (enough liquid to keep the turnips from burning); add salt and mace. As the liquid diminishes, put in a little good cream, and grated nutmeg. When done, mix with them a piece of butter rolled in flour. {219}_Turnip Tops._ When they have been carefully picked, let them lie in cold water an hour. Boil in plenty of water, or they will taste bitter. If quite fresh and young, twenty minutes will be enough. Drain them on the back of a sieve. _Parsnips._ Boil them the same as turnips; or longer, according to their size and quality. _Carrots._ Boil the same as turnips; but if old, longer.--_Turnips_, _carrots_, and _parsnips_ may be dressed together, or separately, in the following way:--Cut up 2 or 3 onions (or less, according to the quantity of roots), and put them into a stew-pan, with a large piece of butter kneaded in brown flour. Shake the saucepan a few minutes over the fire, then put in a little broth, let it stew slowly while you prepare the roots. Scald, or parboil, turnips, carrots, parsnips, and celery, cut them in thin slips, and put them to the onions; season with salt and pepper. When done, add a little made mustard and vinegar.--_Or_: wash and parboil them, cut in thin slices, and put them in a saucepan with a large piece of butter, a bunch of parsley, sweet basil, chives, a clove of garlic, and an eschalot. Shake them over the fire, add a little salt, whole pepper, a blade of mace, and some flour, then put in a very little broth or milk and water. Stew it gently till they are tender, and the liquid reduced. Lift out the herbs, and put in some cream (according to the quantity required), with 2 or 3 eggs beaten up in it. Turn the saucepan, over the fire, till the sauce thickens. When done, add a little vinegar. _Beet Root and Mangel Wurzel._ Wash but do not scrape it, for if the skin be broken, the colour is lost. A middling-sized beet root will take from three to four hours to boil, and the same sized mangel wurzel another hour. When quite tender it is done. Serve it, cut into thin slices; thick melted butter poured over. {220}_Onions to Boil._ Peel and boil them till tender in milk and water. The time required must depend upon their size.--They may be served in white sauce. _Onions to Stew._--Spanish onions are best. Peel and parboil very gently; then stew them in good broth, or milk and water, and season with white pepper and salt. When done, thicken the sauce with butter rolled in flour, lift out the onions, place them in a dish, and pour the sauce over.--_Or_: stew them in rich, brown gravy. _Onions to Roast._--Roast them before the fire, in their skins. _Cucumbers to Stew._ Pare the cucumbers, and cut them in four, longways; to each one put a _small_ onion, sliced; then stew them in broth, with cayenne, pepper, salt, and nutmeg. When done, lay them in a dish, thicken the sauce with butter rubbed in flour, and pour over them. For maigre dinners, stew them in enough water to moisten them, with a large piece of butter: when done, pour some cream, mixed with beaten yolk of egg, into the saucepan, enough to make a sufficiency of sauce, let it thicken over the fire, lay the cucumbers in a dish, and pour the sauce over.--_Or_: cut onions and cucumbers in halves, fry in butter, and pour good broth or gravy over them; then stew till done, and skim off the fat. _Celery to Stew._ Cut the head in pieces of 3 inches long, and stew as directed for cucumbers. Some cooks stew it whole, or, if very large, divided in two, and in strong brown gravy.--_Or_: if to be white, in rich veal broth, and add some cream. It must be cooked till quite tender to eat well. _Mushrooms and Morels._ Both are used in sauces and ragouts. For stewing, button mushrooms, or the smallest flaps, are best. Trim them carefully, for a little bit of mould will spoil the whole. Stew them, in their own gravy, in an earthen vessel, with a very little water to prevent their burning. When nearly done, add as much rich brown gravy as is required for {221}sauce, a little nutmeg, and, if you like, finely sliced ham, cayenne, pepper, and salt, if required; thicken, by mixing the yolk of an egg, by little and little, into the gravy. If to be white, squeeze lemon juice over the mushrooms, after they have stewed in their own gravy: add a tea-spoonful of cream, a piece of butter rolled in flour, cayenne, white pepper, salt, and nutmeg; thicken with the yolk of an egg. _Mushrooms to Broil._--The largest flaps are best, but should be fresh gathered. Skin them, and score the under side. Lay them, one by one, into an earthen vessel, brushing each one with oil, or oiled butter, and strewing a little pepper and salt over each. When they have steeped in this, an hour and a half, broil, on both sides, over a clear fire, and serve with a sauce of melted butter, minced parsley, green onions, and the juice of a lemon. _Salsify._ Boil the young shoots, about a year old, as asparagus. _Scorzonera and Skirrets._ The same as carrots; and are good in soup. _Artichokes._ Take off the outer leaves and cut off the stalks. Wash well in cold water, and let them lie in it some time. Put them head downwards, into the pot, take care to keep the water boiling, and add more as it diminishes, for they ought to boil two hours, or more. Float a plate or dish on the top to keep the artichokes under. Draw out a leaf, and if tender, they are done, but not else. Drain them dry, and serve melted butter, in a tureen. _To Fry._--Cut off an inch or more, of the leaves, and cut the artichoke down in slices of ¾ of an inch thick, taking out the choke. Parboil the slices in salt and water, then fry them in a pan nearly full of boiling lard, to be quite crisp, and of a fine colour. Drain them before the fire a few minutes. _Jerusalem Artichokes._ Boil, but do not let them remain in the water after they {222}are done, or they will spoil; pour melted butter over.--_Or_: they may be cooked in a rich brown gravy, or white sauce, and served with sippets of toasted bread. _Artichoke Bottoms._ If dried, soak them, then stew in gravy.--_Or_: boil in milk, and serve them in white sauce. _Endive to Stew._ Trim off all the green part, wash, cut in pieces, and parboil it till about half done; drain well, and chop it, not very fine; put it into a stew-pan with a little strong gravy, and stew gently till quite tender; season with pepper and salt, and serve as sauce to roast meat or fricandeaus. _Lettuce to Stew._ Wash, parboil, and stew, in rich brown or white gravy; if to be white, thicken with cream and yolk of egg. Lay them in a dish and pour gravy over. _Cabbage Lettuce with Forcemeat._ Parboil gently, for half an hour, then dip into cold water, and press them in your hand. Strip off the leaves, spread a forcemeat, rich or maigre as you please, on each leaf:--_Or_: put the forcemeat into the middle of each lettuce; tie them up, neatly, in their original shape, and stew them in gravy. When done, serve with the gravy poured over. _Vegetable Marrow._ This may be boiled and served on toast, like asparagus; serve melted butter.--_Or_: when nearly cooked enough by boiling, divide in quarters, and stew gently in gravy like cucumbers.--_Or_: serve it in white sauce. _Marrow to Stuff_ (_Italian_). Cut very young ones, about six inches long, in two, lengthways; take out the seeds and pulp with a small spoon, put a little salt on each one, and lay them between 2 {223}cloths, the hollow part down, to draw the water out. Soak some crumb of bread in warm broth or milk and water, beat it up like thick pap, add pepper, salt, the beaten yolks of 2 eggs, nutmeg and lemon peel; to this the Italians add grated parmesan; pour off the water, and fill the vegetable marrow with this stuffing; put the halves together, bind them slightly with thread, brush over beaten yolk of egg, cover with bread-crumbs, and lay them, singly, in a broad shallow stew-pan, well rubbed round the sides and the bottom with butter. Place the stew-pan over a slow fire, cover it, and when the butter is dried up, keep the marrow moistened with broth. When nearly cooked enough, put in some tomata sauce, and then put hot coals on the lid of the stew-pan to brown the vegetables. Minced fowl and grated ham may be added to the stuffing. _To Fry._--Cut the long shaped ones (quite young), in four, longways, and each piece into long thin slices, lay these between cloths, sprinkle salt over to draw out the water, and let them lie half an hour: during which, prepare a smooth batter of flour, water, and 2 eggs, dip the marrow into it, and fry in lard, of a light brown. Shake the pan gently, but do not touch the fry, lest the paste should break and the fat get in, and make it greasy. Spread a sheet of paper on a sieve, lay the fry on it, before the fire a few minutes to dry, then serve it. _Cardoons._ Choose the whitest, and cut them into pieces of 2 inches long; half boil them in salt and water, with a very little vinegar; pour off the water, take out the cardoons, and peel off the threads; finish by stewing them, in stock of fish or meat, and butter, if required, to enrich it. Mix some flour with a little oil, the whites of 2 eggs, and a little white wine. Cut the pieces of cardoon in 2, dip them in the above mixture, and fry them in lard, of a light brown. _Lentils_ Are chiefly used to make cullis for soups and made dishes, as follows: pick and wash ½ a pint or more, according to the quantity wanted. Stew them in broth; when done, pulp them through a sieve, and season as you like. {224}_Samphire to Boil._ Boil in a good deal of water, with salt in it, till quite tender. Serve melted butter. _Laver._ This is generally prepared at the sea coast, and requires only to be heated. This is done best over a lamp, or, at a distance over the fire. When hot stir in a piece of butter, and a very little lemon juice or vinegar. _Haricots Blanc._ These should be soaked, at least, all night. Then be poured from the water, and stewed in broth, or with butter, salt, pepper, chopped parsley and young onions. They must be cooked till tender, or they are not eatable. ---- SALADS. Lettuce, endive, and small salading, are the most commonly used, but there are many other greens which eat well, as salads. They should be fresh gathered, well washed, picked, and laid in water with a little salt in it. When you take them out, which should not be till just before they are wanted, shake them well, lay them in a cloth, shake that, to make them as dry as possible, but do not squeeze, for that will destroy their crispness. In countries where salad is in more general request than in England, the greatest pains are bestowed to have it in perfection. It is essential to a good salad, that the leaves of lettuces should be crisp; and the French people shake them in a basket, made for the purpose, which answers better than anything. The French are justly famed for their salads, but the main cause of their superiority in them, is attributable to the abundance and goodness of both the oil and the vinegar used in the mixture. _To dress Salad._ Do not cut it up till you are going to mix it. Strew a {225}little salt, and then pour over it, 3 table-spoonsful of oil to 1½ of vinegar, add a little pepper, and stir it up well with a spoon and fork. There ought not to be a drop of liquid at the bottom of the bowl. To this may be added hard-boiled yolk of egg, also beet root well boiled and sliced. Any kind of salad may be dressed in this way. Good oil is not dear, but exceedingly wholesome. The least degree of the flavour of garlic is liked by some in salad, and may be obtained by cutting open a clove and rubbing it a few times round the salad bowl. Some persons like a very little grated parmesan, in their salad. Where oil is not liked, use oiled butter, or cream. Rub very smooth on a soup plate the yolks of hard-boiled eggs, with thick cream; when this is done, add more cream, or oiled butter, vinegar, pepper, and salt to your taste, and mix the salad in it: or pour the mixture into the bowl, the salad on the top, and do not stir it up at all, but leave this to be done at table. The top of a dressed salad should be garnished with slices of beet root, contrasted with rings of the white of hard-boiled eggs; or a few young radishes and green onions, or cresses, tastefully arranged on the top. Plovers and sea birds' eggs may be laid on the top, arranging some herb to form each one's nest; or all in one nest, in the centre. A pretty salad is a great ornament to a table, and not an expensive one. The following list may be imperfect, but though there may be other herbs which would be useful in salads, all these are good. Lettuce. Radishes. Water Cresses. Young Onions. Corn Salad. Endive. Celery. Mustard and Cress. Chervil. Coriander. Tarragon. Nasturtiums. Sorrel. Young Spinach. French Fennel. Burnet. Basil. Chicory. The French make salads of cold boiled cauliflower, celery, French beans, and haricots. A mixture of either with {226}some green herbs, dressed with oil, is very good; by way of variety. _Lobster Salad._ Prepare a mixture of white lettuce, and green salading, mix it with cream or oil; take out the coral of the lobster, and dispose it amongst the vegetables so as best to contrast the colours.--_Or_: lobster may be cut up, dressed as eaten at table, then mixed with lettuce and small salading also cut up and dressed; the dressing of each must be according to taste. Some persons dress their lobster with lemon juice and cayenne. Put the mixture into a salad bowl, light sprigs of cresses on the top, and heaps of the coral amidst them. _Italian Salad._ About three hours before the salad is wanted, bone and chop 2 anchovies, and mix them in a salad bowl, with an eschalot, and some small salading, or lettuce, or any herbs, fresh gathered; boil 2 eggs hard, bruise the yolks, then mix them with 2 spoonsful of oil, 1 of vinegar, a little pepper, and a little made mustard. To this sauce, put very thin slices of cold roast meat of any kind, fowl, game, or lobster (and any cold gravy), and leave them to soak. Garnish it prettily. Cold fish may be dressed in this way; then hard-boiled eggs may be added; and, with either meat or fish, cold boiled vegetables. Nicely garnished, these salads are pretty for supper tables. Capsicums, barberries, and pickled fruit are of use in ornamenting them. _Cucumbers_ Should be fresh, mixed with onion, and never eaten without oil. {227}CHAPTER XIX. PASTRY. PRACTICE is more requisite than judgment to arrive at perfection in making pastry, particularly raised crusts, and very little can be given in the way of general instruction on the subject.--The flour should be of the best quality, dried before the fire, and then allowed to get cool before it is wetted.--Good salt butter, washed in several waters, to extract the salt, is cheaper in some seasons, and is as good as fresh butter. Fresh butter should be worked, on a board, with a wooden spoon, or the hand, to extract the butter-milk, before it is used for delicate pastry; after you have well worked, dab it with a soft cloth. Finely shred suet makes very good crust for fruit, as well as meat pies, and, if good, is more delicate and wholesome than lard; veal suet is the most delicate. Some cooks cut the suet in pieces, and melt it in water, then, when cold, press out the water, pound the suet in a mortar, with a very little oil, till it becomes the consistence of butter, and use it for pie crust; but I prefer fresh suet very finely _shred_, not chopped. For this purpose it must be quite sweet.--Lard varies much in quality; and if not good, the paste will not be light. Sweet marrow is very good. A marble slab is very useful for making pastry, particularly in hot weather. Pastry is never good made in a warm room, neither will it bear being exposed to a draught of air. The sooner it is baked, the lighter it will be. There is ample room for display of taste in ornamenting pastry, both for meat pies and sweets. Paste cutters are not expensive, and if kept in good order, will last a long time; but, if not delicately clean, the paste will be spoiled. For very _common meat pies_, a crust may be made of mashed potatoes, spread thickly over the top. For more delicate pies, rice may be boiled in milk and water till it {228}begins to swell, then drained, and mixed with 1 or 2 eggs well beaten, and spread in a thick layer over the meat. _A glazing_ for meat pies is made of white sugar and water; yolk of egg and water; yolk of egg and melted butter. _To ice paste_, beat the white of an egg, and brush it over the tart, when half baked; then sift finely powdered sugar over that.--_Another way_: pound and sift 4 oz. refined sugar, beat up the white of an egg, and by degrees add it to the sugar, till it looks white, and is thick; when the tarts are baked, spread the iceing over the top with a brush, and return them to the oven to harden, but take care that the iceing do not burn. Be careful to keep the pasteboard and rolling-pin quite clean; and recollect that the best made paste will be spoiled, if not nicely _baked_. _Plain Crust for Meat Pies._ To 2 lbs. of fine, well dried flour, put 1 lb. finely sliced fresh suet, and a little salt, mix it up lightly, with enough cold water to mould it, then roll out thin, fold it up, roll again, and it is ready. Put more suet to make it richer. _Another._--Common bread dough, or French roll dough, makes very good crust for plain pies. Roll it out, and stick bits of butter and lard into it, and roll up again. If the dough be good the crust will be light. _Richer Crust._ For 2 lbs. of flour, break in pieces 1½ lb. washed salt butter, rub it in the flour, wet it up with the yolks of 3 eggs well beaten, and mixed in from ½ to a whole pint of spring water. Roll the paste out thin, double it, and roll out again; repeat this three times, and it is ready. _An Elegant Crust._ Wash ¾ lb. of very good butter, and melt it carefully, so that it do not oil, let it cool, and stir into it an egg well beaten: mix this into ¾ lb. of very fine well dried flour. It should not be a stiff paste, and must be rolled out thin. {229}_A Flaky Crust._ Wet 1 lb. of well dried flour, with as much water as will make it into a stiff dough. Roll it out, and stick bits of butter over. ¾ lb. of butter should be divided in 3, and rolled in at three different times. _Puff Paste._ Weigh an equal quantity of fine flour, and fresh, or well washed salt butter: crumble one third part of the butter into the flour, mix well together, and wet it with cold water to make it into dough. Dust some dry flour over the pasteboard, and work the dough well, with your hands, into a stiff paste; then roll out thin, and stick little bits of butter into it, sprinkle flour lightly over, fold the paste, roll out again; stick in more butter, fold up again, and repeat the same till all the butter is used. Lay a wet cloth in folds over, till you use it. _Another._--Rub ½ lb. fresh butter into 1 lb. fine flour, with the yolks of 2 eggs beaten, and some finely sifted sugar: rub all together very smoothly, wet with cold water, and work it into a stiff paste. _Crisp Paste._ Rub ¼ lb. butter into 1 lb. flour, add 2 table-spoonsful of sifted loaf sugar, and the yolks of 3 eggs, work it well with a horn spoon, roll it out very thin, touching it as little as possible. _A Good Light Crust._ Rub a piece of butter the size of an egg, the same of lard, and soda to lie on a shilling, into 1 lb. flour; mix it into a stiff paste with 1 egg and a little water; roll it out 3 times, spread lightly, once with butter, and twice with lard. _Short Crust not Rich._ Rub into 1 lb. of flour, 6 oz. butter, 2 oz. sifted white sugar, and the yolks of 2 eggs mixed with a little cream or new milk. To make it richer, use more butter and perfume {230}the paste with orange or rose water, or flavour with lemon juice. The butter must all be crumbled into the flour before it is wetted; the less it is rolled the better. _A Nice Crust for Preserved Fruits, Cheesecakes, &c._ Beat ½ lb. good fresh butter, in a bason, with a spoon, till it becomes cream, add 2 oz. finely sifted sugar, and mix in 1 lb. fine flour, then wet it with the whites of 3 eggs well beaten, and roll out the paste. If not stiff enough, use more flour and sugar.--_Or_: rub together equal quantities of flour and butter, with a little sifted sugar; work it into a paste with warm milk, roll it out thin and line your patty pans. _Another._--Melt 4 oz. of butter in a saucepan, with a tea-spoonful of water, 2 oz. sifted sugar, and a bit of lemon peel; when the butter is melted, take out the lemon peel, and first dredge a little flour into the liquid, shake the saucepan, then put in as much more flour, with a spoon, as the butter will take, keep the saucepan over the fire, and stir briskly with a wooden spoon. Turn it out into another saucepan and let it cool; then put it over the fire, and break in, first 1 egg, stir it well, then 3 more eggs, and stir well again, till the paste is ropy. _Raised Crust for Meat Pies._ Put ¾ of a pint of water and ½ lb. lard into a saucepan, set it on the fire; have ready on the paste-board, 2½ lbs. of flour, make a hole in the middle, and when the water in the saucepan boils, pour it into it, gently mixing it by degrees with the flour, with a spoon; when well mixed, knead it into a stiff paste. Dredge flour on the board, to prevent the paste from sticking, continue to roll, and knead it, but do not use a rolling-pin. Let it stand to cool before you form the crust for the pie, as follows: cut out pieces for the bottom and top, roll them of the proper thickness, and roll out a piece for the sides; fix the sides round the bottom pieces, cement them together with white of egg, and pinch the bottom crust up round to keep it closed firmly; then put in the meat and lay on the top crust, pinching the edges together closely.--It must be thick in proportion to the size of the pie. {231}_Rice Paste._ Mix ½ lb. rice flour into a stiff paste with the yolk of an egg and milk, beat it out with a rolling-pin, and spread bits of butter over, roll it up, and spread more butter till you have used ½ lb. This will boil as well as bake. _Maccaroni Paste._ Work 1 lb. flour into a paste with 4 eggs; it will be very stiff; must be well kneaded, and then beaten for a long time with a rolling-pin, to make it smooth; then roll out very thin, and cut it in strips. This is rather toilsome than troublesome, because it is difficult to roll thin enough, on account of its stiffness; yet is well worth the trouble, to those who like maccaroni. It cooks in much less time than that which is bought, and is much more delicate. _Meat Pies._ Some cooks say that meat should be a _little_ stewed with seasoning, a piece of butter, and only a _very_ little water, before it is put into a pie.--Common meat pies should have a thin under crust; but the covering must be thick, or it will be scorched up, before the meat is cooked. Meat pies require a hot, but not a fierce oven. _Venison Pasty._ Make a stiff paste of 2 lbs. of flour and 1 lb. of butter, or fresh suet shred finely, wet it with 4 or 5 eggs well beaten and mixed in warm water. Roll it out several times, line the sides of the dish, but not the bottom.--Some cooks _marinade_ or _soak_ the venison for a night, in Port wine and seasonings.--Take out all the bones, season the meat with salt, pepper, pounded allspice and mace, and a little cayenne, then put it into a stone jar, and pour over some gravy of the trimmings, or of mutton or beef; place the jar in a saucepan of water, and simmer it over the fire, or on a hearth two or three hours, but the meat should not be over done. Put it by till the next day; remove the cake of fat from the top, lay the meat in alternate pieces of fat {232}and lean in a pie dish, add more seasoning if required, the gravy, and ¼ pint of Port or claret; also a little eschalot or any flavouring vinegar. If the venison want fat, slices of mutton fat may be substituted.--The breast is best for a pasty, but the neck is very good; also the shoulder if too lean to roast. If any gravy be left have it ready to pour hot into the pasty. _Beef Steak Pie._ Cut small steaks from the rump: season, and roll up as olives, or lay them flat, fat and lean mixed, seasoned with salt, pepper, and spices. Then put in ½ pint of gravy, or ½ pint of water, and a table-spoonful of vinegar. If you have no gravy, a piece of kidney will enrich the gravy of the beef, and is a valuable addition to a meat pie. Forcemeat in layers between the slices of beef, or in small balls, makes this much richer; if to be eaten cold, suet must not be used: some cooks put in a few large oysters also. Walnut or mushroom catsup. A good gravy may be poured into the pie, when baked. _Pork Pie._ This is generally made in a raised crust, but in a common pie dish, with a plain crust, it is very good. Season with pepper and salt. Cut all the meat from the bones, and do not put any water into the pie. Pork pie is best cold, and small ones are made by laying a paste in saucers or small plates, then the meat; cover with paste, turning the two edges up neatly.--The griskin is best for pies. _Sausage Rolls._ Use sausage meat; or, take equal portions of cold roast veal and ham, or cold fowl and tongue; chop these very small, season with a tea-spoonful of powdered sweet herbs and a tea-spoonful of mixed salt and cayenne: mix well together, put 3 table-spoonsful of the chopped and seasoned meat, well rolled together, into enough light paste to cover it, and bake half an hour in a brisk oven.--These may be tied in a cloth and boiled; the crust plainer. {233}_Mutton Pie._ Cut cutlets from the leg, or chops from the neck or loin, season with pepper and salt, and place them in a dish, fill this with gravy or water, and, if you choose, strew over a very little minced onion or eschalot and parsley, and cover with a plain crust.--_Squab Pie_, is made of mutton, and between each layer of meat, slices of apples, potatoes, and shred onions. _Lamb Pie._ The same as mutton pie; only being more delicate, it does not require so much seasoning, and is best, made to turn out of patty pans. _Veal Pie._ Cut chops from the neck or breast, or cutlets from any other part, season with salt, pepper, mace, nutmeg, lemon peel, or what herbs you like, lay them in the dish; very thin slices of bacon over them; pour in a little gravy, made from the bones or trimmings, or a little water. Forcemeat balls, hard-boiled yolks of eggs, scalded sweetbreads, veal kidneys, truffles, morels, mushrooms, oysters and thick cream, may be used to enrich this pie.--_Or_: slices of veal, spread with forcemeat, and rolled up as olives; make a hole in the top part of the crust, and when it comes out of the oven, pour in some good gravy.--To be very rich: put the olives in a dish, and between and round them, small forcemeat balls, hard-boiled yolks of eggs, pickled cucumbers cut in round pieces, and pickled mushrooms; pour in good gravy, a glass of white wine, the juice of a lemon, or lemon and oyster pickle. _Maccaroni Pie._ Swell ½ lb. in broth or water; put a thick layer at the bottom of a deep dish, buttered all round, then a layer of beef steak cut thin, or thin slices spread with forcemeat, and rolled up like olives; season the beef, then another layer of maccaroni, then more beef, the top layer maccaroni; pour over gravy or water to fill the dish, and cover with a _thin_ {234}crust, and bake it. As the maccaroni absorbs the gravy, there ought to be more to pour in, when it comes from the oven. A light sprinkling of cheese over each layer of maccaroni is an improvement. This pie may be made of fowl, or veal and ham. It is excellent. To be eaten hot.--The _white chedder_ is as good as parmesan cheese. _Calf's Head Pie._ Clean and soak, then parboil the head for half an hour, with part of a knuckle of veal, or 2 shanks of mutton, in a very little water, with 2 onions, a bunch of parsley, and winter savory, the rind of a lemon, a few peppercorns, and 2 blades of mace. Take it up, and let it cool, cut it into neat pieces, skin and cut the tongue into small bits. Boil in the liquor a few chips of isinglass, till of a strong jelly. Spread a layer of thin slices of ham, or tongue, at the bottom of a dish, a layer of the head, fat and lean assorted, with forcemeat balls, hard-boiled yolks of eggs, and pickled mushrooms: then strew over salt, pepper, nutmeg, and grated lemon peel; put another layer of slices of ham, and so on, till the dish is nearly full; pour in as much of the jelly as there is room for, cover with a crust, and bake it. Good cold only, and will keep several days. _Sweetbread Pie._ Boil ½ a neck of veal and 2 lbs. gravy beef in 4 quarts of water, with ½ a tea-spoonful of grated nutmeg, and equal quantities of mace and cayenne, and a tea-spoonful of salt; simmer this till it is reduced to ½ pint, and strain it off. Put a good puff paste round your dish; put in 6 sweetbreads, stuffed with green truffles, and 12 oysters with their liquor (omit either or both, as you choose); but take care that the fish and meat are distributed; then fill the dish with the gravy, put on the top crust, and bake, in a quick oven, an hour and a quarter. To be eaten hot. _Pigeon, Rook, or Moorfowl Pie._ Season them inside with salt and pepper, and put in each a bit of butter, rolled in flour. (Some parboil the livers, minced with parsley, and put them inside also.) Lay a beef {235}steak (some stew it first) at the bottom of the dish, or veal cutlets, seasoned, and thin slices of bacon; put in the pigeons, the gizzards, yolks of hard-boiled eggs (forcemeat balls, if you like), and enough water to make gravy. Cover with a puff paste, and bake it. Some cooks cut up the pigeons, and use no beef steak, as they say that the pigeons, if cut up, will produce a sufficiency of gravy. Port and white wine may be added; also catsups, sauces, and mushroom powder.--_Rooks_ must be skinned; the back-bone cut out.--_Moorfowl pie_ must not be over-baked: when done, you may pour in a hot sauce of melted butter, lemon juice, and a glass of claret. _Hare Pie._ Cut up a leveret, and season it well; to be very rich, have relishing forcemeat balls, and hard-boiled yolks of eggs, to mix with the meat in the dish. Put plenty of butter, rolled in flour, and some water, and cover with a paste. This pie will require long soaking, as the meat is solid; but, unless it be a leveret, much the best way is, to stew the hare first, like venison for pasty. _Chicken, or Rabbit Pie._ Cut up the chickens, season each joint with salt, white pepper, mace, and nutmeg, lay them in the dish, with slices of ham or bacon, a few bits of butter, rolled in flour, and a little water, cover with a crust, and bake it. This pie may be made richer, by putting veal cutlets or veal udder, at the bottom of the dish, adding forcemeat balls and yolks of hard-boiled eggs; also a good jelly gravy, seasoned with peppercorns, onions, and parsley, and poured over the chickens before the pie is baked. Mushrooms are an improvement. Forcemeat for _rabbit_ may be made of the livers, suet, anchovies, eschalot, onion, salt, and pepper. _Goose Pie._ Bone, then season well, a goose, and a large fowl; stuff the fowl with the following forcemeat: 2 oz. grated ham, the same of veal and suet, a little parsley, salt, pepper, {236}and 2 eggs to bind it. Place the fowl within the goose, and put that into a raised crust; fill up round with slices of tongue, or pigeons, game, and forcemeat; put pieces of butter, rolled in flour, over all, and cover with a crust. Bake it three hours. _Giblet Pie._ Stew the giblets in broth, with peppercorns, onions, and parsley. When quite tender, take them up, to get cold, then divide, and lay them, on a well-seasoned beef steak, in a pie dish, and the liquor in which they were stewed, and cover with a plain crust. When done, pour in a tea-cupful of cream. _Partridge, also Perigord Pie._ Made the same as pigeon pie.--Or: instead of the steak (some use veal), at the bottom of the dish, spread a thick layer of forcemeat, put in the partridges, bits of butter rolled in flour, and a few scalded button mushrooms, or a table-spoonful of catsup. Cover with a good crust, and bake (if 4 partridges), an hour.--_Perigord Pie_: Singe and truss 6 partridges, lard, season highly, and stuff them with a forcemeat made of 2 lbs. of truffles (brushed, washed, and peeled), the livers of the partridges, and a piece of veal udder parboiled; season with salt, pepper, spices, minced onion and parsley, all pounded; put a little into each partridge, and fill up with whole truffles; line a raised crust with thin slices of bacon and forcemeat, put in the partridges, cover the pie, and bake it. _Pheasant Pie._ Cut off the heads of two pheasants, bone and stuff them, with the livers, bread-crumbs, lemon peel, ham, veal, suet, anchovies, mace, pepper, salt, mushroom powder, and a little eschalot; stew them in good gravy a few minutes, then put them into a baking dish, with some balls of the forcemeat and pickled mushrooms; fill up with good gravy, flavoured with lemon, oyster, and mushroom pickle, a table-spoonful of brandy, and the same of camp sauce. {237}Cover with puff paste, and bake it. Good either hot or cold. _Sea Pie._ Cut up a fowl or two, and thin slices of salt beef, the latter soaked in lukewarm water. Make a good paste of half flour and half mashed potatoes, with butter, lard, or dripping; roll out thin, put a layer at the bottom of a deep tin baking dish, then a layer of fowl and beef, season with pepper, salt, and a little shred onion; then another layer of paste, and one of meat, till the dish is nearly full, fill up with cold water, and bake it; when done, turn it out and serve quite hot.--_Or_: slices of bacon, and no beef. _Parsley Pie._ This may be made of veal, fowl, or calf's feet, but the latter partly cooked first; scald a cullender full of fresh parsley in milk, drain it, season it with salt, pepper, and nutmeg, add a tea-spoonful of broth, and pour it into a pie dish, over the meat. When baked, pour in ¼ pint of scalded cream. _Herb Pie._ One handful of spinach, and of parsley, 2 small lettuces, a very little mustard and cress, and a few white beet leaves; wash, then parboil them, drain, press out the water, mix with a little salt, cut them small, and lay them in a dish: pour over a batter of flour, 2 eggs, a pint of cream, and ½ pint of milk: cover with a rich crust and bake it. _Fish Pie._ The fish should be boiled first; indeed, the remains of the previous day's dinner may answer the purpose. As any and every sort of fish is good in pies, one receipt will do for all, leaving it to the taste of the cook to enrich or flavour it.--If _Turbot_, cut the fish in slices, put a layer in the dish, strew over a mixture of pepper, salt, pounded mace, allspice, and little bits of butter, then a layer of fish, then of the seasoning and butter, till the dish is full. Having saved some of the liquor in which it was boiled, {238}put it on to boil again, with all the skin and trimmings of the fish, strain and pour this into the dish for gravy. Lay a puff paste over, and bake in a slow oven half an hour. _Cod Sounds_ must be washed well, then soak several hours, and lay them in a cloth to dry. Put into a stew-pan 2 oz. fresh butter, and half an onion sliced, brown these, and add a table-spoonful of flour rubbed into a small piece of butter, and ½ pint boiling water; let it boil up, put in about 8 cod sounds, season with pepper, the juice of a lemon, and essence of anchovies, stir it a few minutes over the fire, put it in a pie-dish, cover with a light paste, and bake it an hour.--_Another and richer_: Cut the fish into fillets; season them with pounded mace, pepper, cayenne, and salt; or, if whitings, eels, trout, or any fish that will admit of it, do not cut them up, but season the inside, and turn the fish round, fastening with a thread. Have some good fish stock, warm it, add seasoning, and any catsup you like. If you wish it to be _very_ rich, line the dish with fish forcemeat, lay some bits of butter at the bottom, put a thick layer of the fish, then strew over chopped shrimps, prawns, or oysters, then the rest of the fish, strain the stock over it, enough for gravy, cover with a light puff paste, and bake it. _Lobster Pie._ This is a rich compound, at its very plainest, and may be made very rich indeed. Parboil 1, 2, or 3, according to the size of your dish. Take out all the meat, cut it in pieces, and lay them in the dish, in alternate layers, with oysters cut in two, and bread-crumbs, moisten with essence of anchovies. Whilst you are doing this, let all the shells and the spawn of the lobster be stewed in half water and half vinegar: add mace and cayenne; when done, strain it; add wine and catsup, boil it up, and pour over the lobster. Lay a light puff paste over, and bake it. _Herring, Eel, or Mackerel Pie._ Skin eels, and cut them in pieces 2 inches long. Season highly, and put a little vinegar into the sauce. This, and all fish pies, may be baked _open_, with a paste edging. {239}_Shrimp and Prawn Pie._ Having picked, put them into little shallow dishes, strew bits of butter over, season as you like, but allspice and chili vinegar should form a part, white wine, also 2 anchovies, if you like. Cover with a puff paste. _Salt Fish Pie._ Soak the fish a night. Boil it till tender, take off the skin, and take out the bones. If the fish be good, it will be in layers, lay them on a fish drainer to cool. Boil 5 eggs hard, cut them with 2 onions, and 2 potatoes in slices; put a layer at the bottom of a pie dish, season with pepper and made mustard, then a layer of fish, season that, another layer of the mixture, and so on till the dish be full; lay some bits of butter on the top, pour in a tea-cupful of water, with a tea-spoonful of essence of anchovy, and of catsup and oyster pickle. Cover with a puff paste, and bake it an hour.--The _sauces_ appropriate to fish, are suitable to fish pies. _Fresh Cod Pie._--Salt a piece of the middle of a fish, one night; wash, dry, and season it with pepper, salt, and nutmeg; lay it in a deep pie dish, with some oysters, put bits of butter on it, pour in some good broth, and cover with a crust. When done, pour in a ¼ pint of hot cream, with a bit of butter rolled in flour, nutmeg, and grated lemon peel. _Patties._ These are convenient for a side dish at dinner, or a principal one at supper or luncheon. An expert cook may contrive to reserve meat or fish, when cooking a large dinner, to provide a dish of patties. The compound must be very nicely minced, suitably seasoned, and sent to table in baked paste; or fried in balls, for a garnish. _Crust for Savoury Patties._ If you can, get from the pastry-cook empty puff patties, it will save you trouble; if not, make a thin puff paste, and line the patty pans; cut out the tops, on white paper, with a thin stamp, and mark them neatly; put a piece of soft {240}paper crumpled, in the middle of the lined patty pan, to support the top; put it on and bake them. Prepare the mince, and when the patties are baked enough, lift off the top, put the mince in (not so much as to run over the edges), and lay the top on. _Chicken, or Turkey and Ham, or Veal Patties._ Mince very finely, the breast, or other white parts of cold chicken, fowl, turkey, or roast veal, and about half the quantity of lean ham, or tongue. Have a little delicate gravy, or jelly of roast veal or lamb, thicken it with butter, rolled in flour, add pepper, salt, cayenne, and lemon juice; put the mince in, and stir it over the fire till quite hot, and fill the baked patties with this quite hot. A few oysters may be minced with the meat. _Rabbit and Hare Patties._ Mince the best parts with a little mutton suet. Thicken a little good gravy, and season with salt, pepper, cayenne, nutmeg, mace, lemon peel, and Port wine, also the stuffing that may be left of the hare or rabbit; heat the mince in it, and fill patties, as above. _Beef Patties._ Mince a piece of tender, underdone meat, with a little of the firm fat; season with salt, pepper, onion, a chopped anchovy, and a very little chili or eschalot vinegar; warm it in gravy, and finish, like other patties. _Oyster Patties._ Beard and wash in their own liquor, some fresh oysters; strain the liquor, and if of 12, put to it 1 oz. butter rolled in flour, with the oysters cut small, a little salt, white pepper, mace, nutmeg, and lemon peel, add to the whole 1 table-spoonful of thick cream; warm, and put it hot into the baked patties.--_Or_: 2 parts of oysters, prepared as above, and one part of fresh mushrooms, cut in dice, fried in butter, and stewed in enough gravy to moisten them; stir the oysters to the mushrooms, and fill the patties. {241}_Lobster and Shrimp Patties._ Chop finely the meat of the tail and claws of a hen lobster; pound some of the spawn, with ½ oz. of butter, and a little meat gravy or jelly, or a table-spoonful of cream; season with cayenne, salt, lemon peel, and essence of anchovy. _Gooseberry, or Green Currant Pie._ Top and tail fruit enough to fill your dish; lay a strip of paste round the edge, put in half the fruit, then half the sugar, the rest of the fruit, more sugar, and cover with a good puff paste. Mark the edges neatly, and ornament the top. When it comes out of the oven, sift powdered sugar over.--First put a little cup in the centre of the dish, to preserve the juice. _Rhubarb Pie._ When old and stringy, peel the skin off, cut the stalks slantways, and make it into a pie, the same as gooseberry: if young, do not peel it.--Some like lemon peel in it. _Red currants, raspberries, ripe gooseberries, cherries, plums, all sorts of damsons, apricots, and peaches_, make excellent pies; allow plenty of sugar, put in a little cup, and fill the dish high in the middle with fruit. Divide the apricots and peaches. _Green Apricot Tart._ The fruit should be stewed till tender in a very little water and some sugar; baked in a pie dish with a covering of puff paste, and is an excellent tart. _Apple Pie._ Russetings, ribstone pippins, and such apples as are a little acid, are best. Pare, core, and slice them; sprinkle sugar between, as you put them in the dish, also a little pounded cinnamon and cloves. Slices of quince are an improvement, or quince marmalade, or candied citron or orange peel. Put a strip of paste round the edge of the dish, and {242}cover with a light paste. If they are dry, put in a little lemon juice, and a wine-glassful of white wine. _Green Codling Tart._ Make the pie as directed in the last receipt, and when it comes out of the oven, with a sharp knife cut round the crust, an inch from the edge, take it off, and pour over the apples, a plain or rich custard; have ready baked on a tin, some paste leaves, and stick round the tart; or else cut the top, you have taken off, into lozenges, or the best shape you can, and stick them round. In the country, fresh cream ought to accompany fruit pies. Clouted cream is excellent with fruit pies.--_Apples_, _gooseberries_, and _rhubarb_ stewed, with sugar enough to sweeten, are better for children, than cooked in paste.--_Or_: fruit thus prepared, may be spread on very thin paste, covered up in turn-overs, and baked on tins. _Cranberry Tart._ The cranberries should be stewed first, with brown sugar, and a very little water, then baked in open tarts, or in patty-pans lined, and covered with light puff paste. _Tarts of Preserved Fruits._ Cover patty-pans, or shallow tins or dishes with light puff paste, lay the preserve in them, cover with light bars of paste, or with paste stars, leaves, or flowers. For delicate preserves, the best way is to bake the paste, first, then put in the preserves, and ornament with leaves baked for the purpose, on tins. _Small Puffs._ Roll out light paste nearly ½ an inch thick, cut it in pieces of 5 inches wide, lay preserves on each, fold it over, wet the edges, and pinch them together, lay these on buttered paper, and bake them.--_Or_: cut the paste into squares, lozenges, and leaves, bake them on tins, and then lay different preserves on each one, and arrange them tastefully in a dish. {243}_Spanish Puffs._ Boil ½ the rind of a lemon, a small stick of cinnamon, and a bit of butter the size of a nut, in ¼ pint of milk, strain it, and set it on the fire in a stew-pan; when it boils, stir in 2 spoonsful of flour, and a large table-spoonful of brandy, take it off, and rub it well together; when quite cold, add 4 eggs, one at a time, rubbing well all the while; divide the mixture into tea-spoonsfuls, or on a plate, let it stand to grow firm, then fry in plenty of boiling lard. _Apple Puffs._ Stew the apples, pulp them through a sieve, and sweeten with white powdered sugar; make them as directed for _small puffs_, and bake in a quick oven. _Orange and Lemon Puffs._ Grate the peel of 2 Seville oranges, or 3 lemons, and mix with it ¾ lb. grated lump sugar. Beat up the whites of 4 eggs to a solid froth, put that to the sugar, beat the whole, without stopping, for half an hour, pour it in little round cakes, on buttered paper laid on tins, and bake them in a moderate oven. When cold, tear off the paper. _Minced Pie Meat._ Par-roast, or slightly bake, about 2 lbs. of lean beef (some prefer neat's tongue); when cold, chop it finely; chop 2 lbs. beef suet, also 2 lbs. apples, peeled and cored, 1 lb. stoned raisins, and the same of currants; mix these together in a pan, with 1 lb. of good moist sugar, 2 nutmegs, grated, 1 oz. salt, 1 oz. ginger, ½ oz. coriander seeds, ½ oz. allspice, ½ oz. cloves, the juice of 6 lemons and their rinds, grated, ½ lb. candied citron, the same of candied lemon, ½ pint of brandy, and the same of sweet, ginger, or Madeira wine. Mix well, and it will keep some time, in a cool place. To use it, stir it, and add a little more brandy. Cover patty pans or shallow dishes with a puff paste, fill with the mince, and put a puff paste over: bake in a moderate oven.--_Or_: 1 lb. beef, 3 lbs. suet, 3 lbs. raisins, 4 lbs. currants, 3½ lbs. sugar, 3 lbs. apples, the rind of 3 lemons, and the {244}juice of 2½ lbs. candied lemon; nutmeg, ginger, and pepper to taste. These receipts are both good. _A Bride's Pie._ Boil 2 calf's feet quite tender, and chop the meat. Chop separately 1 lb. suet and 1 lb. apples, quite fine; mix these with the meat, add ½ lb. currants, ½ lb. raisins (chopped fine), ¼ oz. cinnamon, 2 drachms nutmeg, and mace (all pounded), 1 oz. candied citron and lemon peel, sliced thin, a wine-glass of brandy, and of Madeira. Line a tin pan with puff paste, put in the mince, cover with a paste, and ornament it. _Maigre Mince Meat._ To 6 lbs. currants add 3 lbs. raisins, 2 oz. cloves, 1½ oz. mace and 1 nutmeg, 3 lbs. fine powdered sugar, the rinds of 2 lemons, and 24 sharp apples, all these ingredients chopped or pounded separately, and then mixed together; add a pint of brandy. Let it stand a day or two, and stir it from the bottom once or twice a day. It will keep in a dry place, for months. Add butter or suet, when you make it into pies, also citron, if you like. _Note._--Mince meat is improved by the currants being plumped in brandy. Raisins should be chopped _very_ fine. {245}CHAPTER XX. PUDDINGS. PRACTICE, which, generally speaking, is every thing in cooking, will not ensure success in making puddings, unless the ingredients be good. For pudding crust, nothing is so good as veal suet finely shred, though beef suet and beef marrow make light crust. Fresh dripping is also very good. Lard is not so good, for either meat or fruit puddings. Meat puddings (or dumplings, as they are called, in some of the counties in England) are generally liked, and are, either in crust or in batter, an economical dish, when made of the trimmings of beef or mutton, or the coarser parts of meat, which, though very good, would not so well admit of any other species of cooking. The meat should be quite fresh, and a due mixture of fat and lean. A piece of kidney, cut in bits, will enrich the gravy of beef steak or hare pudding. The crust for these puddings should be less rich, and thicker than for fruit puddings. Puddings will not be light unless the flour be fresh, and dried before the fire. The number of eggs must be regulated by their size, for a small egg is but half a large one. Break them separately into a tea-cup, and put them into the basin one by one; by this means you ascertain their freshness before you mix them together, for if one be the least stale, it will spoil any number with which it may be mixed. Beat them well, the two parts separately, and strain them to the other ingredients. Butter, whether salt or fresh, should be perfectly sweet; and milk or cream, if only a little upon the turn, will render of no avail all the labour that has been bestowed upon either pudding or custard. Let all seasoning spices be finely pounded; currants {246}washed, rubbed dry, carefully picked, and laid on a sieve before the fire to plump; almonds must be _blanched_, namely, covered with hot water, and then peeled. Puddings of both meat and fruit may be boiled in a mould or bason, but they are lighter in a cloth; but then the crust must be thicker, for if it break, the gravy or juice will be lost. Spread the cloth in a cullender, or bason, flour it, lay in the crust, then the fruit or meat, put on the top, and pinch the edges firmly together, but do not let them be so thick as to form a heavy lump at the bottom, when the pudding is turned out. Pudding cloths should not be washed with soap, but boiled in wood ashes, rinsed in clear water, dried, and put by in a drawer. When about to use it, dip the cloth in boiling water, squeeze dry, and dredge it with flour. Do not put a pudding in the pot till the water boils fast, and let there be plenty of it; move the pudding from time to time for the first ten minutes; and, as the water diminishes, put in more, boiling hot. The water should boil _slowly_, and never for a minute cease to boil during the time the pudding is in. When you take it out of the pot, dip the pudding into cold water for an instant, and set it in a bowl or cullender, for two or three minutes; this will cause it to turn more easily out of the cloth. A pudding in which there is much bread should be tied up loosely, to allow it to swell. A batter pudding tied tight. Batter requires long beating; mix the milk and eggs by degrees into the flour, to avoid making it lumpy; this will be the case sometimes, and then the batter may be strained; but such waste may be avoided, by care in mixing at first. Tie meat puddings up tight. More care is necessary in baking than in boiling puddings. They should not be scorched in a too hot, nor made sodden, in a too cool oven. It is an improvement to puddings, custards, and cakes, to flavour them with orange flower, or rose water, or any of the perfumed distilled waters. _Paste for Meat Puddings._ Shred ½ lb. suet and rub it into 1¼ lb. flour, sprinkle a little salt, and wet it into a stiff paste with cold water; {247}then beat it a few minutes with a rolling pin. Clarified dripping is not so good, but more economical. _Beef Steak Pudding._ The more tender the steak, the better, of course, the pudding. Cut it into pieces half the size of your hand, season with salt, pepper, and grated nutmeg. Spread a thin crust in a buttered bason, or mould; or a thicker one in a cloth: put the meat in, and a little water, also a wine-glassful of walnut, the same of oyster catsup, or 6 oysters, and a table-spoonful of lemon pickle; cover it with the top crust, fasten the edges firmly, and tie it up tightly. Finely minced onion may be added. A piece of kidney will enrich the gravy. A beef pudding of 2 lbs. of meat ought to boil _gently_ four hours. _Hare, rabbit, and chicken_, make good puddings, the same as beef; slices of ham or bacon are an improvement to the two latter. Boil _hare pudding_ as long as beef. _Dumplings._--Chop beef small, season well, and put it into dumplings, the same as apple dumplings, and boil one hour.--_Sausage_ meat, or whole sausages, skinned, may be boiled in paste, and are very good. _Suet Pudding and Dumplings._ Chop 6 oz. suet very fine, put it into a basin with 6 oz. flour, 2 oz. bread-crumbs, and a tea-spoonful of salt, stir well together, and pour in, by degrees, enough milk, or milk and water, to make it into a light pudding; put it into a floured cloth, and boil two hours. For dumplings, mix the above stiffer, make it into 6 dumplings, and tie them separately in a cloth; boil them one hour. 1 or 2 eggs are an improvement. 6 oz. of currants to the above quantity, make _currant dumplings_. _Meat in Batter._ Cut the meat into chops or steaks, put them in a deep dish, season with pepper and salt, and fill up the dish with a batter, made of three eggs, and 4 large table-spoonsful of flour, to a pint of milk; then bake it.--_Or_: bake the meat {248}whole, and if a large piece, let it be in the oven half an hour before you pour in the batter, or else they will be cooked unequally. _Kidney Pudding._ Split and soak 1 or 2 ox kidneys, and season well; line a bason or cloth with a crust, put them in, and boil it two hours and a half; rather less, if in a cloth. _Fish Pudding._ Pound some slices of whiting in a mortar, with ¼ lb. butter; soak slices of 2 French rolls in cold milk, beat them up with pepper and salt, and mix with the fish. Boil this, in a buttered bason, about an hour and a half. Serve melted butter.--_Mackerel_ is made into puddings; for this follow the directions for beef steak pudding. _Black Pudding._ They are made of hog's blood. Salt, strain, and boil it _very slowly_, or it will curdle, with a little milk or broth, pepper, salt, and minced onion; stir in, by degrees, some dried oatmeal and sliced suet; add what savoury herbs you like, fill the skins, and boil them. Some put in whole rice or grits (parboiled), in place of oatmeal. _Hog's Puddings, White._ Mix ½ lb. almonds blanched and cut in pieces, with 1 lb. grated bread, 2 lbs. beef or mutton suet, 1 lb. currants, some cinnamon and mace, a pint of cream, the yolks of 5 and whites of 2 eggs, some Lisbon sugar, lemon peel, and citron sliced, and a little orange-flower water. Fill the skins rather more than half, and boil in milk and water. _Apple Pudding to Boil._ Make a paste in the proportion of 4 oz. suet, or 2 oz. butter, lard, or dripping, to 8 oz. flour, and a little salt. Some use an egg or two, others cold water only, but it should be a _stiff_ paste. Line a mould, bason, or cloth, with this paste, rolled smooth, put in the apples, pared, {249}cored, and sliced; sweeten with brown sugar, and flavour with cloves, cinnamon, or lemon peel, as you like. Some persons put in 3 or 4 cloves, or a small piece of cinnamon, also lemon peel. _Green Apricot Pudding._ The same as the last, and is delicious. Let the crust be delicate, and use white powdered sugar. _Roll Pudding._ Roll out a paste as directed for apple pudding, spread jam or any other preserve you like on it, roll it over, tie it in a cloth, and boil it.--A very nice mixture to spread over paste in place of preserves, is composed of apples, currants, and a very little of mace, cinnamon, and sugar. _Another Jam Pudding_: line a bason with a thin paste, spread a layer of preserve at the bottom, then a thin paste to cover it, then a layer of preserve, and so on, till the bason is filled, cover with paste, pinch it round the edges, and boil it. _Apple Dumplings._ Peel large apples, divide them, take out the cores, then close them again, first putting 1 clove in each. Roll out thin paste, cut it into as many pieces as you have apples, and fold each one neatly up; close the paste safely. Tie up each dumpling separately, very tight, and boil them an hour. When you take them up, dip each one into cold water, stand it in a bason two or three minutes, and it will turn more easily out of the cloth. _Green currants_, _ripe currants_, _and raspberries_, _gooseberries_, _cherries_, _damsons_, and all the various sorts of _plums_, are made into puddings, the same as _apple pudding_. _Plum Pudding._ For this national compound there are many receipts, and rich plum puddings are all very much alike, but the following receipts are very good:--To 6 oz. finely shred beef {250}suet, add 2 oz. flour, 4 oz. stoned raisins, 4 oz. well picked and plumped currants, pounded allspice, cinnamon, nutmeg, and sugar to taste, and a tea-spoonsful of salt; mix these ingredients well, and wet them with 3 eggs well beaten, and as much milk as is required to mix it into a rather stiff pudding. You may add a wine-glassful of brandy, or 2 of sweet white wine; indeed, brandy is rarely omitted; some prefer the flavour of orange flower or rose-water. This pudding may be made richer by the addition of 1 oz. candied lemon peel, and ½ oz. citron. It should boil at least four hours.--_Or_: ½ lb. of slices of stale bread, pour ½ pint of boiling milk over, and cover close for fifteen or twenty minutes; beat this up with ½ lb. suet, ½ lb. raisins, and the same of currants, all chopped fine; add 2 table-spoonsful of flour, 3 eggs, a little salt, and as much milk as is required. This may be either boiled or baked.--_Or_: to ¾ lb. currants, ¾ lb. raisins, and ½ lb. suet, add ½ lb. bread-crumbs, 6 eggs, a wine-glassful of brandy, ½ a tea-cupful of fine sugar, ½ a nutmeg grated, and as much candied orange or lemon peel as you like: mix well, and boil three hours. No other liquid is required. _A Christmas Pudding._ To 1 lb. suet add 1 lb. flour, 1 lb. raisins, 1 lb. currants (chopped fine), 4 oz. bread-crumbs, 2 table-spoonsful sugar, 1 of grated lemon peel, a blade of mace, ½ a nutmeg, a tea-spoonful of ginger, and 6 eggs well beaten. Mix well and boil five hours. _Marrow Pudding._ Pour a quart of boiling milk over a large breakfast-cupful of stale crumbs, and cover a plate over. Shred ½ lb. fresh marrow, mix with it 2 oz. raisins, 2 oz. currants, and beat them up with the soaked bread; sweeten to your taste, add a tea-spoonful of cinnamon powder, and a very little nutmeg. Lay a puff paste round the edge of a shallow pudding dish, and pour the pudding in. Bake from twenty-five minutes to half an hour. You may add lemon peel, a wine-glassful of brandy, some almonds blanched and slit; also candied citron and lemon peel. {251}_Sauce for Plum Pudding._ Melt good fresh butter, thicken it, and stir in by degrees, a wine-glassful of white wine, the same of brandy or old rum; sweeten to your taste, and add grated lemon peel and cinnamon. _A Store Pudding Sauce._--To ½ pint brandy, and 1 pint sherry, add 1 oz. thinly pared lemon peel, and ½ oz. mace; infuse these two or three weeks, then strain and bottle it. Add as much as you like to thick melted butter, and sweeten to taste. _French Plum Pudding._ Mix 6 oz. suet, 7 oz. grated bread, 2 oz. sugar, 3 eggs, a coffee-cupful of milk, a table-spoonful ratafia, or 2 of rum, and ½ lb. French plums; let it stand two hours, stir well again, and boil it in a mould, two hours. _Plum Pudding of Indian Corn Flour._ To 1 lb. corn flour add ½ lb. shred suet, and what currants, raisins, and spices you choose; mix the whole well together, with a pint of water, and boil the pudding in a cloth three hours. _Maigre Plum Pudding._ Simmer in ½ pint milk, 2 blades mace, and a bit of lemon peel, for ten minutes; strain into a basin, to cool. Beat 3 eggs, with 3 oz. lump sugar, ¼ of a nutmeg grated, and 3 oz. flour; beat well together, and add the milk by degrees; then put in 3 oz. fresh butter, 2 or 3 oz. bread-crumbs, 2 oz. currants, and 2 oz. raisins; stir all well together. Boil it in a mould two hours and a half. Serve melted butter sweetened, and flavoured with brandy. _Bread Pudding._ Pour a pint of boiling new milk over a breakfast-cupful of stale bread-crumbs, cover till cold, then beat them with a spoon; add 2 oz. currants, or a few cut raisins, a little sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and 3 or 4 eggs, well beaten; beat well together, and either boil in a buttered mould, or {252}bake in a dish. It may be enriched by candied citron, or lemon peel, and flavoured with orange flower or rose water. This may be baked in little cups, turned out into a dish, and served with sweet sauce. _Brown Bread Pudding._--Grate ½ lb. stale brown bread, and mix it with ½ lb. shred suet, and ½ lb. currants; sugar and nutmeg to taste, 4 eggs, 1 table-spoonful of brandy, and 2 of cream. Boil it three hours, and serve with sweet sauce. _Sweet Sauce._ Flavour thick melted butter with cinnamon and grated lemon peel, sweeten to taste, add 1 or 2 wine-glassfuls of white wine.--_Or_: sweeten some thin cream, put in a little piece of butter, heat it, then flavour with cinnamon or lemon peel, and white wine; pour it hot over the pudding, or serve in a tureen.--_Or_: break a stick of cinnamon into bits, boil it ten minutes, in water enough to cover it, add ¼ pint of white wine, 2 table-spoonsful of powdered sugar, and boil it up, strain, and pour over the pudding. _Bread and Butter Pudding._ Lay thin slices of stale bread and butter in a pudding dish, sprinkle currants over, then another layer of bread and butter, and so on till the dish is full to about an inch; pour over an unboiled custard (3 eggs to a pint of milk), sweeten to taste, soak it an hour, and bake half an hour. _Custard Pudding._ Boil a stick of cinnamon and a roll of lemon peel, in a pint of new milk, or cream, and set it by to cool. Beat 5 eggs, pour the milk to them, sweeten to taste, and bake in a dish lined with puff paste twenty minutes. You may add a wine-glassful of brandy. _To Boil._--Prepare a mould as follows; put into it enough powdered sugar, to cover it, set it on the stove for the sugar to melt, and take care that the syrup cover the whole inside of the mould; grate lemon peel over the sugar, and pour the above mixture of milk or cream and eggs into it; tie a cloth over, and put instantly into boiling water, and boil it half an hour. Turn it out, and garnish with preserves. These puddings are good, hot or cold. {253}_Little Puddings._ Grate a penny loaf, and mix well with a handful of currants, a very little fresh butter, nutmeg, and the yolk of an egg; make it into little balls, flour them, tie separately in a cloth, and boil them half an hour. Serve quite hot, with wine sauce. _An Excellent Pudding._ Boil a bit of cinnamon in a pint of milk, pour it over thin slices of French roll, or an equal quantity of rusks, cover with a plate to cool; beat it quite smooth with 6 oz. shred suet, ¼ lb. currants, 3 eggs beaten, and a little brandy, old rum, or orange-flower water. Bake an hour. _Oatmeal Pudding._ Steep the oatmeal all night in milk. Pour off the milk, and stir into the meal some cream, currants, spice, sugar, or salt, to your taste, and 3 or 4 eggs; or, if no cream, use more eggs. Stir well, and boil it in a basin an hour. Pour melted butter, sweetened, over it. _Batter Pudding._ Beat 4 eggs and mix them smoothly, with 4 table-spoonsful of flour, then stir in by degrees, 1 pint of new milk, beat it well, add a tea-spoonful of salt, and boil in a mould an hour, or bake it half an hour.--_Black Cap Pudding_ is made in the same way, with the addition of 3 oz. currants; these will fall to the bottom of the basin, and form a black cap when the pudding is turned out.--_Batter Pudding with Fruit_ is made as follows: pare, core, and divide, 8 large apples, put them in a deep pudding dish, pour a batter over, and bake it.--Cherries, plums, damsons, and most sorts of fruit, make nice puddings in this way.--Serve sweet sauce with batter puddings.--_Or_: raspberry vinegar, such as is made at home, clear, and possessing the flavour of the fruit. _Yorkshire Pudding._ This is batter, the same as the last receipt, baked, and {254}eaten with roast meat; but in some houses it is not baked, but cooked under the meat thus: pour it into a shallow tin pan, put it under roasting meat, and stir till it begins to settle. After one or two trials a cook will know when to put the pudding under the meat, for that must depend upon the size of the joint, as it ought to go to table as soon as it is done, or it will be heavy. They are much lighter not turned. The fat will require to be poured off, once or twice. _Potato Puddings._ Boil in a quart of milk, a bit of lemon peel, and some nutmeg. Rub smooth, in a little cold milk, 4 table-spoonsful of potato flour, and stir it, by degrees, into the hot milk; when cool, add sugar, and 3 or 4 eggs, or more as you like, put it into a dish, and bake an hour. Add brandy or orange-flower water. _Carrot Pudding._ Mix ½ lb. grated raw carrot with ½ lb. grated bread, and stir these into a pint of thick cream and the yolks of 8 eggs well beaten, then stir in ½ lb. fresh butter, melted, 3 spoonsful of orange-flower water, ½ a wine-glassful of brandy, a nutmeg grated, and sugar to your taste; stir all well together, and if too thick, add a very little new milk, pour it into a dish lined with paste and bake it an hour. _Hasty Pudding._ Beat the yolk of an egg into ½ pint new milk with a little salt, stir this by degrees into 3 table-spoonsful of flour, and beat it to a smooth batter. Set 1½ pint of milk on the fire; when scalding hot pour in the batter, keep stirring that it may be smooth and not burn: let it thicken, but not boil. Serve it directly. _Buttermilk Pudding._ Use fresh buttermilk, and make the same as batter pudding, but without eggs. This is very good, with roast meat.--_Or_: warm 3 quarts of milk with a quart of {255}buttermilk, then pour it through a sieve; when the curd is dry, pound it with ½ lb. sugar, the peel of a lemon boiled till tender, the crumb of a roll, 6 bitter almonds, 4 oz. butter, the yolks of 5 and whites of 3 eggs, a tea-cupful of good cream, a wine-glassful of sweet wine and of brandy; mix well, and bake in small cups, well buttered. Serve quite hot, with sweet sauce. _Save-all Pudding._ Put scraps of bread, or dry pieces of home-made cake, into a saucepan, with milk according to the quantity of bread; when it boils, beat the bread smooth, add 3 eggs, sugar, nutmeg, ginger, and lemon peel; put it into a buttered dish, and strew over the top 2 oz. shred suet, or butter. Bake or boil it three quarters of an hour. _Currants_ or _raisins_ are an improvement. _Camp Puddings._ Melt ¼ lb. butter in ½ pint of water, with a little salt, sugar to your taste, and grated lemon peel. When melted, stir in ¼ lb. flour, and when nearly cold, add 3 eggs well beaten. Bake in cups twenty minutes, or fry them in plenty of lard. _Pretty Puddings._ A pint of cream, or new milk, 4 eggs (leave out 2 whites), ½ a nutmeg grated, the pulp of 2 large apples (boiled), ¼ lb. butter melted, and a tea-cupful of grated bread. Beat it well together, sweeten to your taste, and bake it. _Nursery Pudding._ Cut the crumb of a twopenny loaf in slices, pour on it a quart of boiling milk, cover close for ten minutes; beat it and stir in ¼ lb. fresh butter, 4 eggs, a little nutmeg, and sugar. Bake in patty-pans, or in a dish, half an hour. _Arrow Root Pudding._ Rub 2 dessert-spoonsful of arrow root quite smooth in a little cold milk, pour upon it by degrees, stirring all the {256}time, a pint of scalded new milk; put it on the fire a few minutes to thicken, but not boil; stir carefully, or it will be lumpy. When cold add sugar, and 3 yolks of eggs. Boil, or bake it half an hour. _Ground Rice Pudding._ Mix 2 oz. ground rice with ½ pint of cold milk; scald 1½ pint of new milk, and pour the rice and milk into it, stirring over the fire till it thickens: let it cool, then add 5 eggs well beaten, 6 oz. of powdered sugar, nutmeg, and a spoonful of orange-flower water, stir all well together, and bake in a dish, with a paste border, half an hour. Currants may be added. It may be boiled in a mould, an hour. Indian corn flour makes good puddings the same way; and there are preparations of Indian corn, such as _soujie_, _semolina_, and _golden polenta_, which may be dressed in the same way. _Semolina Pudding._ Mix 2 oz. of semolina quite smooth, with a little cold milk, then pour over it a pint of boiled milk, and sweeten to your taste, then put it into a saucepan, and keep stirring till it boils, take it off the fire, and stir till only lukewarm; add a slice of butter, the yolks of 4 eggs, the juice of a lemon, and a wine-glassful of brandy. Bake in a dish lined with paste, half an hour. _Indian Corn Mush._ The same thing as oatmeal porridge, but made of Indian corn meal. Boil 2 quarts of water with a little salt, and mix it, by degrees, into 1 lb. corn meal; boil very gently three quarters of an hour, stirring all the time, that the meal may not adhere to the bottom of the saucepan, and burn. _Hommony._ Boil one third of a pound of Indian meal in water to cover it, for twenty minutes, or until nearly all the water is wasted; it must be like thick paste. Put a piece of butter the size of a walnut into a vegetable dish, pour in the hommony, {257}and serve it, like mashed turnips. Dip your spoon in the middle when you help it. In some parts of America, what they call _hommony_ is made of the _cracked_ corn: and if so, it must be something of the same kind as our peas-pudding, but not boiled in a cloth. _Polenta._ The best thing to prepare this in, is a three legged iron pot, hung over the fire. Let the fire be hot, and also blazing, if possible. To a quart of water, when it boils, put in a little salt, then add 12 oz. of meal, but be careful to do it in the following manner: while the water is boiling stir in half the meal first, but be sure to stir quickly all the time, or it may be lumpy, then you may put in the remainder at once, but keep stirring constantly. When it has been on the fire a quarter of an hour, cease to stir, take the pot off the fire and set it on the floor for two minutes, then put it on the fire again, and you will see the polenta first rise in a great puff, then break and fall; as soon as you perceive this, take it off the fire, and turn it out into a dish; it ought to come out quite clean, not leaving a particle adhering to the pot, else there has been some fault in the boiling. It is stirred with a long stick, thicker at one end than the other. Of this the Italians make an endless variety of dishes, some of which are the following: the most simple mode of dressing the polenta is thus: pour it from the boiling into a bowl, when cold turn it out; take a coarse thread in your two hands, put it on the side of the polenta away from you, draw the thread towards you, and you will find that it cuts a clean slice of polenta off, continue till you have cut it all into slices, and then you may dress them in different ways: the commonest is to cut the slices _thick_ and brown them on a gridiron. _Whole Rice Pudding._ Rice should be soaked an hour in cold water. Wash well, and pick, a tea-cupful of good rice, boil it slowly ten minutes, in a little water, pour that off, and pour over the rice 1½ pint of new milk; let the milk boil up, pour it into a deep dish, stir in a bit of butter, sugar to your taste, a little pounded cinnamon, and grated lemon peel; {258}bake it, and it will be a good plain pudding. This is made richer by adding to the rice and milk, when poured into the dish, some sliced suet, and raisins, or candied peel, also 3 or 4 eggs.--_Or_: apples pared, cored, and sliced, spread at the bottom of the dish, the rice and milk poured over them.--_Little rice puddings_ are made by boiling the rice (after it has been parboiled in water) in a pint of cream, with a bit of butter; let it get quite cold, then mix with it the yolks of 6 eggs, sugar, lemon peel, and cinnamon; butter some little cups, lay slices of candied citron, or lemon, at the bottom, fill up with rice, bake, turn them out in a dish, and pour sweet sauce round. Ratafia is an improvement. _Rice Pudding to Boil._ Wash and pick ¼ lb. of rice, tie it in a cloth, leaving room to swell, boil it two hours. Turn it out in a dish, pour melted butter and sifted sugar over.--_Or_: apples sliced may be mixed with the rice when it is put into the pudding cloth.--_Or_: boil ½ lb. of rice in 1½ pint of milk till tender, then mix with it ½ lb. suet, and the same of currants and raisins chopped, 3 eggs, 1 table-spoonful of sugar, the same of brandy, a little nutmeg and lemon peel; beat well, put 2 table-spoonsful of flour to bind it, and boil in a mould or bason three hours. _Snow Balls._ Boil ½ lb. whole rice tender in water, with a large piece of lemon peel; drain off the water. Pare and core 4 large apples. Divide the rice into equal parts, roll out each one, put an apple in, cover with the rice, and tie each one tightly up in a cloth, and boil half an hour. Pour pudding sauce round. _Buxton Pudding._ Boil 1 pint new milk; rub smoothly with a little cold milk, 2 table-spoonsful of flour, and mix it by degrees to the boiled milk, and set it over the fire, let it boil five minutes, then cool; stir in 4 oz. melted butter, 5 eggs, 6 oz. lump sugar, and the rind of a lemon grated. Bake half an hour. {259}_Vermicelli Pudding._ Boil 1½ pint of new milk, put to it 4 oz. fine vermicelli, boil them together till the latter is cooked; add ¼ lb. butter; the yolks of 4 eggs, ¼ lb. sugar, a little cinnamon, nutmeg, and lemon peel grated. Boil in a bason; or bake twenty minutes. Cream is an improvement. _Sago, or Tapioca Pudding._ Wash it in several waters, then soak it an hour. Boil 5 table-spoonsful in a quart of new milk, with sugar, cinnamon, lemon peel and nutmeg, to taste; when cold add 4 eggs, bake it in a dish with a paste border, in a slow oven. Some prefer the prepared sago powder. _Pearl Barley Pudding._ Wash 3 table-spoonsful of pearl barley in cold water, then boil it two hours or till quite soft, in a quart of milk, then beat in 2 eggs, some sugar, and 3 drops of essence of lemon: bake it in a pie dish. _Millet Pudding._ Wash 4 oz. of the seeds, pour on them 1½ pint of boiling milk, add 2 oz. butter, a little sugar, ginger, and nutmeg; cover with a plate, and let it remain till cold, then stir in 3 eggs: boil or bake it. _Maccaroni Pudding._ Simmer 3 oz. pipe maccaroni in 1½ pint of milk, and a little salt, till tender. (_Or_: simmer it in water, pour that off, then put the hot milk to the maccaroni.) Let it cool, add the yolks of 4 eggs, a little nutmeg, cinnamon, powdered sugar, and a table-spoonful of almond-flower water, and bake it.--_Or_: to make it richer, put a layer of any preserve in the centre of the maccaroni. Lay a paste round the edge of the dish.--_Or_: simmer 6 oz. maccaroni till tender, pour the water off, and let the maccaroni cool. Beat the yolks of 6 eggs, the whites of 3, and stir them into ½ pint of good cream, with a very little salt and pepper. {260}Skin and mince the breast of a cold fowl, with half its quantity of lean ham; grate 1½ oz. parmesan over the mince, and mix it with all the rest; then pour it into a shape or bason; boil or steam it.--_Excellent._ Serve a good clear gravy with this. _A Pudding always liked._ Put ¼ lb. ratafia drops, 2 oz. jar raisins stoned and slit in two, 1 oz. sweet almonds slit and blanched, 1 oz. of citron and candied lemon (both sliced), in layers in a deep dish, and pour over a wine-glassful of sherry and the same of brandy; pour over a good, rich, unboiled custard, to fill up the dish, then bake it. _Cheese Pudding._ Grate ½ lb. of Cheshire cheese into a table-spoonful of finely grated bread-crumbs, mix them up with 2 eggs, a tea-cupful of cream, and the same of oiled butter; bake in a small dish lined with puff paste. Serve this quite hot. _Ratafia Pudding._ Blanch, and beat to a paste, in a mortar, ½ lb. of sweet, and ½ oz. of bitter, almonds, with a table-spoonful of orange-flower water; add 3 oz. of fresh butter, melted in a wine-glassful of hot cream, 4 eggs, sugar to taste, a very little nutmeg, and a table-spoonful of brandy. Bake in a small dish, or little cups buttered: serve white wine sauce. _Staffordshire Pudding._ Put into a scale 3 eggs in the shells, take the same weight of butter, of flour, and of sugar: beat the butter to a cream, then add the flour, beat it again, then the sugar and eggs. Butter cups, fill them half full, and bake twenty minutes in a slow oven. Serve in sweet sauce. _Baked Almond Pudding._ Beat 6 oz. of sweet and 12 bitter almonds to a paste; mix this with the yolks of 6 eggs, 4 oz. butter, the grated peel {261}and juice of a lemon, 1½ pint of cream, a glass of white wine, and some sugar. Put a paste border round a dish, pour in the pudding, and bake it half an hour. _Wafer Pudding._ Melt 1 oz. butter and mix it with a gill of cream; when this is cold, work it into 1½ table-spoonful flour, and 4 eggs, mix well, and bake it in saucers, half an hour. Serve with wine sauce. _Orange Pudding._ Grate the rind of a large Seville orange into a mortar, put to it 4 oz. fresh butter and 6 oz. finely powdered sugar; beat well, and mix in, gradually, 8 eggs; have ready soaked in milk 3 sponge biscuits, and mix them to the rest; beat well, pour it into a shallow dish, lined with a rich puff paste, and bake till the paste is done.--_Or_: the yolks of 8, and whites of 4, eggs well beaten, 4 table-spoonsful of orange marmalade, 4 oz. pounded sugar, 4 oz. fresh butter, 2 oz. pounded Naples biscuits, 2 table-spoonsful of cream, 2 of sherry, and 1 of good brandy; mix all together, and bake in a dish with a very thin paste. _Lemon Pudding._ Put ½ lb. fresh butter with ½ lb. lump sugar into a saucepan, and stir it over the fire till the sugar is melted, turn it out to cool; beat 8 eggs, very well, add to them the juice of 2, and the grated peel of 3, lemons, and mix these well with the butter and sugar, also a wine-glassful of brandy; bake in a dish lined with puff paste, half an hour.--_Or_: boil in several waters the peel of 4 large lemons, and when cold pound it in a mortar with ½ lb. of lump sugar; add ½ lb. fresh butter beaten to a cream, 6 yolks of eggs, 3 whites, 2 table-spoonsful of brandy, and the juice of 3 lemons, mix well, and bake in a moderately quick oven; when done strew sifted sugar over.--Some persons put 2 sponge biscuits into the mixture. _Cabinet or Brandy Pudding._ Line a mould, first with raisins stoned, or with dried {262}cherries, then with thin slices of French roll, then with ratafias or maccaroons, then put in preserved, or fresh, fruit as you like, mixed with sponge, and what other cakes you choose, until the mould be full, sprinkling in at times 2 glasses of brandy. Beat 4 eggs, yolks and whites, and put them into a pint of scalded and sweetened new milk or cream, add grated nutmeg and lemon peel; let the liquid sink gradually into the solid part, tie a floured cloth tight over, and boil the pudding one hour, keeping the bottom of the bason up.--_Another_: pour a pint of hot cream over ½ lb. of Savoy biscuit, and cover it; when cold, beat it up, with the yolks and whites of 8 eggs, beaten separately, sugar and grated lemon peel: butter a mould, stick some stoned raisins round, and pour in the pudding: boil or bake it. _Baked Apple or Gooseberry Pudding._ Having pared and cored them, stew 1 lb. of apples, or 1 quart of gooseberries, in a small stew-pan, with a very little water, a stick of cinnamon, 2 or 3 cloves, and grated lemon peel: when soft, pulp the apples through a sieve, sweeten them, or, if they want sharpness, add the juice of half, or a whole lemon, also ¼ lb. good fresh butter, and the yolks of 6 eggs well beaten; line a pudding dish, or patty-pans, with a good puff paste; pour the pudding in, and bake half an hour, or less, as required. A little brandy, or orange-flower water, may be used.--You may mix 2 oz. of Naples biscuit, with the pulp of gooseberries. _Another._--Prepare the apples as in the last receipt: butter a dish and strew a very thick coating of crumbs of bread, put in the apples and cover with more crumbs; bake in a moderate oven half an hour, then turn it carefully out, and strew bits of lemon peel and finely sifted sugar over.--Rice may be used instead of crumbs of bread, first boiled till quite tender in milk, then sweetened, and flavoured with nutmeg and pounded cinnamon; stir a large piece of butter into it. _Quince Pudding._ Scald 1 lb. fruit till tender, pare them, and scrape off all the pulp. Strew over it pounded ginger and cinnamon, {263}with sugar enough to sweeten it. To a pint of cream, put the yolks of 3 eggs, and stir enough pulp to make it as thick as you like. Pour it into a dish lined with puff paste, and bake it. Any stone fruit may be coddled, then baked in the same way. _Swiss Apple Pudding._ Break some rusks in bits, and soak them in boiling milk. Put a layer of sliced apples and sugar in a pudding dish, then a layer of rusks, and so on; finish with rusks, pour thin melted butter over, and bake it. _Peach, Apricot, and Nectarine Pudding._ Pour a pint of boiling, thin cream, over a breakfast-cupful of bread-crumbs, and cover with a plate. When cold, beat them up with the yolks of 5 eggs, sugar to taste, and a glass of white wine. Scald 12 large peaches, peel them, take out the kernels, pound these with the fruit, in a mortar, and mix with the other ingredients; put all into a dish with a paste border, and bake it. _Another Apricot Pudding._--Coddle 6 large apricots till quite tender, cut them in quarters, sweeten to your taste, and when cold, add 6 yolks of eggs and 2 whites, well beaten, also a little cream. Put this in a dish lined with puff paste, and bake it half an hour in a slow oven: strew powdered sugar over, and send it to table. For this and all delicate puddings requiring little baking, rather shallow dishes are best; and if the pudding is not to be _turned out_, a pretty paste border only is required; this formed of leaves neatly cut, and laid round the dish, their edges just laying over each other. _A Charlotte._ Cut slices of bread, an inch thick, butter them on both sides, and cut them into dice or long slips, and make them fit the bottom, and round the sides of a small buttered dish or baking tin, and fill up with apples which have been stewed, sweetened, and seasoned to taste; have some slices {264}of bread soaked in warm milk and butter, cover these over the top, put a plate or dish on the top, and a weight on that, to keep it down, and bake in a quick oven: when done, turn it out of the dish.--This is very nice, made of layers of different sorts of marmalade or preserved fruit, and slices of stale sponge cake between each layer. _Another of Currants._--Stew ripe currants with sugar enough to sweeten them: have ready a basin or mould buttered and lined with thin slices of bread and butter, pour in the stewed fruit hot, just off the fire, cover with more slices of bread and butter, turn a plate over, and a weight on that: let it stand till the next day, then turn it out, and pour cream or a thin custard round it, in the dish. _Bakewell Pudding._ Line a dish with puff paste, spread over a variety of preserves, and pour over them the following mixture:--½ lb. clarified butter, ½ lb. lump sugar, 8 yolks, and 2 whites of eggs, and any thing you choose to flavour with; bake it in a moderate oven. When cold you may put stripes of candied lemon over the top, and a few blanched almonds. To be eaten cold.--This without any preserves is called _Amber Pudding_. _Citron Pudding._ Mix ½ pint of good cream by degrees, with 1 table-spoonful of fine flour, 2 oz. of lump sugar, a little nutmeg and the yolks of 2 eggs; pour it into a dish or little cups, stick in 2 oz. of citron cut very fine, and bake in a moderate oven. _Maccaroon Pudding._ Pour a pint of boiling cream or new milk, flavoured with cinnamon and lemon peel, over ¼ lb. maccaroon and ¼ lb. almond cakes; when cold break them small, add the yolks of 6 and the whites of 4 eggs, 2 table-spoonsful of orange marmalade, 2 oz. fresh butter, 2 oz. sifted sugar, a glass of sherry, and one of brandy mixed: mix well, put it into cups, and bake fifteen minutes. {265}_New College Pudding._ (The Original Receipt.) Grate a stale penny loaf, shred fine ½ lb. suet, beat 4 eggs, and mix all well together, with 4 oz. of sifted sugar, a little nutmeg, a wine-glassful of brandy, a little candied orange and lemon peel, and a little rose or orange flower water. Fry these in good butter, and pour melted butter with a glass of white wine over them in the dish. The several ingredients may be prepared apart, but must not be mixed till you are ready to fry them.--_Another_: to 4 oz. of grated bread add 4 oz. suet shred fine, 4 oz. currants, 2 eggs, 3 table-spoonsful of brandy, with sugar, lemon peel, and nutmeg to your taste; mix well together, make into 4 little puddings, and boil them an hour. _Paradise Pudding._ Pare and chop 6 apples very fine, mix them with 6 oz. bread-crumbs, 6 oz. powdered sugar, 6 oz. currants, 6 eggs, 6 oz. of suet, a little salt, nutmeg, and lemon peel, also a glass of brandy. Boil in a bason one hour and a half. _Yeast or Light Dumplings._ Put 1½ table-spoonful of good yeast into as much lukewarm water as will mix a quartern of fine flour into dough; add a little salt, knead it lightly, cover with a cloth, and let it stand in rather a warm place, not exposed to a current of air, two hours. Make it into 12 dumplings, let them stand half an hour, put them into a large vessel of boiling water, keep the lid on, and they will be done in fifteen or twenty minutes. Serve melted butter. _Hard Dumplings._ Sprinkle a little salt into the flour and mix it up rather stiff with water, make it into dumplings, and boil them with beef or pork. They may be made in cakes as broad as a small plate, about an inch thick; place a skimmer in the pot, lay the cake on it, boil it half an hour; score it deeply, and slip slices of butter in, sprinkle a little salt over, and serve it quite hot. A very little _lard_ may be rubbed into the flour. {266}_Pancakes._ The batter requires long beating, but the great art consists in frying them. The lard, butter, or dripping must be fresh and hot, as for fish. Beat 2 eggs and stir them, with a little salt, into 3 table-spoonsful of flour, or allow an egg to each spoonful of flour, add pounded cinnamon, and, by degrees, a pint of new milk, and beat it to a smooth batter. Make a small round frying-pan quite hot, put a piece of butter or lard into it, and, when melted, pour it out and wipe the pan; put a piece more in, and when it has melted and begins to froth, pour in a ladle or tea-cupful of the batter, toss the pan round, run a knife round the edges, and turn the pancake when the top is of a light brown; brown the other side; roll it up, and serve very hot. Currant jelly, or marmalade, may be spread thinly on the pancake before it is rolled up. Cream and more eggs will make it richer; also brandy or lemon juice. _Whole Rice Pancakes._ Boil ½ lb. rice in water till quite tender, strain, and let it cool; then break it very fine, and add ½ lb. clarified butter, ½ pint of scalded cream, or new milk, a little salt, nutmeg, and 5 eggs, well beaten. Mix well, and fry them. Garnish with slices of lemon, or Seville orange. _Ground Rice Pancakes._ Stir, by degrees, into a quart of new milk, 4 table-spoonsful of ground rice, and a little salt; stir it over the fire till it is as thick as pap; stir in ½ lb. butter and grated nutmeg, and let it cool; add 4 table-spoonsful of flour, a little sugar, and 9 eggs; beat well, and fry them. _Fritters._ Make batter the same as pancakes, but stiffer; pour a large spoonful into boiling lard; fry as many at a time as the pan will hold. Sift powdered sugar over, and serve on a hot dish. Fritters are usually made with minced apple or currants, stirred into the batter, or any sweetmeat stiff enough to be cut into little bits, or candied lemon or orange {267}peel.--_Or_: grate the crumb of a stale roll, beat it smooth in a pint of milk over the fire, then let it get cold, and mix it with the yolks of 5 eggs, 3 oz. sifted sugar, and ½ a nutmeg. Fry in boiling lard, and serve hot. Sweet sauce in a tureen. _Curd Fritters_--Rub a quart basin full of dried curd with the yolks of 8 and whites of 4 eggs; 3 oz. sugar, ½ a nutmeg grated, and a dessert-spoonful of flour; beat well, and drop the batter into boiling lard. _Apple Fritters_--Make a stiff common pancake batter. Boil ½ a stick of cinnamon in a breakfast-cupful of water, and let it cool. Peel and core some large apples, cut them in round slices, and steep them half an hour, or more, in the cinnamon water; then dip each piece in the batter, and fry them in lard, or clarified dripping. Drain, dust sugar over each one, and serve hot.--_Or_: to make a pretty dish, drop enough batter into the pan to form a fritter the size of the slices of apple, lay a slice of apple upon that, and drop batter on the top.--_Or_: the apples may be pared, cored, half baked (whole), then dipped in the batter, and fried. _A Rice White Pot._ Boil 1 lb. whole rice quite tender, in 2 quarts of new milk, strain, and beat it in a mortar with ¼ lb. blanched almonds, and a little rose water. Boil 2 quarts of cream with a blade or 2 of mace, let it cool, and stir into it 5 eggs well beaten, sweeten to taste, pour it into the rice, mix well, and bake half an hour. Lay some slices of candied orange and citron on the top before you put it into the oven.--_Or_: to a quart of new milk add the yolks of 4 and the whites of 2 eggs, a table-spoonful of rose water, and 2 oz. sugar; beat well, and pour it into a pie dish, over some thin slices of bread: bake it half an hour. _Pain Perdu._ Boil a pint of cream, or new milk; when cold, stir in 6 eggs and put in a French roll, cut in slices, to soak an hour. Fry the slices in butter, of a light brown, and serve with pudding sauce poured over. {268}CHAPTER XXI. BREAD, CAKES, BISCUITS, ROLLS, AND MUFFINS. ALMOST every county has its peculiar fashion of making bread: and almost every hand differs in the practice. The receipt here given is the one followed by most persons in Hampshire; and I select it, being the one I am most familiar with, and not because that county is famed for excellence in bread; for much depends upon the goodness of the flour, and some other parts of England excel Hampshire in this respect. Good bread is so essential, that no pains ought to be spared to procure it. For this purpose the flour ought to be well prepared, and kept in a dry place. Some persons like brown bread, but it is not, in general, so wholesome as that which is all white. Six pounds of rye flour, to a peck of wheaten flour, makes very good bread. The advantages of making bread _at home_, in preference to buying it at the baker's, are stated in COBBETT'S "COTTAGE ECONOMY"; and I refer my readers to that little work, to convince them that they will benefit greatly by following the advice there given on this subject. Small beer yeast is the best for making bread, as ale, or strong beer yeast, is generally too bitter. _To take the Bitter from Yeast._--Put the yeast to the water you use to mix the "batter," or as the country people call it, "set the sponge," and stir into it 2 or 3 good handfuls of bran; pour it through a sieve or jelly bag (kept for the purpose), and then mix it into the flour. The bran not only corrects the bitterness of the yeast, but communicates a sweetness to the bread.--_Or_: put into the yeast 2 or 3 pieces of wood coal, stir them about, pour the water in, and then strain it. {269}_Household Bread._ (From Cobbett's Cottage Economy.) "Supposing the quantity to be a bushel of flour, put it into the trough, and make a deep hole in the middle. Stir into a pint (or if very thick and good, ½ or ¾ pint), of yeast, a pint of soft warm water, and pour it into the hole in the flour. In very cold weather the water should be nearly hot, in very warm weather only lukewarm. Take a spoon and work it round the outside of this body of moisture, so as to bring into that body, by degrees, flour enough to form a _thin batter_, which you must stir about well for a minute or two. Then take a handful of flour and scatter it thinly over the head of this batter, so as to _hide_ it. Cover a cloth over the trough to keep the air from the bread, and the thickness of this covering, as well as the situation of the trough as to distance from the fire, must depend on the nature of the place and state of the weather, as to heat and cold. When you perceive that the batter has risen enough to make _cracks_ in the flour that you covered it over with, you begin to form the whole mass into _dough_, thus: you begin round the hole containing the batter, working the flour into the batter, and pouring in, as it is wanted, soft water, or half milk and half water, in winter a _little_ warm, in summer quite cold; but before you begin this, you scatter the salt over the heap, at the rate of a lb. to a bushel of flour. When you have got the whole _sufficiently moist_, you _knead it well_. This is a grand part of the business; for unless the dough be _well worked_, there will be _little round lumps of flour in the loaves_; besides which, the original batter, which is to give fermentation to the whole, will not be duly mixed. The dough must, therefore, be well worked. The _fists_ must go heartily into it. It must be rolled over; pressed out; folded up, and pressed out again, until it be completely mixed, and formed into a _stiff_ and _tough dough_." The loaves are made up according to fancy, both as to size and shape; but the time they require to bake will greatly depend upon the former, for the household loaf of a Hampshire farm-house takes three hours or three hours and a half, while that of a Norfolk farm-house does not, I should imagine, require half the time. {270}_French Bread or Rolls._ Warm 1½ pint of milk, add ½ pint yeast; mix them with fine flour to a thick batter, put it near the fire to rise, keeping it covered. When it has risen as high as it will, add ¼ pint of warm water, ½ oz. salt, 2 oz. butter; rub the butter first with a little dry flour, mix the dough not quite so stiff as for common bread; let it stand three quarters of an hour to rise, then make it into rolls. Bake in a quick oven. _Rice Bread._ To ¼ lb. wheat flour, allow 1 lb. rice; the latter first boiled in four times its weight of water, till it becomes a perfect pulp, then mix by degrees, the flour with the rice, and sufficient yeast for the quantity of bread; knead and set it to rise. It was the fashion in this country to present a variety of cakes, some hot and some cold, on the tea-table; but now, except in some of the northern counties, the good custom is obsolete. In America, it is the general custom to dine early, to take tea rather late, and no supper; and there the tea table is a matter of as much consideration as the dinner table is in England or France. Every house in America, especially in the country, has one, two, or more cottage ovens of various sizes. I believe that these very useful things are known in some parts of England, but I never saw them except in America. They are particularly adapted to open fire-places, where wood or peat are burnt. They are much the same as the iron pots, which stand on legs, except that the bottom of the oven is flat, not round, and that the lid fits into the top, leaving a space sufficient to hold a layer of hot coals: the oven stands upon legs, at a little distance from the ground, to admit of hot coals being placed under it. A loaf the size of our quartern loaf may be baked in this way, as well as tarts, cakes, custards, apples, pears, &c., &c. By means of this little oven, much labour and fuel are saved. Another appendage to an American kitchen, is the _girdle_ for baking many sorts of cakes, and crumpets; and on this girdle they cook their far-famed buckwheat cakes. It is a round iron plate with a handle over it, which is hung upon the crane upon which {271}iron pots are hung, or it will stand upon a trivet, and then the crumpets are cooked in the same way as pancakes; and are much better thus, fresh made, than as they are generally eaten. In the country, where eggs, cream, and flour (the chief ingredients), are always to be obtained in perfection, there is no excuse for an absence of cakes for the tea, or of rolls at the breakfast table. In most houses, there are young ladies who might attend to this department, with very little loss of time, and with much credit to themselves, and I should be glad if I saw reason to hope that those who are now growing up would not despise the practice. The more difficult and intricate articles of ornamental confectionary, may be too troublesome for any but professors of the art; but all _cakes_ may be made at home. Nothing worth knowing, is to be learned without trouble; but in the art of making and baking cakes, few failures can arise after any number of trials. Flour for cakes should be of the best quality, well dried, and sifted. The eggs fresh, beaten separately, and beaten well. Currants well washed, picked, and dried in a cloth, or before the fire. The ingredients thoroughly mixed, and the cake put into the oven _instantly_, unless there be yeast, and then time must be given for it to rise. Sal Volatile is used, not to make cakes rise, but to prevent their flattening, after they have risen, but though the practice may not be injurious, it had better be avoided. Yeast ought to be sweet, white, and thick; and may be prepared in the manner directed for bread. Pearl-ash is sometimes used to lighten bread and cakes. An iceing is made as follows: to ½ lb. finely sifted sugar put the whites of 2 eggs, beaten with a little water; beat all well with a whisk till quite smooth, and spread it thickly over the cake, with a spoon; for small cakes, put it on lightly, with a brush. Ovens vary so much, that experience alone can teach what quantity of fuel, and what portion of time may be required to heat any particular one. When such knowledge is once obtained, it will be a matter of no great difficulty so to manage the oven that it be always of the right temperature; which it must be, or all labour is lost. Cakes keep moist covered with a cloth, in a pan. {272}_Common Currant Loaf._ Melt ¼ lb. butter in a pint of milk, and mix it with 4 oz. yeast and 2 eggs, then stir it into 2 lbs. flour, beat well with a wooden spoon, and set it before the fire to rise; then add 1 lb. currants, and 2 oz. sifted sugar, and bake it an hour in a moderate oven. _A Rich Plum Cake._ To 1 lb. each, of currants and flour, rubbed together, add 12 oz. fresh butter beaten to a cream. Beat the whites and yolks of 16 eggs, put to them nearly 1 lb. finely powdered sugar, set this mixture over the fire, and whisk it till the eggs are warm; then take it off, beat till cold, and stir in, first, the butter, then the flour and currants; beat well, add ½ oz. bitter almonds, beaten to a paste, 2 oz. sweet almonds, blanched, and cut the long way, ½ oz. pounded cinnamon and mace, and ½ lb. candied peel, either citron, lemon, or orange, or a portion of each; add a little brandy or any highly flavoured liquor. Paper a hoop and pour in the cake. An hour and a half, or two hours will bake it.--_Another_: beat 1 lb. butter to a cream, put to it ¾ lb. sifted sugar, and a little rose or orange flower water, beat it; then add 8 yolks of eggs, the whites of 4, ½ lb. almonds, blanched and beaten, 1½ lb. currants, a little each, of cinnamon, mace, cloves, nutmeg, and ginger, and 1 lb. flour. You may add 2 table-spoonsful of brandy, 1 oz. citron, 1 oz. candied lemon peel, and the same of orange peel. Bake two hours. _A very good Cake._ Beat 2 lbs. fresh butter, with a little rose water, till it is like cream; rub it into 2 lbs. well dried flour; add the peel of a lemon grated, 1 lb. loaf sugar pounded and sifted, 15 eggs (beat the whites by themselves, the yolks with the sugar), a ¼ pint of brandy, the same of Lisbon or Marsala, 2½ lbs. currants, ½ lb. almonds, blanched and cut in slices, beat well together, put it into a buttered tin or dish, bake two hours. Candied lemon or citron may be added. {273}_Pound Cake._ To 1 lb. flour add 1 lb. butter beaten to a cream, and 8 eggs: beat well, add sifted sugar, and grated lemon peel. You may add currants or carraways, to your taste. Beat well, and bake in rather a quick oven, an hour. _Common Cake._ To 2 lbs. flour, add ½ lb. butter, ½ lb. sugar, 4 eggs, 1 lb. currants, 1 oz. candied citron or lemon, 1 oz. carraway seeds, a little nutmeg, and 3 table-spoonsful yeast. Beat well, for half an hour, then put it in the oven _directly_. _A Cake without Butter._ Take the weight of 5 eggs (in their shells), in sifted sugar, and the weight of 3 in flour: beat the eggs, add first, the sugar, then the flour, the rinds of 2 large lemons grated, and a wine-glassful of sherry or brandy. Bake in a tin mould in a quick oven.--_Another_: to a quartern of dough add ½ lb. butter, 4 eggs, ½ lb. currants, and ½ lb. sugar, beat all well together more than half an hour, and bake in a buttered tin. _A Rich Seed Cake._ Mix 1 lb. sifted sugar into 1 lb. flour, and stir in, by degrees, 8 eggs, beaten, whisk well together, and add 3 oz. sweet almonds blanched and cut, some candied citron, lemon, and orange peel, and 12 oz. butter, beaten to a cream; a little pounded cinnamon, mace, and carraway seeds. Pour it into a papered hoop, and strew carraways on the top.--_Or_: put 2 lbs. flour into a deep pan, and mix in ¼ lb. sifted white sugar. Make a hole in the centre, pour in ½ pint of lukewarm milk and 2 table-spoonsful good yeast; stir a little of the flour in, cover a cloth lightly over, and let it stand an hour and a half to rise. Then work it up, with ½ lb. melted butter, a little allspice, ginger, nutmeg, and 1 oz. carraway seeds; adding warm milk sufficient to work it to a proper stiffness. Butter a hoop or dish, and pour in the cake; let it stand in a warm place another half hour to rise, then bake it. You may add 2 table-spoonsful of brandy. {274}_A Rice Cake._ Mix 6 oz. ground rice, 4 oz. sugar, the grated peel of ½ a lemon, the yolks of 5 and whites of 3 eggs, and 1 table-spoonful orange flower water; break the eggs into a deep pan, and put the rice flour to them at once, mix it with a wooden spoon, then add the sugar and the other ingredients; beat well for twenty minutes, and it will be a fine light sponge; then immediately half fill the moulds, put them into a moderate oven, and bake three quarters of an hour, of a light brown colour. _Little Rice Cakes_--1 lb. ground rice, 1 lb. 2 oz. sugar, ¾ lb. butter, 8 eggs, and flour to make it into a stiff paste.--_Or_: 1 lb. sugar, ½ lb. flour, ½ lb. ground rice, 6 oz. butter, 8 yolks and 2 whites of eggs. Both these require long beating. Roll the paste out, cut it in shapes, and bake on buttered tins. Some persons add a few drops of the essence of lemon, and of almond flavour. _Harvest Cake._ Mix into 3 lbs. flour ¼ oz. of powdered allspice; in another bowl put ¾ lb. sugar, either moist or lump, 2 oz. butter, 2 eggs, 3 table-spoonsful of yeast; beat well, then mix in the flour, with ¾ lb. currants, and warm milk and water, to make up the cake; set it by the fire an hour to rise. _Temperance Cake._ Rub ¼ lb. butter into 1 lb. flour, add ½ lb. moist sugar, ½ lb. currants, and a tea-spoonful of carbonate of soda, dissolved in a ¼ pint of warm milk; mix well, and bake it in a tin. _Sponge Cake._ The weight of 12 eggs in sifted sugar, and the weight of 6 in fine flour; beat the eggs separately, stir the sugar into the yolks, and beat well, then put in the whites and beat again, add a little nutmeg and rose-water, and just before you put the cake into the oven, stir the flour lightly into the eggs and sugar. This cake must be beaten with a whisk. Bake, in rather a quick oven, three quarters, or nearly an hour.--_Or_: beat, separately, the yolks and whites of 5 eggs, {275}put them together, add grated lemon peel, and 5 oz. fine sugar, beat again an hour and a half, then stir in as lightly as possible 4 oz. flour, previously dried before the fire.--_Or_: boil ¾ lb. lump sugar in ½ pint of water to a syrup; beat 7 eggs well, and pour the syrup, boiling hot, into them, stirring all the time; then beat it three quarters of an hour, and just before it is put in the oven, stir in lightly 10 oz. of fine flour, pour it in a mould, and bake in a slow oven. Lemon peel may be added. Some persons put in a dessert-spoonful of essence of lemon. _Marlborough Cake._ Beat 8 eggs, strain, and put to them 1 lb. finely sifted sugar, and beat the mixture well half an hour; then put in ½ lb. well dried flour, and 2 oz. carraway seeds, beat well five minutes, pour it into shallow tin pins, and bake in a quick oven. _Gingerbread._ Put 1¼ lb. treacle on the fire, and as it gets hot, take off the scum; stir in ¼ lb. of fresh butter, and let it cool; then mix it into a paste with 1½ lb. flour, 4 oz. brown sugar, a little ginger, and allspice; cut it into shapes, and bake on tins. More butter, or a little cream may be added. Candied orange, lemon peel, or carraway seeds, may be added.--_Another_: mix 1 lb. flour, ½ lb. butter (rubbed in), ½ lb. brown sugar, lemon, ginger, and ½ lb. treacle; let it stand all night, and bake it the next day. _Soft Gingerbread_--Six tea-cupfuls of flour, 3 of treacle, 1 of cream, and 1 of butter, 2 eggs, a table-spoonful of pearl-ash, dissolved in cold water, a table-spoonful of ginger, 1 tea-spoonful of pounded cloves, and a few raisins, stoned; mix well, and bake in a rather slow oven. _Gingerbread Nuts_--They may be made the same way as the receipt before the last, adding more spice. Cut in small cakes, or drop them from a spoon, and bake on paper. _Parliament_--Melt ¾ lb. butter with 2 lbs. treacle, and 1 lb. sugar, add ½ oz. ginger, the juice and grated rind of a lemon, and sufficient flour to make it into a paste: roll out thin, cut it into cakes, and bake it. {276}_Parkin._ Mix 4 lbs. of meal with 2 lbs. treacle, 1 lb. sugar, 1 lb. butter, and ½ oz. ginger, with a tumbler full of brandy and rum; add nutmeg and mace if you like, and bake in large cakes. _Volatile Cakes._ Melt ½ lb. butter, and stir in 4 eggs, 1 tea-spoonful of powdered volatile salts, dissolved in a tea-spoonful of milk, ½ lb. flour, ¼ lb. finely powdered loaf sugar, a few currants and carraway seeds. Mix well, and drop the cakes on tins. They will rise very much. Bake in a quick oven. _Ginger or Hunting Cakes._ To 2 lbs. sugar, add 1 lb. butter, 2 oz. ginger, and a nutmeg grated; rub these into 1 lb. flour, and wet it with a pint of warm cream, or as much as is sufficient; roll out in thin cakes, and bake in a slack oven. _Rough Cakes._ Rub 6 oz. butter into 1 lb. flour, ½ lb. sifted sugar, ½ lb. currants, and a little mace or lemon peel, break in 2 eggs, work it all into a rough paste, and drop on tins. You may add 1 oz. almonds. _Ginger Rock Cakes._ Pound 1 lb. of loaf sugar, leaving a part of it as large as hemp seed; beat the whites of 2 eggs to a froth, add a dessert-spoonful of refined ginger (sold by the druggists in bottles), mix well with a tea-spoon, drop it on tins, and bake in a moderate oven, a quarter of an hour. _Plain Biscuits._ To 1 lb. flour, put the yolk of 1 egg, and milk sufficient to mix it to a stiff paste, knead it smooth, then roll out thin, cut it in round shapes, prick with a fork, and bake them in a slow oven.--_Or_: to 1 lb. flour add ¼ lb. butter, beaten to a cream, 5 oz. loaf sugar, 5 eggs, and some {277}carraway seeds: beat well for an hour, and pour the biscuits on tins, each one a large spoonful. If not sufficiently thin and smooth, add another egg, or a little milk.--_Or_: rub 4 oz. fresh butter very smooth into 8 oz. flour, add 3 oz. sifted sugar, and a table-spoonful of carraways: then add the yolks of 4 eggs, and a table-spoonful of cream. Bake in a quick oven. _Indian Corn Biscuits._ To ½ lb. butter, add 6 oz. pounded sugar, and 3 eggs; when well mixed, add ¾ lb. corn flour, a little nutmeg, and carraway seeds, beat well, and bake on little tins.--_Or_: into ¾ lb. flour, rub 4 oz. butter, add 4 oz. sifted sugar, and nearly 1 oz. carraway seeds; make into a paste with 3 eggs, roll out thin, and cut them in any shape you like. _Dr. Oliver's Biscuits._ Put 2 lbs. flour into a shallow pan, mix 1 table-spoonful of yeast with a little warm water, and pour it into a hole in the middle of the flour, work a little of the flour into the yeast, and set the pan before the fire a quarter of an hour. Melt ¼ lb. butter in milk to mix the flour into a stiff paste, and bake on tins. _Lemon Biscuits._ Beat the yolks of 12, and the whites of 6 eggs, with 1 lb. loaf sugar: when the oven is ready, add 2 table-spoonsful rose water, 12 oz. flour, the juice and rind of 2 lemons, grated, a few almonds if you choose. Bake in a quick oven.--_Or_: mix 1 lb. sifted sugar with ¼ lb. butter melted, the rind of a lemon grated, 2 eggs, and a very little flour: roll into little flat cakes, and bake on tins. _Rusks._ Boil a quart of milk, let it cool, then put to it ½ pint of yeast, 2 eggs, 2 oz. coriander seeds, 2 oz. carraway seeds, a little ginger, and ¼ lb. finely pounded sugar, beat these together and add flour to make a stiff paste: divide it into {278}long thin bricks, put these on tins and set them before the fire a short time to rise, then bake them. When cold, cut in slices, and dry them in a slack oven.--_Or_: melt ½ lb. butter in a quart of milk, let it cool, add 1 egg, ½ pint yeast, and 4 oz. sifted sugar, beat this a few minutes, then work in flour to make a light dough, and set it by the fire to rise. Make this into little loaves, bake them on tins, in a quick oven; when half done take them out of the oven, split, and put them back to finish. _Maccaroons, and Ratafia Cakes._ Blanch, and pound, with the whites of 4 eggs, 1 lb. of sweet almonds, 2 lbs. fine sugar, and beat it to a paste; add 8 more whites of eggs and beat well again. Drop it from a knife, on buttered paper, and bake on tins. _Ratafia Cakes._--The same as maccaroons, only use half bitter and half sweet almonds. _Jumbles._ Rub ½ lb. flour, ½ lb. sifted sugar, with ¼ lb. butter, add a table-spoonful brandy and 2 eggs; keep out part of the flour to roll them out with; twist them up, and bake on tins. If too soft, leave out 1 white of egg. _Small Plum Cakes._ Mix 2 lbs. flour with 1 lb. sugar, rub in 1 lb. butter, 1 lb. currants, add 6 eggs. When well mixed, roll out the paste equally thin and flat; cut it into small round cakes with a wine-glass, and bake them in a moderate oven.--_Or_: do not _cut_, but _pull_ it into small cakes. _Small Carraway Cakes._ Mix 1 lb. flour, 14 oz. butter, 5 or 6 table-spoonsful of yeast, 3 yolks of eggs and 1 white, into a paste, with cream. Set it before the fire half an hour, to rise; add a small tea-cupful of sugar and ½ lb. carraway seeds. Roll out into cakes, wash them over with rose water and sugar, and prick the top, with a knife. The oven rather quick. {279}_Shrewsbury Cakes._ Beat ½ lb. butter to a cream, mix it with 6 oz. sifted sugar, 8 oz. flour, pounded cinnamon, carraway seeds, 2 eggs, and a little rose water. Roll out the paste a ¼ inch thick, cut the cakes into shapes, and bake on tins in a slack oven. _Shortbread._ Melt 1 lb. butter and pour it on 2 lbs. flour, ½ a tea-cupful of yeast, and 1 oz. carraway seeds; sweeten to your taste, and knead well. Roll out thin, cut this into 4 pieces, pinch round the edges, prick well with a fork, and bake on tins.--_Or_: rub 1½ lb. butter, melted without water, into the 4th of a peck of flour, add 6 oz. sifted sugar, 2 oz. each of candied orange, citron and blanched almonds, all these cut in rather large pieces; work it together, but not too much, or the cake will not be crisp; roll the paste out, about 1½ inch thick, divide it into cakes, pinch the edges neatly, and mark them on the top with a fork; strew carraways, strips of citron, and little bits of almonds on the top, and bake on buttered papers. _Derby Short Cakes._ Rub 1 lb. butter into 2 lbs. flour, ½ lb. sifted sugar, 1 egg, and milk to make it into a paste. Roll out thin, cut the cakes in slices, and bake on tins, twenty minutes. _Cinnamon Cakes._ Beat 6 eggs, with a coffee-cupful of rose water, add 1 lb. sifted sugar, ¼ oz. pounded cinnamon, and sufficient flour to make it into a paste. Roll out thin, and stamp it into small cakes. Bake on paper. _Rout Cakes._ Beat 1 lb. butter to a cream, and stir in the yolks of 12 eggs, 12 oz. flour, some grated lemon peel, and a few pounded almonds, or some orange flower water. Mix well, and pour it into a mould not more than an inch high, and lined with paper; bake it, and when it has cooled, cut it into {280}shapes, with a sharp knife; moisten the sides of these with sugar, and crisp them before the fire. _Queen Cakes._ 1 lb. well dried flour, 1 lb. butter, worked to a cream, 1 lb. sifted sugar, and 8 eggs. Beat the yolks and whites separately, put half the sugar into the butter, and the other half into the eggs, beat them well, then beat all together, except the flour, which must be lightly dredged in as you continue beating the mixture, and shaking in ½ lb. currants. _Buns._ Mix ½ lb. moist sugar with 2 lbs. flour, make a hole in the centre, and stir in ½ pint of lukewarm milk and a _full_ table-spoonful of yeast. Cover it for two hours, in a warm place. Melt to an oil, 1 lb. butter, stir it into the mixture in the middle of the pan, and, by degrees, work it into a soft dough, dust it over with flour, cover with a cloth, and let it stand another hour. Make it into buns the size of a large egg, then lay them on a floured paste-board, and put them before the fire to rise to the proper size; bake on tins, in a hot oven; when done, brush them over with milk.--_Cross Buns_: in the same way, adding to the plain buns, about 1 oz. of ground allspice, mace, and cinnamon; when half baked, take them out of the oven, and press the form of a cross on the top; brush them over with milk when done.--_Another for Plain Buns_: melt 6 oz. butter, mix it well with 4 eggs, ½ lb. sifted sugar, 1 lb. flour, and a tea-spoonful of volatile salts dissolved in a tea-spoonful of warm milk; add ¼ lb. currants, with seeds to taste, and bake ten minutes. A tea-spoonful of essence of lemon, and one drop of essence of almond may be added.--_Seed or Plum Buns_: mix into the same quantity of bun dough as the first receipt, 1 oz. carraway seeds, or currants, or Smyrna raisins. Butter small tart pans, mould the dough into buns, put one into each pan, and set them to rise; ice them, with white of egg, dust fine sugar over, and dissolve that by sprinkling water lightly over. Bake them ten minutes, in a quick oven. Mark the edges, and ice the top, or not, as you choose.--_Bath Buns_: rub ½ lb. butter {281}into 1 lb. flour, wet it with 4 eggs, and a wine-glassful of yeast, set it before the fire to rise; add 4 oz. sifted sugar, and a few carraway seeds. Make into buns, brush them over with white of egg, and strew sugar carraways over the top. _Sally Lumm's Tea Cakes._ Warm a pint of new milk, or cream, with 2 oz. butter; then add ¼ lb. flour to make it a stiff dough. Roll to the size you choose, and bake it on a tin. When done, cut it in 3 or more slices, butter, and send it to table directly; if it wait before the fire it will quickly be spoiled.--Some add eggs, a little yeast, and sugar, to make it eat shorter. _Breakfast Cakes._ Rub 3 oz. butter into 1 lb. flour, and a little salt. Mix 1 egg with a table-spoonful of yeast, and a little warm milk, and wet the flour, using as much milk as is required to make a light batter, as for fritters; beat well with the hand, then cover, and let it stand three or four hours, in a warm place, to rise. Add flour to make it into a paste to roll out. Make the cakes the size you choose, let them stand half an hour before the fire, prick them in the middle, with a skewer, and bake in a quick oven.--_Or_: mix 1 pint of cream, 2 eggs, a table-spoonful of yeast, and a little salt, into ½ lb. flour. Cover and let it rise. Bake on tins.--_Or_: melt ¼ lb. butter in new milk enough to wet up 2 lbs. flour, add 4 eggs, 4 table-spoonsful yeast, and wet up the flour; let it stand ten minutes, make it into 6 cakes, prick them with a fork, and let them stand covered near the fire, half an hour; bake in a moderate oven, a quarter of an hour. _Yorkshire Cakes._ Mix 1½ pint of warm milk, with a tea-spoonful of good yeast, into flour to make a thick batter; let it stand, covered, in a warm place, to rise. Rub 6 oz. butter into a little flour, add 3 eggs, mix well, then mix it with the batter, add flour enough to work it into a stiff dough, and let it stand again a quarter of an hour; then knead again, {282}and break it into small cakes, roll round and smooth, then put them on tins, cover lightly, and set them by the fire fifteen minutes, to rise, before you put them into the oven. _Roehampton Rolls._ To 1 lb. of flour, add the whites of 3 eggs, 3 oz. butter, and 1 spoonful of yeast, wet it with milk into a stiff dough; let this rise, before the fire, an hour, make it into rolls, and bake ten minutes.--_Or_: to ½ pint of yeast add 2 eggs, 2 lumps of sugar, a piece of butter the size of an egg, and 2 quarts of milk, beat well, and strain in as much fine flour as it will take up, mix well, and divide it into rolls; set them before the fire, an hour, then bake half an hour. _Muffins._ Mix a pint of scalded milk, with ¼ pint fresh yeast, and flour to make a thick batter. Set it in a warm place to rise. Rub 2 oz. butter in a little flour and add it to the batter, with flour to make it into dough; cover and let it stand again; knead well, and make it into muffins: put them on tins, let them stand a quarter of an hour, then bake them. _Crumpets._ Mix a quart of good milk into flour to make a thick batter, add a little salt, 1 egg, and a table-spoonful of small beer yeast; beat well, cover, and let it stand near the fire half an hour, to rise. Hang the girdle, or put the frying-pan over the fire, and when hot wipe it clean with a wet cloth. Tie a piece of butter in muslin, and rub it over the girdle: then pour on it a tea-cupful of batter, and as it begins to cook, raise the edge all round, with a sharp knife; when one side is done, turn it and bake the other side. When done, put it in a plate before the fire, rub the girdle with the buttered rag, and pour in another cupful of batter, then spread butter over the one in the plate, and so on, till they are all baked. Send a few at a time, quite hot, to table. Crumpets made thus are lighter than in the common way. Rye flour makes excellent cakes this way, and likewise Indian Corn meal. N.B.--Receipts for various ways of cooking _Indian Corn_ flour or meal will be found in "COBBETT'S COTTAGE ECONOMY." {283}_Scotch Slim Cakes._ Rub 3 oz. butter into ½ lb. flour, mix it into a light dough with 2 eggs and warm milk. Roll lightly out, and cut them round, the size of a saucer, bake them, as directed, for crumpets. Butter, and serve them quite hot. CHAPTER XXII. CONFECTIONARY. As I should always have recourse to the confectioner for all ornamental dishes, I shall give under this head, only such things as may be prepared at home with comparatively little risk of failure, and consequent waste of materials; observing, at the same time, that the plainest custard requires as much attention as the richest cream, and that all sweet dishes require to be flavoured with judgment. It is impossible to produce delicate creams, jellies, &c., &c., unless the ingredients, particularly cream, milk, and eggs, be perfectly fresh, and unless there be _enough_ of them. If served in glasses or dishes, use only eggs; but, if the cream is to be turned out of a shape, isinglass must be used to stiffen it. The quantity greatly depends upon the size of the shape; 1 oz. to a pint is the general allowance, but more is often necessary.--The sugar used in jellies ought to be clarified, for one point of excellence is clearness.--To prevent oiling, put a little rose water into the mortar in which you pound almonds.--Where there is much practice in making sweet dishes, all the vessels should be kept wholly for that purpose. Jelly bags and sieves delicately clean, always dipped into, and wrung out of, hot water, before they are used. _Common Custards._ To ½ pint new milk, put a little piece of lemon peel cut {284}very thin, a little cinnamon, and 8 bitter almonds blanched and pounded. Simmer the milk ten minutes. Then strain, and when cool, put to it a pint of cream, the yolks of 5 eggs, 2 table-spoonsful sifted sugar, and set it in a saucepan over the fire. Stir one way, all the time; take care that it do not burn, and not boil. When thick enough it will be done, and a minute or two too much will cause it to turn. When taken from the fire, add half a glass of brandy, and stir a quarter of an hour before you pour it into cups. In case of no cream, use 3 more eggs.--_Or:_ mix a table-spoonful of rice flour in a little cold milk, and add the beaten yolks of 6 eggs. Have ready boiled, a quart of new milk, with a bit of lemon peel, and cinnamon; let it cool, then stir the eggs and some sugar into it: let it thicken over the fire, but not boil, stirring all the time. Take it off the fire, pour it into a jug, and stir till cool. Serve in cups, or a glass dish, and grate nutmeg over. Some persons boil custards in a jug, set into a deep saucepan of water, which is kept boiling. _Rich Custards to Bake, or Boil._ Boil a quart of cream with mace and cinnamon. Take it off the fire, add sugar to taste, and let it stand till no warmer than milk from the cow; then add 10 eggs, well beaten. Strain it, and fill the cups very full. The oven must be as hot as for tarts, and the cups often turned; or finish by boiling them in a jug stood in boiling water, but keep stirring all the while. Brandy is an improvement, in the proportion of a wine-glassful to a quart. Some flavour with ratafia, peach water, or orange flower water. A dessert-spoonful of isinglass will add to the firmness of custards made entirely of milk. _Lemon Custards._ Beat the yolks of 8 eggs till they are as white as milk, add the grated rinds and juice of 2 lemons, sweeten to taste; pour in a pint of boiling water and stir over the fire till it thickens, add a wine-glassful of white wine, and the same of brandy, stir over the fire again for a few minutes, then pour it into cups. {285}_Orange Custards._ Beat the rind of a Seville orange (previously boiled), to a paste, and mix it with a dessert-spoonful of brandy, the juice of a lemon, 5 oz. sugar, and the yolks of 5 eggs; beat it well, a quarter of an hour, and pour in, by degrees, a pint of boiling cream; keep on beating till cold, then pour it into cups, and set them in a deep dish in boiling water, till very thick. _Spanish Custards._ Set 1½ pint of thin cream over the fire, leaving out a tea-cupful; put in 6 or 8 bitter almonds, and ¼ oz. isinglass dissolved in a basin with boiling water enough to cover it; simmer for three-quarters of an hour, or till the isinglass is dissolved; mix smoothly into the cold cream a table-spoonful of ground rice, pour it into the hot cream, stirring all the time, and simmer it gently till it thickens sufficiently. Flavour with 2 table-spoonsful of orange flower, or rose water, or what you like; strain through a coarse hair sieve, and stir till nearly cold, when pour it into cups dipped in cold water. Let these stand in a cool place; when firm, turn them out on a dish, stick them with blanched almonds sliced, and garnish with preserved cucumber, citron, or other preserve; when about to serve, pour a little cold cream into the dish.--_Or_: boil a pint of cream with a stick of cinnamon, let it cool, strain it, add 3 table-spoonsful of rice flour, the whites of 3 eggs well beaten, sugar, and a little rose water; set it over the fire, and simmer till as thick as hasty pudding; wet a mould with rose water, pour the custard in; when cold, turn it out. _Custards with Apples._ Pare, core, and either stew or bake some apples, in an earthen pan, with as little water as possible, and sugar to sweeten. When they are fallen, put them into a pie dish, and let them stand to get cold; pour over an unboiled custard, and set the dish into the oven, or before the fire, until the custard is fixed. {286}_Custard with Rice._ Boil some rice in milk till quite tender, with cinnamon and a very few bitter almonds; when cold, sweeten it, and form a thick high wall round a glass dish, and pour a boiled custard in the centre. Just before it goes to table, strew coloured comfits, in stripes, up the wall. _A Trifle._ Whisk a quart of good cream with 6 oz. powdered sugar, a glass of white wine, the juice and grated peel of 1 lemon, and a little cinnamon. Take off the froth as it rises, and lay it on a sieve, reversed, over a bowl. This should be done early in the morning, or the day before, that the froth may be firm. Place in a deep trifle dish 3 or 4 sponge cakes, some maccaroons, and ratafia cakes, also a few sweet almonds blanched and split, then pour over enough white wine, with a little brandy, to moisten them; when the wine is soaked up, spread over the cakes a layer of raspberry jam, or any good preserve, and pour over that a _rich_ and boiled custard. Heap the whip lightly on as high as the dish will allow. The preserve used or left out, according to taste. _Gooseberry or Apple Trifle._ Scald the fruit, and pulp it through a sieve, sweeten it, and put a thick layer in a glass dish. Mix ½ pint of milk, ½ pint of cream, and the yolk of 1 egg, scald it over the fire, stirring all the time, add sugar, and let it become cold, then lay it on the fruit, and on it a whip, as directed in the last receipt.--_Or_: scald, pulp, and sweeten the fruit, then stir it over the fire, into a thin custard: when cooked enough, pour it into a glass dish, to get cold. If apple, grate nutmeg and cinnamon, or lemon peel, over the top, add also lemon juice, and lay a whip on the top. _A Tipsy Cake._ Put a stale sponge cake into a deep china or glass dish, pour round it some raisin wine or Marsala, and brandy to your taste, but enough to saturate the cake: when it is {287}soaked up, strew sifted sugar over, and pour in the dish a rich custard. Ornament the top of the cake by sticking a light flower in the centre, or bits of clear currant jelly; _or_, sweet almonds blanched and split. _Crême Patisserie._ Boil a quart of new milk with cinnamon and lemon peel. Rub a heaped table-spoonful of flour quite smooth with a little cold milk; stir the boiled milk, by degrees, into it; add 5 eggs, and sugar to taste. Stir it over a slow fire till it thickens; pour it into a dish, and stir it slowly a few minutes. Flavour with vanilla, orange-flower water, ratafia, or brandy. This is flavoured with _tea_ or _coffee_, in the following manner: put a heaped table-spoonful of green tea into the milk, boil it up, cover the saucepan, simmer it a few minutes, then strain it. This will give a strong flavour of tea. For coffee: make a breakfast-cupful of very strong coffee, and put it into the milk just before it boils: use no other flavouring ingredient, and sweeten the cream sufficiently.--_Or_: boil in a pint of thin cream, the peel of a large lemon grated or pared very thin, sugar to taste, and a very small piece of cinnamon. Work up a table-spoonful of flour with the juice of the lemon; pour the boiling cream to it, by degrees, and stir it over the fire till the flour is cooked; pour it into a dish, and stir slowly till nearly cold; garnish with candied sweetmeats. _Chocolate Cream._ Boil a quart of cream, having first scraped into it 1 oz. scented chocolate; add nearly ¼ lb. lump sugar, and 8 whites of eggs; whisk well, and, as the froth rises, take it off, and put into glasses. _A Plain Cream._ Boil together, or separately, a pint of cream and a pint of new milk, with lemon peel, cinnamon, and sugar to taste; then add 12 sweet and 3 bitter almonds, pounded to a paste, with a little rose water, also a table-spoonful of rice flour rubbed smooth in cold milk; scald it, pour into a jug to cool. Serve in glasses, or a glass dish. {288}_Italian Cream._ Boil 1½ pint of sweet cream with ½ pint of new milk, the rind of a lemon cut thin, and sugar to taste; then let it cool. Beat the yolks of 8 eggs, add them to the cream, set it over the fire, stir till it thickens, and put in about 1 oz. of melted isinglass, to stiffen it. Whisk well, and strain it through a fine sieve into a mould, to turn out. First try a little in a saucer to ascertain if more isinglass be wanted. It may be flavoured with _curaçoa_ or _noyeau_. _Ginger Cream._ The same as chocolate cream; using only cream, no milk. Flavour it by boiling in the cream either preserved, or essence of ginger. Serve it in cups.--_Or_: after the cream has thickened over the fire, add isinglass, as directed for Italian cream, and strain it into a mould. _Lemon Cream._ Beat the whites of 9 eggs with one yolk, till as thin as water, but not frothed, add 9 table-spoonsful cold water, and the juice of 2 lemons, with sugar to taste: strain it through a fine sieve, put in a piece of lemon peel, and stir it over the fire, till as thick as cream. Do not let it stay long on the fire, to get too thick.--_Or_: steep the peel of 2 lemons, cut very thin, in a pint of water, all night, then sweeten and boil it; stir in the whites of 6 eggs beaten to a froth, and keep stirring over the fire till thick, then add the yolks. You may add ¼ oz. of isinglass, which makes it more like ice.--_Or_: boil up a pint of thick cream with the beaten yolks of 2 eggs, 4 oz. sugar, and the thin rind of a lemon; stir till nearly cold, and pour it upon the juice of a lemon, in a bowl; stir it till cold.--_White lemon cream_ is made by using whites of eggs only. _Orange Cream._ Pare a large orange very thin, put the peel into a bason, and squeeze 4 oranges over it; pour in 1 pint of cream, and set it over the fire; before it quite boils take out the peel, or the cream may be too bitter. Let the cream become cold, {289}then stir in the yolks and whites of 4 eggs, and sugar to taste. Set it over the fire again, and just scald it. Pour into cups.--_Or_: squeeze and strain the juice of 11 oranges, sweeten well with pounded loaf sugar, and stir over a slow fire till the sugar be melted, taking off the scum as it rises; when cold mix it with the beaten yolks of 12 eggs, mixed with a pint of cream, stir it over the fire again to thicken, and serve in a glass dish or cups.--_Or_: boil ¾ oz. of isinglass in ½ pint of water, till half reduced, and when nearly cold stir in the juice of 4 oranges and 1 lemon well sweetened, and a pint of cream previously beaten to a froth, stir it over a slow fire till it begins to thicken, and then pour it into a mould.--N.B. the juice of any fruit may he used in the same way, always adding the juice of a lemon. _Lemon or Orange Cream frothed._ Squeeze the juice of a large lemon, or orange, into a glass or china dish. Sweeten a pint of cream, and let it just boil; pour it out to get cold, put it into a tea-pot, hold it up as high as possible, and pour it upon the juice. _Alamode Cream._ Grate 2 lemons into a bason, squeeze in the juice, add ¼ lb. sifted sugar; melt ½ oz. isinglass in a tea-cupful of hot water, strain it on the lemon, stirring all the time, then pour in a pint of cold cream, but stir all the while, or it may be lumpy. Pour it in a glass dish, and keep it in a cool place. Garnish with almonds and apple paste. _Velvet Cream._ Put into a deep glass or china dish, 3 table-spoonsful of lemon juice, a little grated peel, and preserved apricot cut small, 3 table-spoonsful of white wine or brandy, and powdered sugar. Scald a pint of cream, put in ¼ oz. of melted isinglass, stir it over the fire a few minutes, and continue to stir till no warmer than new milk; then strain, and pour it into the dish. Made the day before it is wanted. _Vanilla Cream._ Boil ½ a stick of vanilla in a tea-cupful of milk till the {290}flavour is as strong as you like, and mix it with a jelly made of calf's feet, or made with 1 oz. of isinglass in a pint of water and a pint of cream, sweeten to taste, stir it till nearly cold, then pour it into a mould which has stood in cold water. The day before it is wanted. _Burnt Cream._ Boil a stick of cinnamon with a large piece of lemon peel, in a pint of cream; when nearly cold, stir in gently the yolks of 6 eggs; sweeten it, take out the spice and peel, strew pounded sugar over, and brown it with a salamander. _Snow Cream._ Pare, core, and stew, 10 or 12 apples and pulp them; beat the pulp nearly cold, stir in enough finely powdered sugar to sweeten, a little lemon peel, and the whites of 12 eggs, already beaten, whisk, till it becomes stiff, and lay it in heaps in a glass dish. _Currant and Raspberry Cream._ Mash the fruit and strain ¼ pint of juice through a fine sieve, add rather more than ½ pint of cream, sugar to taste, and a little brandy; whisk it the same as a trifle.--_Or_: put a very little sifted sugar into 1½ pint of cream, a tea-cupful of raspberry jelly, the grated rind of 1 and the juice of ½ a lemon, whisk well, for half an hour, till it be thick and solid, then pour it into a glass dish or cups. _Strawberry Cream._ The same as the last.--_Or_: sweeten some cream, and make a strong whip. Beat up what remains of the cream with yolk of egg (3 to ½ a pint), and scald it; let it cool, mix the fruit with it, pour it into glasses or a dish, and lay the fruit on the top. The pulp of apples, apricots, and plums may be mixed with cream, in this way.--_Or_: it may be formed in a mould by adding melted isinglass to the cream, just scalding, then straining it: when nearly cold, add the fruit and put it into a shape. {291}_Clouted Cream._ Put 2 blades of mace and a wine-glassful of rose water, into a ¼ pint of new milk, scald and strain it; let it cool, stir in the yolks of 2 eggs, and a quart of cream. Stir it over the fire till scalding hot, and it is done. Excellent with fruit stewed, or with fruit pies. Creams and jellies are _iced_, by putting the shape (the mixture being _perfectly cold_), in a bucket of ice broken in small bits. Let it stand till you are ready to send it to table, then take it out, wrap a towel, dipped into hot water, round the mould, and turn it out. _Strawberry Ice Cream._ Mash the fruit, strain off the juice, and sweeten it. Mix it, in the proportion of 1 lb. of fruit to a pint of sweet cream, whip it, pour it into glasses, and freeze as directed; or, add melted isinglass, and freeze it in a shape.--_Raspberry Ice Cream_, the same. _Pine Apple Ice Cream._ To 1½ gill of pine apple syrup, add the juice of 1½ lemon, and a pint of cream, sweeten, then stand it in the ice, and let it freeze as thick as butter. If you would have it the shape of a pine, take the shape and fill it; then lay half a sheet of brown paper over the mould before you put it into the ice, and let it remain some time; be careful that no water gets into it. _Coffee Ice._ A refreshing preparation, and suitable to entertainments. Make some strong coffee, sweeten with sugar candy, add what cream you like, pour it into a bowl, place that in an ice pail till the coffee is frozen: serve in glasses. _Paris Curd._ Put a pint of thin cream on the fire, with the whites of 6 eggs and the juice of a lemon; stir till it becomes a curd; hang it all night in a cloth, to drain; add 2 oz. sweet {292}almonds, beaten to a paste, sugar to taste, and a little brandy. Mix well, and put it in shapes. _Blancmange._ Blanch 1 oz. sweet and ½ an oz. of bitter almonds and pound them with a little brandy, put them with ½ an ounce of isinglass into a bowl with ½ a pint of milk and ½ a pint of cream, and 2 oz. of pounded sugar, and let it stand 3 hours; then stir it over the fire till it begins to boil, when take it off and strain it, but keep stirring it till nearly cold, and then pour it into a mould. If you choose, have 12 bitter, no sweet almonds, a wine-glassful of brandy and a table-spoonful ratafia.--When about to turn it out, wrap a towel dipped in hot water round the mould, and draw a silver knife round the edge of the blancmange. _Rice Blancmange._ Boil 4 oz. of whole rice in water till it begins to swell, pour off the water, and put the rice into nearly a quart of new milk, with sugar, a little cinnamon and lemon peel. Boil slowly till the rice is mashed, and smooth. Do not let it burn. Put it into a mould to turn out. This may be in the centre of a dish with custard round it. _Blancmange with Preserves._ Boil 1 pint of cream with cinnamon and lemon peel; sweeten it, add 1 oz. isinglass dissolved in a little water, stir it over the fire till it is on the point of boiling, then pour it into a jug, stirring it occasionally; when milkwarm add a wine-glassful of brandy and a table-spoonful of ratafia. Have ready in a china or glass dish, some East or West India preserves, pour the blancmange on it, and set it by till the next day. _Jaunemange._ Dissolve 2 oz. isinglass in nearly a pint of boiling water; put to it ¾ pint of white wine, the juice of 2 oranges, and 1 lemon, the peel of a lemon shred fine, sugar to taste, a little cinnamon and brandy, and the yolks of 8 eggs. Simmer gently a few minutes, then strain it into moulds. {293}_Rice Flummery._ Boil 5 oz. sifted ground rice in a quart of new milk, with ½ oz. bitter almonds, 2 table-spoonsful rose water, and sugar to sweeten; keep stirring till very thick, then put it into a mould. When cold turn it out, stick blanched almonds in, and pour round it some thick cream sweetened and flavoured with white wine; or no cream, but preserves in lumps. _Dutch Flummery._ Boil the rinds of 2 and juice of 3 lemons in ½ pint of white wine, ½ pint water, ¼ lb. sugar and 1 oz. of isinglass, ten minutes, then strain and mix it gradually with the yolks of 5 eggs, stir it over the fire five minutes, then stir till nearly cold, and pour it into a mould. _Rice Cups._ Sweeten a pint of new milk, with sifted sugar, and boil in it a stick of cinnamon, when it boils stir in 2½ oz. of sifted ground rice; then take it off the fire, and add the beaten whites of 3 eggs, stir again over the fire, for three minutes, and pour into cups, previously dipped in cold water. When cold, turn them out, pour a custard round, and ornament with preserves or stewed pears. _Syllabub._ Pour a bottle of sherry or Port into a china bowl, sweeten, and add plenty of nutmeg and cinnamon. Milk into it nearly double the quantity, and let it froth up high. Serve with sponge cakes. Some add a little brandy. _Solid Syllabub._ Scald a pint of cream, and sweeten it; when cold, add ½ a pint of white wine, the juice of a lemon, the peel grated: more sugar if required. Dissolve 1 oz. isinglass in water, strain, and when cold, stir it into the mixture, and put it into a mould the day before it is wanted. {294}_Whipt Syllabub._ Rub ½ lb. sugar on lemon rind, and put into a deep narrow pan, with ½ pint white wine, the juice of ½ a lemon, the rind of a whole one, and a pint of thick cream; whisk well, always one way and without stopping, till it is all in a good froth; put it in glasses. It will be more firm the next day.--_Or_: to ½ pint of cream, add a pint of milk, ½ pint sack or white wine, sweeten with loaf sugar, and whisk it to a froth; pour a little white wine in the glasses, and the froth on the top. _Calf's Feet Jelly._ The day before you want jelly, boil a cow heel and one foot in 2½ quarts of water, till they are broken, and the water half wasted, strain and put it by till the next day. Then remove all the fat as well as the sediment, put the jelly into a saucepan with sugar, wine, lemon juice, and peel to your taste. Let it simmer, and when the flavour is rich, add the whites of 5 eggs well beaten, also their shells; let it boil gently twenty minutes, but do not stir it; then pour in a tea-cupful of warm water, let it boil gently five minutes longer, take the saucepan off the fire, cover close, and let it stand by the side, half an hour. It ought to be so clear as to require only once running through the jelly bag. Some mutton shanks (10 to 2 calf's feet), make the jelly richer. Raisin wine is generally used, but Marsala is better: it gives a more delicate colour to the jelly.--This is made _Noyeau Jelly_ by using noyeau in sufficient quantity to give a strong flavour. Also _Madeira Wine Jelly_. But as the firmness of the jelly may be diminished by the wine, add a little isinglass. Some think that jelly eats best in the rough, not out of a mould.--_Another_: boil 4 feet in 2½ quarts of water, boil twelve hours, or till all their goodness is extracted. The next day remove all fat as well as sediment, put the jelly into a saucepan with 1½ pint of sherry or Marsala, the peel and juice of 7 lemons, and sugar to your taste. Finish in the same way as directed above, and when strained, add a wine-glassful of Champagne brandy. You may add 1 oz. isinglass to make the jelly very stiff, but some object to this, as it makes it tough {295}as well as stiff. Some use a coarse brown bag, in preference to flannel. _Punch Jelly._ Boil 2 oz. isinglass in a pint of water, add the juice of 4 lemons, and the grated rind of one, put to this 6 oz. loaf sugar, previously boiled in a very little water till it is a rich clear syrup, then add 6 table-spoonsful of rum.--_Or_: make a good bowl of punch (_which see_), stronger if you like. To every pint of punch add 1½ oz. isinglass, dissolved in ¼ pint of water; pour this into the punch whilst hot, then fill the moulds, taking care that they are not disturbed until the jelly is completely set. _Savoury Jelly._ Boil 2 lbs. knuckle of veal, 1 lb. lean beef, and 4 mutton shanks, in 2 quarts of water, with salt, pepper, mace, and 1 onion; boil till the liquor is reduced one half, then strain it; when cold, put it into a saucepan with the whites of 3 eggs, stir well, then set it over the fire till it boils, and strain through a jelly bag. A table-spoonful of soy will improve the colour. _Orange and Lemon Jelly._ Grate the rinds of 2 Seville, 2 sweet oranges, and 2 lemons; squeeze the juice of 2 sweet, 6 Seville oranges, and 3 lemons; mix the rinds and juice together; boil slowly 1 lb. lump sugar in a pint of water to thick syrup, turn it into a bowl; when _nearly_ cold, add the juice and stir well; boil ¼ lb. of isinglass in a pint of water till dissolved, let it cool, add it to juice, stir till cold, and fill the mould.--_Another, and much better_: rub the rinds of 8 oranges with lump sugar, and boil a quarter of an hour in the stock of calf's feet and ½ oz. isinglass, with sugar to your taste; have the juice of the oranges, the juice of 3 lemons, and the whites of 6 eggs in a bason, pour the stock in, stir well, and boil altogether ten minutes; then pour in a wine-glassful of cold water, let it stand ten minutes, then pour through a jelly bag.--_Lemon Jelly_ is made the same way; the rind of 2 and juice of 3 large lemons, the rind and juice of 1 orange. {296}_Colouring for Jelly._ Boil slowly in ½ pint water, for half an hour, 15 grains cochineal in fine powder, ½ drachm of cream of tartar, and a bit of alum the size of a pea; let it stand till the next day, then pour it off. _Arrow-root Jelly._ Put ¼ pint of water into a saucepan, with a wine-glassful of sherry, or a spoonful of brandy, sugar, and grated nutmeg. Boil up once, then mix it, by degrees, with a dessert-spoonful of arrow-root, rubbed smooth, and mixed with 2 spoonsful of cold water. Return it into the saucepan, stir, and boil it three minutes.--_Or_: steep for three hours the rind of a lemon, and 4 bitter almonds, pounded, in 2 table-spoonsful water, strain, and mix the water with 3 table-spoonsful arrow-root, and of lemon juice, 1 of brandy; sweeten, stir over the fire till thick, and put it into glasses. _Hartshorn Jelly._ To 3 quarts of water put 1 lb. hartshorn shavings, and 1 oz. isinglass, boil gently till it becomes a jelly (about four hours); the next day melt it, add the juice of 2 lemons, half the peel, and a pint of sherry, also the whites of 5 eggs beaten to a froth, and sugar to taste; boil for a few minutes, and pass it through a jelly bag till clear. _Apple Jelly._ Pare 12 firm apples, and simmer them in a quart of water till quite cooked, but not broken; strain the liquor, and put to it 2 oz. isinglass, the juice of 2 lemons, the peel of one cut thin, sugar to taste, and a little cochineal, tied in muslin; boil till the isinglass is dissolved and the jelly of a nice colour, strain, and pour it into a mould. _Isinglass Jelly._ Dissolve 1 oz. isinglass in ½ pint of water, and put to it ½ lb. lump sugar, the juice of a large lemon, the peel cut thin, and a pint of sherry; boil five minutes, then strain it into a mould. {297}_Gâteau de Pomme._ Dissolve 1½ oz. isinglass in ½ pint water, and boil it with ½ lb. sugar, the juice and rind of a lemon and 1 lb. of apples, pared and cored; boil it three quarters of an hour, pour it into a mould; when quite cold, turn it into a glass dish, and pour a good custard round. _A Bird's Nest._ Make some clear jelly, of an amber colour, and fill a small round basin half full. Have some bird's eggs blown, fill them with blancmange; when the latter is quite cold, peel off the shells, and it will represent small eggs. Put some moss round a glass dish, turn the jelly out, into the middle, lay some lemon peel, cut in thin strips to represent straws, on the jelly, and the eggs on the top. _Strawberry Jelly._ Boil 2 oz. isinglass in ¼ pint of water till dissolved, skimming it all the time; then strain and let it cool. Mash a quart of fresh fruit in an earthen vessel, with a wooden spoon; add powdered sugar and a very little water. Pass it through a jelly bag, stir the melted isinglass into it, and fill your mould.--_Raspberry_ and _red currant_ jelly in the same way. _Lemon and Orange Sponge._ Dissolve ½ oz. isinglass in a pint of water, strain it, and the next day put to it the juice of 2 lemons, and the grated peel of 1; then rub some raspberry jam through a hair sieve into the mixture, and whisk it well, till it is like sponge; then put it into an earthen mould in a cool place. Any preserve may be used, or lemon only, or orange; or it may be flavoured with raspberry vinegar.--_Or_: dissolve ¾ oz. isinglass in a little water, add ¾ pint of cream, the same of new milk, and ½ pint of raspberry jelly, and the juice of a lemon: whisk well, one way, till it is thick, and looks like sponge; then pour it into the mould.--_Or_: pour a pint of boiling water on 2 oz. isinglass, when dissolved add the strained juice of 4 Seville and 4 sweet oranges or {298}lemons, sugar to taste; whisk well, half an hour, then pour it into a mould.--_Or_: dissolve 2 oz. isinglass in ½ pint of water, strain and add to it, the juice of 10 sweet oranges, and the grated rind of 2, the juice of 1 lemon, and sugar to taste; when nearly cold whisk it till it looks like sponge, and pour it in a mould. Make it in the evening, to turn out next day. Some use more isinglass. _Rice Soufflè._ Boil 2 table-spoonsful ground rice very slowly, in ½ pint good milk, with a piece of lemon peel, stirring all the time. Let it cool, then stir in the yolks of 4 eggs, and some sugar, stir it over the fire a few minutes, and let it cool again. Then add the whites of 6 eggs, well whipped; put it into a deep and round dish, and bake in a rather slack oven till the _soufflè_ rises; send it to table _instantly_, or it will flatten. _Potato Soufflè_,--Half the quantity of potato flour, as directed for rice flour, and make it the same way. _A Good Soufflè._ Soak 4 or 5 slices of sponge cake in sherry and brandy mixed, and sweetened, cover with a layer of preserves, then pour over a rich boiled custard; beat the whites of 4 eggs to a froth, and lay it over the top to look rough; brown it in a Dutch oven, and serve _directly_, or it will be spoiled. _Orange Soufflè._ Mix a table-spoonful of flour with a pint of cream, put it into a saucepan, with 2 table-spoonsful rose water, some orange and lemon peel; stir till it boils, then strain and sweeten it: when cold add 2 table-spoonsful orange marmalade. Beat 6 eggs, stir in a wine-glassful of brandy, mix with the other ingredients, and put all into a buttered shape; place it in a saucepan of boiling water, over a stove: let the water boil an hour and a quarter without any cover to the shape. _Lemon Soufflè._ Pour ¾ pint of boiling water over 1 oz. isinglass, the juice of 3 lemons, and 5 oz. sifted sugar; when dissolved, {299}boil all together five minutes, pour it into a large bason, when the steam is gone off whisk it till it becomes spongy, then put it in a glass dish. It should be made the day before it is wanted, and requires long whisking. _Omelet Soufflè._ Beat the yolks of 6 eggs, and whip the whites; strain and sweeten the yolks with powdered sugar; add a little grated lemon peel; stir in lightly the whites, and pour the whole into a frying-pan, in which you have just melted a large piece of fresh butter. Cook over a slow fire, but do not let it scorch, and, when done, turn it carefully out, and set it in the oven to rise. _Sweet Omelets._ Mix a table-spoonful of fine flour, or potato flour, in ½ pint of new milk; then whisk together the yolks and whites of 4 eggs, and add to the milk. Put fresh butter enough to fry the omelet into a pan, about ¼ lb., make it hot over a clear fire, and pour in half the mixture; when this is a little set, put 4 table-spoonsful of red currant jelly, or any other preserve, or apple pulp in the centre, and the remainder of the mixture on the top; as soon as the upper portion is fixed, send the dish to table.--_Or_: the omelet being fried, spread the preserve on it, in the pan, and roll it. Apples boiled to a pulp and sweetened, may be used instead of preserve. _Soufflè of Apples._ Pick, wash, and scald 4 oz. whole rice, drain off the water, and put the rice into a quart of new milk, or thin cream, which has been boiled with a bit of cinnamon or lemon peel. Simmer it very slowly till the rice is swelled, (not broken), drain it, and having brushed the edge of the dish with white of egg, place the rice in the form of a high wall round it. Mix with some apple jam, or pulped apples, 2 oz. butter, sugar to taste, and the yolks of 6 eggs; stir this over the fire, a few minutes, to cook the eggs; then stir in by degrees, the whites of 8 or 9 eggs, whipped, put it in the centre of the dish, and bake till it rises sufficiently. {300}_Gooseberry and Apple Fool._ Pick or pare the fruit, put it in a jar, with a tea-cupful of cold water, and a little moist sugar; set the jar in a vessel of boiling water, or on a stove, till the fruit will pulp; press it through a cullender, and when nearly cold, mix in it some good cream, or thin custard. _Orange Fool._ To a pint of cream add the juice of 3 Seville oranges, 3 eggs, nutmeg, cinnamon, and sugar to taste. Set this over a slow fire, and stir till as thick as melted butter; it must not boil; pour it into a dish to be eaten cold. _Stewed Oranges._ Pare 4 sweet oranges, and be careful to remove the white part without breaking the skin; pare 2 lemons very thin, cut the peel in narrow lengths, and boil it in ½ pint water, with ¼ lb. lump sugar, until it becomes a thick syrup, then add the oranges, the juice of 1 lemon, and ¼ lb. lump sugar, and simmer it a quarter of an hour. _Red Apples in Jelly._ Pare and core some fine pippins, and throw them into a pan of cold water, then boil them in a very little water, with some cochineal, and when done, put them in a dish; boil the water with sugar, lemon peel, and a little isinglass, till it jellies; let it cool, scoop it into heaps with a tea-spoon, and lay it amongst the apples. Garnish with rings or straws of lemon peel, and some green sprigs. _Pears to Stew._ After peeling them, cut the pears in halves, take out the cores, and lay the pears, flat side upwards, in a tin saucepan, with sugar to taste, ¼ pint of port wine, water to cover them, and a few cloves; spread the peel over the pears, and stew them gently till tender; the saucepan covered. {301}_Apples to Bake._ Pare and core, but do not divide them, unless very large. Bake them in an earthen dish, with sugar, a little port wine, pounded cloves, and grated lemon peel.--_Or_: pare 16 large apples, and put them with 1 lb. sifted sugar, juice of 1 lemon, and a tea-cupful water, in a large flat dish; cut the rind of the lemon in strips, and put them over the apples; bake in rather a quick oven, and baste from time to time with the syrup. _Excellent._--_Or_: pare fine large apples, scoop out the core, without dividing the fruit, and fill the hole with butter and sugar, bake in a deep dish, and baste frequently. _Also very good._ _Cheesecakes._ Beat the curd of 3 pints of milk quite smooth, mix with it ½ lb. currants, a little pounded cinnamon, and the rind of a lemon, rubbed off with lumps of sugar (add more sugar, as you like), the yolks of 4 eggs, ½ pint scalded cream, and a wine-glassful of brandy. Mix well, and bake in patty-pans, lined with a light puff paste, twenty minutes, in a quick oven.--For _Almond Cheesecakes_, mixed pounded sweet and bitter almonds, instead of currants. _Lemon Cheesecakes._ Boil the peel of one lemon in water, till tender, then pound it in a mortar with ¼ lb. lump sugar, the juice of 2 lemons, and a table-spoonful of brandy; stir in ¼ lb. fresh butter, melted, and 3 eggs; mix well and pour into saucers or patty-pans, lined with a very light paste.--_Or_: to 1 lb. lump sugar (in lumps), add ¼ lb. butter, the yolks of 6 eggs, the whites of 4, the juice of 3 lemons, and the rinds of 2, grated. Simmer over a slow fire till the sugar is dissolved, begins to thicken, and looks like honey. Stir gently one way, or it will curdle. This will keep a long while, closely tied down in a jar, in a cool place.--_Or_: ½ lb. butter, ½ lb. lump sugar, stir over the fire till melted, let it get cold, then add the yolks of 8 eggs, juice of a large lemon, mix it very well, and bake in a crust to turn out.--_Or_: beat 12 eggs, leaving out 4 whites; melt ½ lb. butter in a tea-cupful of cream, stir in ½ lb. sifted sugar, {302}and when cold, stir in the eggs, then the grated rind of 2 lemons, then the juice: stir it over the fire till near boiling, then fill your patty-pans, and put them in the oven, to brown of a light colour. You may add ½ lb. of sweet almonds, blanched and pounded with rose water. _Another Curd Cheesecake._ Beat the curd of 2 quarts new milk, quite smooth, with 4 oz. butter; then mix it with ½ oz. of sweet, and 4 bitter almonds, blanched and pounded with 3 table-spoonsful rose water, add a ¼ lb. lump sugar, the peel of 3 lemons, the yolks of 6 eggs, candied citron cut small, ¼ lb. currants, ½ pint of cream, and a wine-glassful of brandy. Mix well, and bake in patty-pans, lined with thin paste. _Orange Cheesecakes._ Beat ½ lb. sweet almonds with orange flower water, add ½ lb. sugar, 1 lb. butter, melted, and nearly cold, the beaten yolks of 10 and the whites of 4 eggs, beat 2 candied oranges, the peel of a fresh one (the bitterness boiled out), till they are as tender as marmalade, then beat all well together, and bake in little patty-pans, lined. _Apple Cheesecakes._ ½ lb. each, of grated apples, sugar and butter, the juice of 1 lemon, and the rind cut thin, 4 eggs, yolks and whites beaten separately: mix well and bake in lined patty-pans. _Rice Cheesecakes._ Beat the yolks of 6 with the whites of 3 eggs, add 4 oz. sifted ground rice, the same of sugar and melted butter, a wine-glassful brandy, and the grated peel of 1 lemon; mix well and bake in patty-pans, lined with paste. _Lent Potatoes._ Blanch, then pound with a little rose water, 3 oz. of sweet, and 4 or 5 bitter almonds; add 8 oz. butter, 4 eggs beaten and strained, 2 table-spoonsful white wine, {303}and sugar to taste; beat well, grate in 3 savoy biscuits, and make into balls with a very little flour, the size of walnuts; boil in lard of a pale brown, drain and serve with sweet sauce. _Stewed French Plums._ Stew 1½ pound in a pint of Rhenish wine, till tender, then set them by to cool in a glass dish. Some use half Port and half water. _Note._--Those who like to use _Gelatine_ will find directions with the packets, when they buy it. It is useful as a means of taking wine and brandy in the form of jelly, and is quickly prepared, but has little else to recommend it. CHAPTER XXIII. PRESERVES. FRUIT for every sort of preserve, ought to be the best of its kind; ripe enough, but not over ripe; gathered _on_ a dry day, and _after_ a dry day. The sugar of the best quality, and plenty of it, otherwise they are not good, neither will they keep; and much is wasted by boiling up a second time. Long boiling injures the colour of preserves, and they _must_ be boiled too long, if there be not sugar enough. The bags and sieves should be kept delicately clean; wring them out of hot water the moment before you use them. Do not squeeze the bag, or press the fruit much, or the jelly will not be clear; this is not wasteful, for the fruit which is left, and a little fresh added to it, will make jam, or black butter; a very useful preserve. In boiling jams, try a little in a saucer; if the juice runs off as it cools, the jam requires longer boiling. Some persons clarify all the sugar they use, but, for common preserves for private families, good loaf sugar, not clarified, answers the same purpose. After the {304}preserve is poured into the jar, let it stand uncovered two days, then put brandy paper over, and cover with bladders, or paper, tied down close. Keep in a dry place, or they will be musty; but very hot, they will dry up, and be spoiled. _To Clarify Sugar._ Break lump sugar in pieces, and to every pound you put into the preserving-pan, add ¼ pint of water, and to every 2 lbs. sugar, the white of 1 egg, beaten; stir over the fire, till the sugar dissolves. When it boils it will throw up scum; take that off, with a slice, and lay it on a sieve, reversed, over a basin, that the syrup may run off. Pour into the pan the same quantity of cold water as you put in at first, and boil it up gently. Take off the scum, and return into the pan all the syrup which drains from it; keep it gently boiling until no scum rises.--_To Candy Sugar_, boil it till the surface is covered with little clusters, in the form of pearls.--_Moist Sugar_ is clarified in the same way, but requires longer boiling and scumming; it answers for common jams, for immediate use, but they will not keep so long as when made of lump sugar. _Red Currant Jelly._ Strip the currants and put them into an earthen pan or jar, set that in a vessel of boiling water, and keep it boiling till the fruit is all burst; then pass through a jelly bag, but do not squeeze it. When the juice has all run off, put it into a preserving-pan, and to each pint allow 1¼ lb. of lump sugar; less may do, but the jelly will not be so sure to keep. Boil the jelly, rather quickly, from fifteen to twenty minutes, scumming carefully all the time; try a little in a saucer, to see if it be stiff enough, then fill your pots or glasses; leave them uncovered two days; cover brandy papers over, and tie skins over tight. _White Currant Jelly_--The same; but rather less boiling. The sugar must be very fine, to insure delicate clearness for the jelly. _Black Currant Jelly_--The same as red currant jelly. When the juice is put into the preserving-pan, with the sugar, add a very little water. Less sugar _may_ do. But boil it well. {305}_Currant Jam._ When jelly is made, if the bag be not squeezed, the fruit in it will have juice enough for jam; or, if not, put a fourth part of fresh fruit to it, then boil it up, with its weight of sugar, fifteen or twenty minutes. _Raspberry Jam._ Take 4 parts of raspberries and 1 part of red currant juice, boil it fifteen or twenty minutes, with an equal weight of sugar. Skim off the dross, as it rises.--_Or_: use raspberries alone, and no juice.--_Or_: some persons recommend the _Antwerp_, they are so juicy as to require boiling by themselves until nearly dry; then add 1 lb. fine lump sugar to 1 quart fruit, then boil again fifteen minutes, and no more, or the colour will be injured. _Strawberry Jam._ Gather fine scarlet strawberries, just ripe, bruise, and put them into a preserving-pan, with about a fifth part of red currant juice; strew over nearly their weight of sifted lump sugar, and boil quickly fifteen minutes. _Gooseberry Jam._ This may be made of gooseberries only, in the same manner as directed for currant jam, or of a mixture of red or black currants and gooseberries. _Green Gooseberry Jam._ First crack them in a mortar, put them into a preserving-pan with ¾ lb. lump sugar, to 1 lb. fruit, and boil till it begins to look clear. A nice preserve for tartlets. _Damson Jam._ Boil 1 lb. sugar to 1 lb. fruit, till the juice adheres to the fruit. For _open tarts_. _Rhubarb Jam._ Boil an equal quantity of rhubarb, cut in pieces, and {306}gooseberries, before they are quite ripe, with ¾ lb. loaf sugar to 1 lb. of fruit. Well boiled, it forms a rich jam, similar to apricot. _Or_: boil 6 lbs. fruit cut in square pieces, 6 lbs. lump sugar, and let it stand a few hours, to draw out the juice, boil the juice three different times, and pour over the rhubarb. _Black Butter._ A very nice preserve to spread on bread, and is a mixture of currants, gooseberries, cherries, raspberries, or strawberries. To every 2 lbs. fruit, put 1 lb. sugar, and boil it till reduced one-fourth. _Fruit for Puddings._ Pare apples, pears, plums, and any fruit you have, and put them in a stone jar with brown sugar, to sweeten. Place the jar in a cool oven till the fruit is cooked. _To preserve Damsons, Bullaces, Morella Cherries, Gooseberries, and Currants, for Winter use._ All these fruits may be put into wide-mouthed bottles, with about 6 oz. Lisbon sugar to each; put corks lightly in, and set them in a vessel of cold water, and then let it boil very gently till the syrup rises over the fruit; when the fruit is cold, make the corks tight, dip them in rosin, and tie bladders over. _To Bottle Green Gooseberries and Currants._ The same as the last receipt, only without sugar. Let them remain in the water till the fruit begins to shrivel; take them out, and when the fruit is cold, cork the bottles tight, and dip them in melted rosin. The rough sort is best. _To Bottle Raspberries._ Mix an equal weight of crushed fruit and powdered loaf sugar, put them into wine-bottles, cork tight, and rosin the corks. {307}_Damsons for Tarts._ Gather damsons quite dry, put them into large stone jars, having pricked them with a pin, tie bladders over, and put the jars into a vessel of cold water; set that over the fire, and let it simmer (not boil) for two hours, or till you see the damsons begin to sink (the water should reach nearly to the top of the jars), then wipe the jars, and put them away in a dry place.--_Or_: choose jars to hold 8 or 9 lbs., of equal size at top and bottom; put in each jar one fourth of the fruit, then a fourth of good moist sugar (allow 3 lbs. sugar to 9 lbs. fruit), then another layer of fruit, and so on, till the jar is full; put it in an oven just hot enough to bake it through. When household bread is drawn the oven is generally hot enough for this purpose, and the jars may remain in all night. When the fruit is cold, put a clean stick, a little forked at one end, into the middle of the jar, leaving the forked end a little above the top; put a piece of white paper over the fruit (which ought to reach the neck of the jar), then run melted mutton suet over it, of an inch thick, and keep the jar in a cool place. When you open it, lift up the covering of suet by the stick. _Apricots for Tarts._ Cut the apricots in two, but do not pare them, take out the stones, and to every pound of fruit put 1 lb. lump sugar, pounded. Let them stand all night, then stew them gently over a slow fire till tender; skim them, as they simmer, till they are quite clear. Put them in pots, and when quite cold, cover with silver papers dipped in brandy, and tie down close. _Apple Marmalade._ Pare and core the apples, leave them in a cool oven all night; the next day boil them up gently with an equal quantity of sugar, a little lemon peel and pounded cinnamon. _Apple Jelly._ Take the blossoms and stalks out of 6 lbs. ripe apples, but do not pare them; put them into a stew-pan with {308}scarcely enough water to cover them, cover close, and stew them to a pulp, pour it into a cloth, and hang that up to drain, but do not squeeze it. To a quart of juice allow 1½ lb. lump sugar, boil gently to the consistency of other jelly, and before it is quite done add the juice of 2 lemons.--_Or_: pare and core your apples as if for pies, put them in the oven till quite soft, then squeeze them through thin muslin: to every pint add 1 lb. of lump sugar, half a wine-glassful of white wine, and a tea-spoonful of brandy, with the rind of a lemon; boil twenty minutes, or till it sets. _Peach, Apricot, or Plum Marmalade._ Skin the fruit, take out the stones, and mash it in a bowl; put an equal weight of fruit and sugar into a preserving-pan, boil it fifteen minutes, taking off all the scum. The kernels may be bruised and added. _Quince Marmalade._ Cut the fruit in quarters, and to 5 lbs. weight, and 3 lbs. sugar, add a pint of water; cover a piece of white paper over to keep in the steam, and simmer gently three hours; then beat them up to a jam, add ½ lb. more sugar, and simmer the jam another half hour.--_Or_: take the parings and cores of 2 lbs. quinces, cover them with water, and let it boil well; add 2 lbs. sugar, and when that is dissolved in the liquor, set it over a slow fire, and let it boil till it becomes a thick syrup; but the scum must be taken off as it rises. Let it get cold, then put in the quinces, with a little cochineal, and set it over a slow fire; stir and beat with a pewter spoon till it is done. _Quince Jelly._ Weigh them and measure 1 pint of water to 1 lb. fruit; pare the quinces as quickly as possible, as they are done, throw them into the water, then simmer gently until they are a little broken, but not long enough to redden the liquid, which should be very pale. Turn the whole into a jelly bag, and let it drain without pressure. Weigh the juice and boil it quickly 20 minutes, take it from the fire and stir in till dissolved, ¾ lb. lump sugar to each pound of juice, or {309}rather more, if the fruit be very acid; then boil gently from ten to twenty minutes, or until it jellies strongly in falling from the skimmer, but stir it all the while, and take off all the scum as it rises. Pour it into glasses or moulds: it ought to be firm enough to turn out of the latter, and be rich and transparent. _Damson and Bullace Cheese._ Put the fruit into a stone jar, cover it, and set it on a hot hearth, or in an oven, and let it coddle for about six hours, stirring it now and then. Pulp the damsons through a sieve, add ½ lb. lump sugar to every 2 lbs. of fruit, and some of the kernels, blanched, and beaten in a mortar. Put it all in a stew-pan, and boil very gently for two or three hours (it can hardly boil too long, as boiling makes it firm), skimming carefully all the time. Some persons boil it only one hour; it is clearer, but less firm. Some add a very few bitter almonds, blanched and cut small. _Apricot Cheese._ Pare, then boil them with their weight of sugar, previously melted with a very little water; as the fruit breaks, take out the stones, blanch and pound the kernels, and put them to the fruit. Let the apricots boil, not more than half an hour. Pour the cheese into shapes. _Orange Cheese._ Scrape off the outward rind of Seville oranges, take out the pulp and skin, boil the peel tender, in water, beat it in a marble mortar to a pulp, add its weight of loaf sugar (already dissolved in the juice), and boil it quickly an hour; when done pour it into moulds, or on plates, to cut in shapes. Keep it in a dry place. _Pine Apple to Preserve._ Pare off the rind, and divide the pine apple into rather thick slices; boil the rind in ½ pint water, with 1 lb. loaf sugar in powder, and the juice of a lemon, twenty minutes. Strain this liquor, and boil the slices in it for half an hour; {310}next day pour off the syrup, and boil it, taking care to scum as it rises, and pour it hot over the fruit; tie down the jar with a bladder, brandied paper being over the preserve. _Cucumbers to Preserve._ Choose the greenest and most free from seeds, some small, to preserve whole, others large, to cut in long slices. Put them in strong salt and water, cover with vine leaves, and set them in a warm place till yellow; then wash, and set them over the fire, in fresh water, with a little salt and fresh vine leaves; cover the pan close, but take care the fruit does not boil. If they are not of a fine green, change the water, and that will help to green them; cover as before, and make them hot. When of a good colour, take them off the fire and let them get cold; then cut the large ones into quarters, take out the seeds and soft parts, put them into cold water, for two days, but change the water twice every day to take out the salt. Boil 1 lb. loaf sugar, and ½ pint of water, scum well, add the rind of a lemon, and 4 oz. scraped ginger. When the syrup is very thick, take it off the fire, and when cold, wipe the cucumbers dry, and put them in. The syrup should be boiled once in two or three days, for a fortnight, and you may add more to it if necessary. When you pour the syrup upon the cucumbers, be sure that it is cold. Cover close and keep in a dry place. _Strawberries to Preserve whole._ Choose fine scarlets, not over ripe; have their weight in sifted sugar, and sprinkle _half_ over the fruit, and let it stand all night. Next day simmer it gently with the rest of the sugar, and 1 pint of currant juice, to 1 lb. of fruit, till it jellies. _Raspberries whole._ Gather them on a dry day, after a dry night. To 1 lb. fruit, ¾ lb. sugar; put these in alternate layers in a preserving-pan, and keep shaking till it boils, then boil ten minutes, taking off all the scum. When cold, cover with brandy papers and bladders. {311}_Strawberries in Wine._ Fill a wide mouthed bottle three parts full of strawberries gathered quite dry, strewing amongst them 4 table-spoonsful of finely pounded sugar; fill up with fine old sherry, and cork it close. _Red Gooseberries whole._ They must be just ripe, but no more. Clip off the top of each berry, make a little slit in the side, with a needle, that the sugar may penetrate, and take an equal weight of fruit and of sugar: boil them together, very gently, scum well, and when the skins begin to look transparent, take out the fruit, with a skimmer, and put it into jars or glasses; boil the syrup till it jellies, then strain, and pour it over the fruit. _Morella Cherries._ Cut off the stalks, and prick the fruit with a needle, boil a fourth more than its weight of sugar, about five minutes, with ¼ pint of red or white currant jelly; then put in the cherries, and simmer gently till they look bright. Some take out the stones. _Cherries en Chemise._ Cut off half the stalk of large ripe cherries; roll them, one by one, in beaten white of egg, and then lightly in sifted sugar. Spread a sheet of thin white paper on a sieve reversed, and place that on a stove, spread the fruit on the paper, and send them from the stove to table. Bunches of currants, or strawberries, in the same way. _Cherries in Syrup._ Take out the stones, put the fruit into a preserving-pan, with 2 lbs. lump sugar to 6 lbs. fruit, let it come slowly to a boil, set it by till next day, boil up again, repeat this the third day, when they will begin to look bright and plump; then pot them in the syrup. {312}_To dry Apricots._ Pare thin, then cut in half, 4 lbs. of apricots, weighed after they are pared, and add 3 lbs. sifted sugar. When the sugar is nearly all melted, put it into a pan, and simmer it very gently over a slow fire; as each piece becomes tender lift it out into a china bowl, and when all are done, let the syrup cool a little, then pour it over the fruit. In two days pour out the syrup, leaving only a little in each half. Keep the apricots in a sunny place, and turn them every day, till quite dry. Keep in boxes, between layers of paper. _Dried Cherries._ To every 6 lbs. cherries, stoned, allow 1 lb. lump sugar. Scald the fruit in a preserving-pan, with very little water, then take it out, dry it: put it into the pan, with the sugar powdered, and put it over the fire to get scalding hot, then set it aside to get cold, put it on the fire again, and repeat this a third time, then drain them from the syrup, and lay them singly to dry on dishes, in the sun, or on a stove. Keep in boxes, between layers of white paper. _Orange Chips._ Cut oranges in halves, squeeze the juice through a sieve; cut the peel off very thin, and steep it a night in water, and the next day boil it till tender in the same water. Then cut the peel in strips and put them with the juice, in an earthen pan, with an equal weight of lump sugar, set it high over a moderate fire or stove, till the chips candy, stirring frequently; then spread them out in a cool room for a fortnight, to dry. _Orange Marmalade._ Get the clearest Seville oranges you can; cut them in 2, scoop out all the pulp and juice into a basin, and pick out the seeds and skins. Boil the rinds in spring water, changing that two or three times, to take off their bitterness: if for smooth marmalade, heat the rinds in a marble mortar, if for thick marmalade cut the rinds in thin pieces, {313}add it to the juice and pulp, put it all into a preserving-pan, with double the weight of lump sugar, boil it over a fire, rather more than half an hour. Put it into pots, cover with brandy papers, and tie down close.--_Or_: put 6 Seville oranges into a scale, and weigh their weight, and half their weight again, of lump sugar: to every lb. of fruit measure a wine-pint of cold spring water. Cut the fruit in quarters, remove the pips, and throw them into the water; then cut the oranges in slices on plates, so as not to lose any part of the juice or pulp, then take the pips out of the water, put all the fruit, juice, and sugar in, and boil it gently an hour, or until it is sufficiently consistent. Put by in pots. Both these are good receipts. _Oranges to Preserve._ Cut a hole at the stalk end, and scoop out the pulp, tie each one in muslin, and lay them in cold spring water, to cover them, for two days, changing the water twice a day; then boil them in the last water, till tender. Take the oranges out of the liquor and allow 2 lbs. of the best lump sugar, and 1 pint of water, to every lb. of fruit, and put it into the liquor; boil and scum till it is a clear syrup, let it cool, then put in the oranges, and boil them gently half an hour. Boil the syrup every day, for a week, or till it looks clear.--_Or_: grate the oranges, put them in water, change it twice a day, then boil gently, till tender, and put them in cold water again, for two or three hours. Cut a small piece off the top, take out the seeds, and to every orange allow ½ lb. of lump sugar, strew it over them in a preserving-pan, without any water, and set that over a gentle fire, turning the oranges occasionally: when clear, lift them out, put them into little pots, boil up the syrup, and pour it hot over the oranges. If the oranges do not look clear, boil them half an hour, for two or three days: then boil the syrup by itself, or make a fresh one thus: pare and core some green apples, and boil them to make the water taste strong; do not stir the apples, only put them down, with the back of a spoon; strain the water till quite clear, and to every pint put 1 lb. double refined sugar, and the juice of a lemon strained, boil it to a strong jelly, drain the oranges out of the syrup, each one in a {314}jar the size of an orange, the hole upwards, and pour the jelly over. Cover with brandy papers, and bladders. Do _lemons_ the same way.--_Or_: pare the oranges, tie them separately in cloths, boil them in water till tender, that a straw may pass through them: cut a hole in the stalk end, take out the seeds, but not the pulp. Make a syrup of sweet oranges, lemons, and sugar, and when clear, put in the oranges. _Apricots, Peaches, Magnum Bonum Plums, and Greengages._ Pare and stone the finest fruit, not over ripe, and weigh rather more than their weight of lump sugar. Spread the fruit in a dish, the split part upwards, strew the sugar over, and let them stand all night. Break the stones, blanch the kernels, and simmer the whole gently, till the fruit looks transparent: scum well, lift the fruit out carefully into pots, pour the syrup over, and, when quite cold, cover close. _To Preserve Green Apricots._ Spread vine or apricot leaves at the bottom of the pan, then fruit, then leaves, till the pan be full, but the upper layer thick of leaves, fill up with water, and cover quite close, to keep the steam in. Keep the pan at such a distance from the fire, that in four or five hours, the fruit may be soft, not cracked. Make a thin syrup of sugar and some of the water, and drain the fruit; when both are cold, put the fruit and syrup back into the pan, no leaves, and keep it over the fire till the apricots are green, but they must not boil or crack; repeat this for two or three days: then pour off as much of the syrup as you think necessary, and boil it with more sugar and some sliced ginger to make a rich syrup; when this is cold, drain the apricots, and pour it over them. What there is left of the _thin_ syrup will be useful to sweeten fruit tarts. _Orlean Plums._ An equal quantity of sugar and of plums. The fruit gathered before it is quite ripe. Put it into a pan with {315}cold water, simmer it till the skins appear to crack, so that you may peel them off. Have ready, a thin clear syrup made of 1 lb. sugar, and a gill of water, put in the plums, give them a gentle boil, and put them by in a basin, till the next day; if they then appear done enough, drain them from the syrup, if not, boil again, and remain till the following day; then drain them, add the remainder of the sugar to the syrup, boil it till rich, and quite clear; put the plums into jars, pour the syrup over, leave them open till the next day, then put brandy papers over, and over them run mutton suet. _Jargonelle Pears._ Pare smoothly and thinly, some large, well shaped pears. Simmer in a thin syrup, and let them lie two days. Then pour off the syrup, add more sugar: simmer and scum it; then put the pears in, simmer till they look transparent, lift them out into pots, pour the syrup over, and tie closely. Rather more than the weight of fruit in sugar. A grain of pounded cochineal may be put in the syrup; lemon juice is an improvement. _Quinces._ Pare the quinces very thin, and put them into a stew-pan; cover with their parings, and fill the saucepan with hard water, set it over a slow fire, and keep the lid close that the steam may not escape; when the fruit is tender take it out, and put to it 1 quart of water, 2½ lbs. lump sugar, to make a clear syrup: put in the quinces, boil them ten or twelve minutes, and set them by, for four or five hours; then boil again five or six minutes, take them off the fire, and set them by two days: boil again, ten minutes, with the juice of 2 lemons. Let the quinces be quite cold, put them into broad pans, singly, and pour the syrup over. Cover with brandy papers, and skins over the whole.--_Or_: cut them in quarters, and to 5 lbs. fruit, put 3 lbs. sugar, and ½ pint water; lay a piece of white paper over, to keep in the steam, and let them simmer gently, three hours. Fruit _pastes_ are made by boiling the fruit with clarified sugar to a thick marmalade; moulded into thin cakes, and dried in a stove. {316}_To Candy Fruit._ Put fruit, finished in syrup, in a layer, in a new sieve, and dip it quickly into hot water; spread it on a napkin before the fire to drain, and do more in the sieve; sift double refined sugar over the fruit, till white all over. Spread it on the shallow ends of sieves to dry in a _warm_ oven, turning it two or three times. Do not let it get cold before it is dry. Watch it carefully. _Almacks._ 1 lb. each of baking pears, apples, apricots, and plums; slice the two first, and open the others, put them, in alternate layers, in an earthen jar, in a slow oven. When the fruit is soft, squeeze it through a cullender, put to it 1 lb. lump sugar, and simmer gently, stirring all the while, till it leaves the pan clear, then put it in small moulds, or drop it in little cakes; when cold, put them by. _Peaches, Apricots, and Plums in Brandy._ Gather peaches before they are quite ripe, prick them with a needle, and rub off the down with a piece of flannel. Pass a quill carefully round the stone to loosen it. Put them into a large preserving-pan, with cold water, rather more than enough to cover them, and let it gradually become scalding hot. If the water does more than simmer very gently, or the fire be fierce, the fruit may crack. When tender, lift them carefully out, and fold them in flannel, or a soft table cloth, in several folds. Have ready a quart, or more, as the peaches require, of the best brandy, and dissolve in it 10 oz. of powdered sugar. When cool, put them into a glass jar, and pour the brandy and sugar over. Cover with leather, or a bladder. _Cherries in Brandy._ Gather morella cherries on a dry day, when quite ripe; cut off _half_ the stalk, and put them into wide mouthed bottles, strewing layers of finely pounded sugar between. Allow to each bottle half the weight of the fruit in sugar. {317}When the fruit reaches the neck of the bottle, fill up with brandy; cork and rosin it tight. _Grapes in Brandy._ Put some close bunches, of any sort, into a jar (having pricked each grape), strew a good quantity of pounded sugar candy over them, and fill up the jar with brandy. Tie a bladder over, and keep in a cool place. _Barberries for Tartlets._ Pick barberries without stones, from their stalks, and put them into a stone jar, in a kettle of water, or on a hot hearth, and simmer very slowly till the fruit is soft: then put it into a pan with ¾ lb. lump sugar to 1 lb. barberries, and boil slowly for fifteen minutes. Use no metal but silver. _Barberries in Bunches._ Tie the stalks of the fruit on little flat pieces of wood, 3 inches long, a ¼ inch wide. Simmer these in syrup two successive days, and when cold, cover them with the syrup. On the third day candy them. (See to candy fruit.) {318}CHAPTER XXIV. PICKLES. THE great art of pickling consists in using good vinegar, and in selecting the various articles, at the proper seasons.--Pickles are indigestible, but their liquor is good to give relish to cold meat, therefore the strongest vinegar should be used, because a less quantity will suffice. They should be kept in a dry place, and glass jars are best, because then it is easy to perceive whether the vinegar diminishes, and if it does, more should be boiled with spice, and poured over the pickles. Fill the jars 3 parts full with the pickles, but always let there be 3 inches above their surface of vinegar. If earthenware jars are used, let them be unglazed; and vinegar should always be boiled in unglazed earthenware; indeed, it ought never to _boil_ at all, but be just scalding hot, for boiling causes much of the strength to evaporate. Keep the bottles closely stopped, with bungs, and a bladder, wetted in the pickle. When you have opened a bottle, cork it again, put a fresh bladder over, if you wish the pickles to keep. When the pickles are all used, the vinegar should be boiled up with a little more spice, and bottled when cold. The colour of pickles is a matter of no small difficulty, though of the greatest consequence, when used by way of ornament. A fine colour is sometimes preserved by keeping pickles a long time in scalding hot vinegar, the vessel being covered. When a bottle of capers or pickles is opened, it should be kept filled, by fresh boiled vinegar. Artichokes are in season in July and August. Cauliflowers, in July and August. Capsicum pods, end of July and beginning of August. Cucumbers, the end of July to the end of August. French beans, July. {319}Mushrooms, September. Nasturtium pods, middle of July. Onions from the middle to the end of July. Radish pods, July. Red cabbage, August. Samphire, August. Tomatas, the end of July to the end of August. _Walnuts._ Make a strong brine of salt and water, about ¼ lb. salt to a quart of water, and steep the walnuts in it a week, previously pricking them with a large needle; then put them, with the brine, into a stew-pan, gently simmer them, pour off the liquor, lay the walnuts on a sieve to drain in the air two days, to turn them black. Have ready made a pickle of strong vinegar; add to each quart 1 oz. ginger, 1 oz. strong pepper, 1 oz. eschalots, 1 oz. salt, ½ oz. allspice, and ½ a drachm of cayenne (some persons add garlic, brown mustard-seed, bay leaves, cloves, mace, chopped chilies, and horse-radish); put all into a stone jar, tie over a bladder wetted with vinegar, and over that a leather; keep it close by the side of the fire two days and nights; shake it frequently. Put the walnuts into jars, and pour the pickle hot over them; when cold, put in bungs, and tie wetted bladder over. _Walnuts, Green._ The best time is while the shells are still tender, and before they are quite ripe. Lay them in a strong brine of salt and water for ten days, changing the brine twice during that time; put in a thin board to float over, that the air may not get to them and turn them black; then pour the brine from the walnuts, and run a large needle several times through each one; lay some vine leaves at the bottom of an earthen pan, put in the walnuts, and cover with more leaves, fill up the vessel with water, and put it on the fire till scalding hot; then pour off the water, put fresh in, let that become hot, pour it off, and repeat this once again; scrape off the husks, rub the walnuts smooth with flannel, and throw them into a vessel of hot water. Boil, three minutes, a quart of vinegar for every 50 walnuts, with {320}white pepper, salt, ginger, cloves, and cayenne (in the proportion of the last receipt), and after rubbing the walnuts, dry them out of the water, and pour the vinegar over them. _Gherkins._ The best are about 4 inches long, and 1 inch in diameter. Put them into unglazed jars, or open pans, and pour salt and water over (¼ lb. salt to a quart of water), cover, and set them by the side, when not convenient for them to stand before the fire; in two or three days they will be yellow; pour off the water, and cover them with scalding hot vinegar: set them again before the fire, and keep them of an equal heat, if possible, for ten days, and they will become green; then pour off the vinegar, and have ready to pour over the gherkins (in jars), the same pickle as that for walnuts, leaving out the eschalots if you choose. The vinegar poured from the gherkins should be bottled, for it will be good cucumber vinegar. _Onions._ Take off the tops and coats of small round silver button onions, the size of a nutmeg, and put them into a stew-pan three parts full of boiling water; put no more at once than just enough to cover the top of the water. As soon as the onions look transparent, take them up in a sieve, lay them on a folded cloth, whilst you scald the remainder. Make them quite dry with these cloths, then fill the jars three parts full, and pour over them the following pickle, quite hot: to a quart of strong vinegar put 1 oz. allspice, 1 oz. ginger, 1 oz. mace, 1 oz. scraped horse-radish, 1 oz. black pepper, and 1 oz. salt; infuse it by the fire three or four days; when the pickle and the onions are cold, bung the jars, and cover them, first with bladder wetted in vinegar, then with leather.--_Or_: put the onions into salt and water, change that every day for three days, then put them in a stew-pan with cold milk and water, let that stand over a fire till _near_ to a boil, take out the onions, dry, and put them into jars, and pour a pickle over of good vinegar, salt, mace, and pepper, boiled and become cold. {321}_Cucumbers and Onions._ Boil in 3 pints of vinegar ¼ lb. flour of mustard, mixed as for table use; let it get cold; slice 12 large cucumbers, and ½ gallon large onions; put them into jars with 2 oz. ginger, ½ oz. white pepper, and a small quantity of mace and cloves, and pour the vinegar, cold, over them. _Red Cabbage._ Cut out the stalk, and divide a firm, dark coloured middling sized cabbage, then cut in slices the breadth of straws; sprinkle salt over, and let it lie two days; then drain the slices very dry; fill the jar, 3 parts full, and pour a hot pickle over them, of strong vinegar, heated with black pepper, ginger, and allspice. Cover the jar to keep the steam in, and when the pickle is cold, put in bungs, and tie bladders over. _Melon Mangoes._ Cut a small square piece out of one side, and take out the seeds; fill them with brown mustard seeds, garlic, eschalot, scraped horse-radish, ripe capsicums, and a little finely pounded ginger: stuff the melons as full as the space will allow, replace the square piece, and bind them up tightly with thread. Boil a gallon of white wine vinegar, with ¼ oz. mace, ¼ oz. cloves, ½ oz. ginger, ½ oz. black and long pepper, and ½ oz. cayenne; as it is coming to a boil, pour in a wine-glassful of essence of horse-radish, and of garlic vinegar. _Beet Root._ Boil them very gently from an hour and a half to two hours, or till 3 parts done; take them out of the water to cool; peel and cut them in slices about half an inch thick. Prepare a pickle of good vinegar, and to each quart 1 oz. black pepper, ½ oz. salt, ½ oz. horse-radish, ½ oz. ginger, and a little cayenne; infuse these by the fire three days, and let the pickle be cold before you pour it over the beet-root. {322}_Mushrooms._ Take the red inside out of the large ones, and rub both large and small, with a piece of flannel and salt; put them into a stew-pan, with a little mace and pepper, and strew salt over; keep them over a slow fire, till the liquor which will be drawn, dries up again; shake the stew-pan often; then pour over as much vinegar as will cover them, let it become hot, but not boil, and put all into a jar.--_Or_: boil buttons in milk and water till rather tender, put them into a cullender, and pump cold water on them till they are cold; put them into salt and water, for twenty-four hours, then dry them in a cloth. Make a pickle of distilled vinegar, mace, and ginger, if to be _white_, if not, white wine vinegar. It must be cold before you pour it over the pickle. _India Pickle._ Put into a jar a gallon of white wine vinegar, 1 lb. sliced ginger, ½ oz. turmeric bruised, ½ lb. flour of mustard, ½ lb. salt, 1 oz. long pepper, bruised; peel ½ lb. garlic, lay it on a sieve, sprinkle it with salt, let it stand in the sun, or before the fire, three days to dry, then put it into the vinegar. Place the jar by the side of the fire, cover close, and let it remain three days, shake it every day, and it will be ready to receive the vegetables.--_Or_: boil in a gallon of vinegar, ten minutes, 2 oz. black and white peppercorns, 2 oz. flour of mustard, 2 oz. turmeric, and 2 oz. ginger, 1 oz. of the best cayenne, and a good quantity of young horse-radish: (you may add ½ oz. more turmeric, and 2 oz. white mustard seed), add curry powder and eschalots.--_Or_: to a gallon of the strongest vinegar allow 3 oz. curry powder, the same of flour of mustard, rub these together with ½ pint of olive oil, 3 oz. ginger bruised, 1 oz. turmeric, and ½ lb. of eschalots, and 2 oz. garlic (both these sliced and slightly baked in the Dutch oven), ¼ lb. salt, and 2 drachms cayenne; put it all into a jar, cover with bladder wetted in the vinegar, and keep it by the side of the fire three days, shake it several times during each day, and it will be ready to receive the vegetables. Great care is required, to prepare the vegetables; they should be gathered, as they come in season, on a dry day. {323}Parboil in salt and water strong enough to bear an egg, then drain and spread them in the sun, before the fire, or on a stove, to dry; this will occupy two days; then put them into the pickle. The vegetables are, large cucumbers sliced, gherkins, large onions sliced, small onions, cauliflowers, and brocoli in branches, celery, French beans, nasturtiums, capsicums, white turnip radishes, coddling apples, siberian crabs, green peaches, a large carrot in slices, nicked round the edges, and a white cabbage cut up; neither red cabbage nor walnuts. Small green melons are good; cut a slit to take out the seeds, parboil the melons in salt and water, drain and dry, then fill them with mustard seed, and 2 or 3 cloves, tie round, and put them into the pickle.--Some persons boil it up after the vegetables are in. These receipts are all good. _Lemons._ Cut them across, about half way through, and put 1½ tea-spoonful of salt into each one, let them lie in a deep dish five or six days; to each lemon add 1½ nutmeg, grated, 1 table-spoonful of black mustard seed, and a little mace; boil till tender, in vinegar to cover them, then put them by. Keep the jar filled with vinegar.--_Or_: cut the lemons in 4 parts, but not through, fill with fine salt, put them in layers in a jar, and sprinkle fine salt over each layer. Examine and turn them, every five or six days, and in six weeks they will be ready. If dry, add lemon juice to them.--_Or_: grate the rind of 8 lemons, rub well with salt, and turn them every day for a week: put them into a jar with 2 oz. race ginger, a large stick of horse-radish sliced, 2 tea-spoonsful flour of mustard, 3 of cayenne, 1 oz. turmeric, and vinegar enough to cover them. Put more vinegar if required. _Cauliflower_ and _brocoli_ before they are quite ripe, may be picked in neat branches, and pickled, the same way as _gherkins_; also _French beans_, nasturtiums and radish pods, in the same way. {324}CHAPTER XXV. VINEGARS. VINEGAR is seldom made at home, and as the best is made from wine only, it is scarcely worth the trouble, for, for every purpose, the best vinegar is the cheapest. _Gooseberry Vinegar._ To every quart of bruised ripe gooseberries, put 3 quarts of spring water, stir well, and steep them eight and forty hours; then strain into a barrel, and to every gallon of liquor, put 2 lbs. white pounded sugar, and a toast soaked in yeast. Put it in the sun in summer, and by the fire in winter, for six months, without stopping the bung hole, but keep it always covered with a plate. White currants, stripped, in the same way.--_Or_: boil 1 lb. coarse brown sugar in a gallon of water, a quarter of an hour, scumming well; put it in a pan; when nearly cold put in a thick slice of toasted bread spread with yeast: let it work twenty-four hours, put it in a cask or jar, and place that in the sun, or near the fire. You may add some ripe gooseberries, bruised. _Good Common Vinegar._ To every gallon of water, put 2 lbs. coarse sugar, boil and skim. Put it in a pan or tub, and when sufficiently cold add a slice of toast, spread on both sides with fresh yeast. Let it stand a week, then barrel, and set it in the sun or by the fire, for six months. _Cider Vinegar._ To every gallon of cider, put 1 lb. white sugar, shake well, and let it ferment, four months. {325}_Vinegar of Wine Lees._ Boil the lees half an hour, during which, skim well. Pour it into a cask, with a bunch of chervil. Stop the cask close, and in a month it will be ready. _Cayenne Vinegar._ Put into a quart of the best vinegar, 10 oz. cayenne, 1 oz. salt, 1 oz. cloves, 1 oz. garlic broken, and 2 grains cochineal bruised; shake it every day, for a fortnight. _Chili Vinegar._ Put 100 fresh gathered red chilies into a quart of the best white wine vinegar; infuse them, ten days, shaking the bottle every other day. ½ an ounce of really good cayenne will answer the purpose of the chilies.--A spoonful or two in melted butter, for fish sauce. _Chili Wine._--The same way as the last, using sherry, or brandy, instead of vinegar. A fine flavouring ingredient. _Eschalot Vinegar or Wine._ Infuse in a pint of vinegar, 1 oz. eschalots, peeled and sliced, a little scraped horse-radish, and 2 tea-spoonsful cayenne: shake the jar or bottle, once a day for three weeks, then strain and bottle the liquor. _Wine._--Very good for flavouring made dishes: peel, mince and pound in a mortar, 3 oz. eschalots and steep them in a pint of sherry ten days, pour off the liquor and put in 3 oz. fresh eschalots, and let it stand again ten days, then pour off and bottle it. _Tarragon Vinegar._ Pick the leaves on a dry day, about Midsummer, make them perfectly dry before the fire, then put them into a wide-mouthed bottle or jar, and pour in vinegar to cover them; steep them fourteen days, then strain through a flannel jelly bag, into half pint bottles; cork carefully, and keep in a dry place. {326}_Vinegar for Salads._ Take of chives, savory, tarragon, and eschalots, each 3 oz., of balm and mint tops, a handful each. Dry, pound, and put them into a wide mouthed bottle or jar, with a gallon of the best vinegar, and cork close. Set it in the sun, for a fortnight, strain it, squeeze the herbs; let it stand a day, then strain and bottle it. _Garlic Vinegar._ Peel and bruise 2 oz. garlic, infuse it in a quart of vinegar, three weeks. Strain and bottle it. A few drops to a pint of gravy; a very slight flavour is approved of by some, which by others, is considered highly offensive. _Green Mint Vinegar._ Fill a wide mouthed bottle with the green leaves, cover with vinegar and steep them a week; pour off the vinegar, put in fresh leaves, let it stand another week, then bottle it. _Horse-radish Vinegar._ Prepare this about November. Scrape 3 oz., also 2 oz. eschalots, and 1 drachm of cayenne, pour on them a quart of vinegar, and let it stand a week, then strain, and it is ready. _Camp Vinegar._ Put into a pint of the best vinegar, 1 drachm of cayenne, 3 table-spoonsful soy, 4 table-spoonsful walnut catsup, a small clove of garlic, minced fine, and 4 anchovies chopped. Steep a month, shake it every other day, strain it, pour it into pint or ½ pint bottles. _Cucumber Vinegar._ Pare 8 or 10 large cucumbers, cut in thin slices, and put them into a china bowl, with 2 onions sliced, a few eschalots, a little salt, white pepper, and cayenne. Boil a quart of {327}vinegar, let it cool, then pour it into the bowl; cover close, let it stand three days, and bottle it. _Basil Wine._ About the end of August fill a wide mouthed bottle with fresh leaves of basil, cover with sherry and infuse them ten days; strain and put in fresh leaves, infuse another ten days, then pour off, and bottle it. A table-spoonful to a tureen of mock turtle, just before it is served. _Raspberry Vinegar._ This, besides being a nice sauce for batter and other light puddings, is good with water, as a summer drink, also for colds, sore throat or fever. It will not be good unless made with fresh fruit; and the finer the sugar, the clearer the syrup.--To 1 quart of fruit add 1 pint of vinegar (cold); cover close for twenty-four hours; pour off the liquor, and put to it a quart of fresh fruit, cover close and let it again stand for twenty-four hours; repeat this for the third time. Then boil up the vinegar, with a lb. of lump sugar to each pint, until it becomes a syrup. {328}CHAPTER XXVI. ESSENCES. SOME of the following are useful in culinary, others in medicinal compounds, and some in both. _Essence of Ginger._ Put 3 oz. fresh grated ginger, and 1 oz. thinly cut lemon peel into a quart of brandy, let it stand ten days, and shake it every day.--_Essence of Allspice_--Oil of pimento, 1 drachm, strong spirits of wine, 2 oz., mix them by degrees; a few drops will flavour a pint of gravy or wine.--_Essence of Nutmeg, Clove, or Mace_--Put 1 drachm of either into 2 oz. of the strongest spirit of wine. A few drops will be sufficient.--_Essence of Cinnamon_--2 oz. spirits of wine, and 1 drachm of oil of cinnamon. _Essence of Savoury Spice._ 1 oz. black pepper, ½ oz. allspice finely pounded, ¼ oz. grated nutmeg, infused in a pint of brandy ten days. _Essence of Cayenne._ Steep 1 oz. good cayenne in 1 pint of brandy, or spirits of wine, a fortnight, then strain and bottle it, for use. _Essence of Seville Orange and Lemon Peel._ Rub lump sugar on the lemon or orange, till quite saturated with the rind, then scrape the sugar so saturated into the jar you keep it in, rub the rind again, and so on, till you have enough, press the sugar down close, and keep it for use. This imparts a very nice flavour to custards and puddings. Tincture of lemon peel is made by paring the peel, and steeping it in brandy. {329}CHAPTER XXVII. CATSUPS. THESE should be made at home, as well as pickles. A small quantity of catsup every year is sufficient, and very little time and trouble will provide it. It should be put into small bottles (filled to the neck), for when a cork is once drawn, catsups, essences, and pickles begin to decay. The bottles kept lying on their side, because this tends to preserve the cork. Keep them in a dry place. _Mushroom Catsup._ Made in September. The large flaps are best. Break off whatever parts are dirty or decayed, and lay the rest in pieces, in an earthen pan in layers, with salt between; put a folded cloth over, and let it stand a day and night, or longer, by the side of the fire; then strain off the liquor into the saucepan, and to every quart, put ½ oz. black peppercorns, a ¼ oz. allspice, ½ oz. sliced ginger, a few cloves, and 2 or 3 blades of mace. Boil the liquor, fifteen minutes, over a quick fire, though it will be stronger and keep longer, if boiled until the quantity be reduced one half, and then the spices need not be put in until it has been boiling about twenty minutes. When you take it off the fire, let it stand to settle, pour off clear, and bottle it; the sediment may be strained and bottled also, for it answers for fish sauce and brown soup. Anchovies, bay leaves, and cayenne, may be added to the spices. Dip the corks in melted rosin. Some put a table-spoonful of brandy into each pint bottle. A table-spoonful of mushroom catsup is sufficient to flavour ½ pint of sauce.--_Or_: break them in a pan, sprinkle salt between and let them stand till the next day, when, if their liquor be not drawn, add fresh mushrooms and more salt: the next day pour off {330}the liquor, boil it three hours, let it settle, strain and add to every 2 quarts, ½ oz. of cloves, ½ oz, nutmegs, ½ oz. mace, 1 oz. race ginger, 1 oz. jamaica, and 1 oz. black pepper, some eschalots and horse-radish, and 1 pint of Port wine, then boil it again half an hour. This will keep well. _Walnut Catsup._ Gather them green, prick them with a large needle, and let them lie three days, in an earthen pan, sprinkled with a handful of salt, and a very little water. Mash them well each day, with a rolling pin. On the fourth day, pour some scalding hot salt and water over, mash again, and let them stand the whole day; then with a spoon or cup, lift out what liquor there is, pound the walnuts well, and pour a little good vinegar and water over them, which will extract all their juice; pour this off, and put to it what you already have, boil it slowly, and scum well. When there is no longer any scum, put to every quart 1 oz. bruised ginger, 1 oz. allspice, 1 oz. black pepper, a ¼ oz. each of cloves, mace, and nutmeg; simmer it three quarters of an hour, when cold, bottle it.--_Or_: when of a full size, but tender, pound the walnuts, strain out the juice, let it settle and boil it up, taking off the scum as it rises: to each 2 quarts allow 3 lbs. anchovies, and boil gently till they are dissolved, then strain, and boil again with a small quantity of garlic and eschalots, a stick of cinnamon, ½ an oz. each of black pepper, cloves and mace, the rind of 2 lemons, 3 pints of vinegar, 4 wine-glassfuls of port wine, and the same of strong beer; boil it gently three quarters of an hour; scum well. The longer this is kept the better. _Oyster Catsup._ Use fresh Melton oysters. Pound them in a marble mortar, and to a pint of oysters add a pint of sherry. Boil them up, then add 1 oz. salt, 2 drachms of pounded mace, and 1 drachm of cayenne; boil up again, skim, then strain it through a sieve, and when cold, bottle it, and seal down the corks. Brandy will assist to keep it: it is a nice catsup for white sauces.--Cockles and muscles, the same way, but a pounded anchovy or two may be added to give {331}flavour.--_Or_: boil 100 oysters in 3 pints of sherry, with 1 lb. of anchovies, and 1 lemon sliced, for half an hour; then strain it, add a ¼ oz. cloves, ¼ oz. mace, 2 oz. eschalots, and 1 nutmeg sliced, boil it a quarter of an hour: when cold, bottle it, with the spice and eschalots. If the oysters are large they should be cut. _Tomata Catsup._ Take 6 doz. tomatas, 2 doz. eschalots, 1 doz. cloves of garlic, 2 sticks of horse-radish, and 6 bay leaves; slice and put them in 1½ pint of vinegar, with a handful of salt, 2 oz. pepper, 2 oz. allspice, and a little mace. Boil well together, ten minutes, pour it into a pan, let it stand till the next day, add a pint of sherry, give it one boil, take it off the fire, skim it, and after it has stood a few minutes, add a tea-cupful of anchovy sauce, and a tea-spoonful of cayenne. Strain, and when cold, bottle it. The pulp may be rubbed through a sieve for sauce. _Lobster Catsup._ Get a lobster of about 3 lbs. weight, and full of spawn, pick out all the meat, and pound the coral with 6 anchovies in a marble mortar: when completely bruised, add the meat, pound and moisten it with ½ a pint of sherry or Madeira, a tea-spoonful of cayenne, a wine-glassful of chili or eschalot vinegar, and 1½ pint of eschalot wine; mix well, put it into wide-mouthed bottles, on the top put a dessert-spoonful of whole black peppers, to each bottle: cork tightly, rosin them, and tie leather over. Keep in a cool place. 4 or 5 table-spoonsful to a tureen of thick melted butter. {332}CHAPTER XXVIII. THE CELLAR. A GOOD cellar, besides its general convenience, in regard to a variety of household purposes, is indispensable to every one who wishes to have good beer. However skilful and successful the brewer, no beer, nor, indeed, any fermented liquors (with few exceptions), can be kept good, any length of time, especially in the summer months, unless they be secured from being turned sour by heat, and by sudden variations of the atmosphere. No cellar can be considered perfect which is not below the surface of the ground. Houses in the country are frequently without the convenience of underground cellaring; but every house ought, where it is practicable, to be built over cellars, which, independently of other advantages, contribute very materially to the dryness and warmth of the building. The directions for brewing, given by my father, in his "_Cottage Economy_," are so circumstantial, and so simple, clear, and intelligible, that any person, however inexperienced, who reads them with attention, may, without further instruction, venture to brew without risk of a failure. It is certain that many families, who had previously never thought of brewing their own beer, have been encouraged by the plainness and simplicity of his directions to attempt it, and have never since been without good home-made beer. Brewing is not, perhaps, in strictness, a feminine occupation; there are, nevertheless, many women who are exceedingly skilful in the art. It is obviously not within the province of the mistress of a house, even to superintend the brewing department, but, when circumstances may render it necessary that she should undertake the task, she cannot, when about to give her directions, do better than consult the "_Cottage Economy_." {333}The utensils necessary are: a copper, a mash-tub and stand, an under-back, to stand under the edge of the mash-tub, when the malt is put in, two buckets, a strainer, a cooler, a tun-tub, and a cask to put the beer in. Having these utensils, the next thing is, materials for making the beer. These are, soft water, malt, and hops. The water should be _soft_, because hard water does not so well extract the goodness of the malt; but if you have none but hard water, soften it by letting it stand two days in some open vessel in the air. The malt should be (or, at least, usually is) ground or bruised into a very coarse meal. The hops should be fresh, of a bright yellow, and highly scented. Farnham hops are the cleanest and best. I give receipts for finings, but do not recommend them, though they certainly will make beer clear which might not be so without them. The process is this: if you mean to make about a hogshead of beer, take 120 gallons of water (soft, or softened by exposure to the air), and put it into the copper. When it has boiled, pour it into the malt. This is rather a nice matter; if you put in the malt too soon, it cakes and becomes dough. The old-fashioned rule is, to let the steam keep flying off till you can see your features in the water; but as the weather frequently renders this an uncertain criterion, take your thermometer, and plunge it into the water now and then, and when the quicksilver stands at 170, the heat is about right. Pour the malt in gently, taking care to stir it about as it goes in, so as to separate it, and make every particle come in contact with the water; when it is all in, stir it for twenty minutes or half an hour; then put your stirring-stick across the mash-tub, and cover cloths all over to keep in the heat. Let this, which is called _mashing_, go on for four or five hours. It cannot well be too long about. When the malt has remained soaking all this time, draw off the liquor by means of your buckets, and put it into the copper again. This liquor is called the "_sweet wort_." Light the fire under the copper, and pour into it, for _every bushel_ of malt that you have mashed, ¾ lb. of _hops_, or, if not very good, 1 lb. for every bushel. Stir these well into the wort, and keep it on a good hard boil for an hour, being very particular to make it boil all the while. This being done, you have now to cool the beer: {334}rake the fire out from under the copper, and again take out your liquor in your buckets; put the cooler in some place away from the chances of dirt falling into it, and where it may stand level; then strain the liquor into it. The next operation is, the _working_; and the most difficult part of this is, to ascertain when, precisely, the liquor is cool enough to bear it. Experienced brewers generally ascertain this by the feel of the liquor, by merely putting the finger into it; but it is better to use the thermometer again; plunge it in, and when the quicksilver stands at 70 the heat is right. Then, with your buckets again, put the whole of the liquor out of the cooler into the tun-tub; and take a pint, or thereabouts, of fresh yeast (balm), and mix it in a bowl with some of the liquor; then pour it into the tun-tub with the liquor that is now cool enough to be set to work; mix it up a little by dipping the bowl in once or twice, and pouring it down from a height of two or three feet above the surface of the liquor in the tun-tub; then cover the tun-tub with cloths, as you did the mash-tub. In a few hours it will begin to work; that is, a little froth, like that of bottled porter, will begin to rise upon the surface; when this has risen to its height, and begins to flatten at the top and sink, it should be skimmed off, and is good yeast, and the beer is ready to put into the cask in your cellar. When you put it into the cask, let it stand a day, without being bunged down, because it may work a little there. When you find that it does not, then, if you use finings, put them in, and bung down tightly. The following receipt is given to me by a gentleman who is celebrated for the excellence of his beer. Suppose the brewer is about to make a hogshead of beer of good strength. Eight bushels of malt will be sufficient. Let the water, if not _soft_, stand two days in some vessel in the open air, which will soften it. One hundred and twenty gallons will be sufficient; and, if he uses ground malt, let him remember to attend to the heat of the water in the mash-tub before he puts it in, and also to the stirring and separating as it goes in. When it has stood long enough in the mash-tub, he must draw it off, and put it into the copper, and then throw in ¾ lb. of good hops _for every bushel of malt_; or, if the hops be not really good and strong, 1 lb. _to the bushel_. Boil the liquor at least an hour; {335}but be very particular to make it boil the whole time; for much depends on this. Beer that has not boiled well is always crude, and soon spoils. It is the great fault of most brewers, that, to save the evaporation caused by a good boiling, they cool the liquor before it is sufficiently cooked. When it has boiled the proper time, pour it immediately, hot as it is, into a clean cask; put the bung and vent-peg in lightly; watch the cask, and when you find fermentation going on, which will show itself by a little oozing out of froth round the bung, take out both bung and vent-peg, and let them remain out till the working is over, and the froth begins to sink down into the cask; then put the bung and vent-peg in tightly, and the brewing is over. The cask should not be filled to running over, yet very little space should be left below the bung when driven in, as the body of air that would fill this vacancy would deaden the beer. This mode deviates from that practised by my father, in two essential points: namely, the _cooling_ and the _working_ of the beer; for, in the last receipt it is not cooled at all, and no yeast is required to work it. If it answers, it is a less troublesome, and, calculating the cost of the coolers, less expensive mode of brewing than that detailed in the "_Cottage Economy_." The "Cottage Economy" speaks of the necessity of keeping the casks in good order; and this is a matter, though of great importance, often neglected. New casks should be seasoned before they are used; one way recommended is, to boil 2 pecks of bran or malt dust in a copper of water, pour it hot into the cask, stop close, and let it stand two days, then wash it out well, and drain the cask. Servants are negligent about vent-pegs and bungs. They should be put in tight, the tap taken out, and a cork put in, as soon as the last beer is drawn. If the casks were kept in proper order, beer would not so often be spoiled. Of equal consequence, is the cleanness of the brewing utensils. They should be scoured well with a brush and scalding water, after they have been used. Do not use soap or any thing greasy. A strong ley of wood ashes may be used, if there be any apprehension of taint. When hops are dear, gentian may be substituted in part for them, in the proportion of 8¼ oz. gentian, and 2 lbs. hops, to 12 bushels of malt. {336}_To Fine Beer._ Draw out a gallon of ale, put to it 2 oz. isinglass, cut small and beaten; stir the beer, and whip it with a whisk, to dissolve the isinglass, then strain, and pour it back into the cask, stir well, a few minutes, and put the bung in lightly, because a fresh fermentation will take place. When that is over stop it close; let the vent-peg be loose. Fermentation is over, make the vent-peg tight; and in a fortnight the beer will be fine. Drink 3 parts, and bottle the rest.--A good way to fine new beer, is to run the wort through a flannel into the tun, before it has worked. _For Stale Small Beer._ Put 1 lb. chalk, in small pieces, into a half hogshead, and stop it close. It will be fit to drink on the third day.--_Or_: put half chalk, and the other half hops. _To Bottle Beer._ Stone bottles are best. The best corks the cheapest, put them in cold water half an hour before you use them. The bottles perfectly clean and sweet, fill them with beer, put in each bottle a small tea-spoonful of powdered sugar, and let them stand uncorked, till the next day: then cork, and lay the bottles on their sides; or, better still, stand them with the necks downwards.--When a bottle is emptied, the cork should be returned into it directly, or it will become musty. _To Make Cider._ The apples quite ripe, but not rotten. If the weather be frosty, gather the apples, and spread them from 1 to 2 feet thick, on the ground, and cover with straw; if mild, let them hang on the trees, or remain under, if fallen, until you are ready to make the cider. It should not be made in warm weather, unless they are beginning to rot, in which case you must not delay. Unripe fruit should be made by itself, as the cider never keeps.--Large cider mills will make from 100 to 150 gallons in a day, according to the difference in the quality of fruit, some sorts of apples being {337}more tough and less juicy than others, consequently requiring more grinding. Not more than 7 or 8 bushels should be put into the mill at once. They should be ground, till the kernels and rinds are all well mashed, to give the flavour to cider. Pour the cider from the mill into a press; press the juice well, then pour it into hogsheads. When it has done fermenting, and the time for this is very uncertain, rack it off into other hogsheads, let it settle, and then bung it down. ---- ENGLISH WINES AND CORDIALS. Fruit of every kind should be gathered in dry sunny weather, quite ripe. All home made wines are the better for a little brandy; though some persons never use any. _To Clear Wine._ Dissolve ½ lb. hartshorn shavings in cider or rhenish wine; this is sufficient for a hogshead.--_Or_: to 2 table-spoonsful boiled rice, add ½ oz. burnt alum in powder: mix with a pint, or more, of the wine, stir it into the cask, with a stout stick, but do not agitate the lees.--_Or_: dissolve ½ oz. isinglass, in a pint or more of the wine, mix with it ½ oz. of chalk in powder, and put it into the cask: stir the wine, but not the lees. _British Sherry, or Malt Wine._ Take 12 quarts of the best sweet wort, from pale malt, let it cool and put it into a 10 gallon cask. Take as much water as will be required to fill up the cask, put it on the fire, with 22 lbs. of the best lump sugar, stir from time to time, and let it boil gently about a quarter of an hour, taking off the scum as it rises. Take it off the fire, let it cool, pour it into the cask, and put in a little good yeast. It may, perhaps, continue to ferment two or three weeks; when this has ceased, put in 3 lbs. raisins, chopped fine; these may cause fresh fermentation, which must be allowed to subside; then put in the rinds of 4 Seville oranges, and their juice, also a quart of good brandy; at the end of three {338}or four days, if a fresh fermentation have not taken place, put the bung in tight. Keep it a year in the cask, then bottle it; the longer it is kept the better.--_Or_: stir 42 lbs. good moist sugar into 14 gallons of water, till it is dissolved, then boil it twenty minutes; let it cool in a tub, then put in 16 lbs. good Malaga raisins, picked and chopped; when it is quite cold pour in 2 gallons of strong beer ready to be tunned, and let it stand eight days; then taking out the raisins, put it into a 16 gallon cask, with 2 quarts of the best brandy, 1 lb. bitter almonds blanched, and 2 oz. isinglass. Bottle it in a year. _British Madeira._ Boil 30 lbs. moist sugar in 10 gallons of water, half an hour, and scum well. Let it cool, and to every gallon put 1 quart of ale, out of the vat; let this work, in a tub, a day or two; then put it in the cask, with 1 lb. sugar candy, 6 lbs. raisins, 1 quart of brandy, and 2 oz. isinglass. When it has ceased to ferment, bung it tight, for a year. _English Frontiniac._ Boil 11 lbs. lump sugar in 4 gallons of water, half an hour; when only milk warm, put it to nearly a peck of elder flowers, picked clear from the stalks, the juice and peel of 4 large lemons, cut very thin, 3 lbs. stoned raisins, and 2 or 3 spoonsful yeast: stir often, for four or five days. When quite done working, bung it tight, and bottle it in a week. _Red Currant Wine._ To 28 lbs. of moist sugar, allow 4 gallons of water, pour it over the sugar, and stir it well. Have a sieve of currants (which usually produces between 10 and 11 quarts of juice), squeeze the fruit with the hand, to break the currants, and as you do so, put the crushed fruit into a horse-hair sieve, press it, and when no more will run through the sieve, wring the fruit in a coarse cloth. Pour the juice on the sugar and water, mix it, and then pour it all into a 9 gallon cask, and fill it with water, if the barrel should not be full.--The cask should be filled up {339}with water every day, while the wine ferments, and be bunged up tight, when it ceases. This is a cheap and simple method of making currant wine.--_Or_: put a bushel of red, and a peck of white currants, into a tub or pan, squeeze well; strain them through a sieve upon 28 lbs. of powdered sugar; when the sugar is dissolved put in some water in the proportion of 1½ gallon to 1 gallon of juice, pour it all into the barrel, add 3 or 4 pints of raspberries, and a little brandy. _Raisin Wine._ Put the raisins in at the bung-hole of a close cask (which will be the better for having recently had wine in it), then pour in spring water, in the proportion of a gallon to 8 lbs. raisins; the cask should stand in a good cellar, not affected by external air. When the fermentation begins to subside, pour in a bottle of brandy, and put the bung in loosely; when the fermentation has wholly subsided, add a second bottle of brandy, and stop the cask close. In a year it will be fit to bottle, immediately from the cask, without refining. Malaga raisins make the finest wine: Smyrna, rich and full, and more resembling foreign wine. _Gooseberry Wine._ To every pound of green gooseberries, picked and bruised, add 1 quart of water, steep them four days, stirring twice a day. Strain the liquor through a sieve, and to every gallon add 3 lbs. loaf sugar; also to every 20 gallons, a quart of brandy, and a little isinglass. When the sugar is dissolved, tun the wine, and let it work, which it will do in a week, or little more, keeping back some of the wine to fill up the cask, before you stop it close. Let it stand in the barrel six months, bottle it, in six more begin to drink it. _To make 4 gallons of Elder Wine._ Boil 1 peck of berries in 4 gallons of water, half an hour; strain and add 2½ lbs. moist sugar. To every gallon of water add ½ oz. cloves, and 2 oz. ginger, tied in a linen {340}bag, boil it again five minutes, and pour it into a pan. When cold, toast a piece of bread on both sides, spread it with good yeast, and put it in the wine. When worked sufficiently, put it into a spirit cask, and cork it down; take the spice out of the cloth, and put it into the cask, with a tumbler of brandy. Leave the vent peg out a few days; in three weeks or a month bottle it. _Elder Wine to drink cold._--Boil 1 gallon of berries in 2 gallons of water, two hours and a half. Add 3 lbs. moist sugar to every gallon of wine; boil it twenty minutes. Next day work it with a yeast toast. When worked enough, cask it, with ½ a bottle of brandy, and 7 lbs. raisins. _Ginger Wine._ Boil in 9 gallons of water 12 lbs. loaf sugar, 12 lbs. of moist, 12 oz. good ginger sliced, and the rind of 8 lemons, half an hour, scumming all the time; let it stand till lukewarm, put it into a clean cask with the juice of the lemons, 6 lbs. chopped raisins, and a tea-cupful of yeast, stir every day for ten days, add ¾ oz. of isinglass and 2 quarts of brandy. Stop close, and in four months bottle it.--_Or_: in 12 gallons of water boil 12 lbs. loaf sugar, 12 oz. ginger, and the rind of 24 lemons, half an hour, scumming all the time; then put it in the cask with the lemon juice, 12 lbs. raisins, and the yeast, stir every day for a fortnight, add 2 oz. isinglass and 1 quart of brandy. _Mountain Wine._ To 5 lbs. of large Malaga raisins, chopped very small, put a gallon of spring water; steep them a fortnight; squeeze out the liquor, and put it in a barrel: do not stop close until the hissing is over. _Primrose Wine._ Boil 18 lbs. lump sugar in 6 gallons of water, with the juice of 8 lemons, 6 Seville oranges, and the whites of 8 eggs; boil half an hour, taking off the scum as it rises; when cool put in a crust of toasted bread, soaked in yeast, let it ferment thirty-six hours: put into the cask the peel of 12 lemons, and of 10 Seville oranges, with 6 gallons of {341}primrose pips, then pour in the liquor. Stir every day for a week, add 3 pints of brandy; stop the cask close, and in six weeks bottle the wine. _Cowslip Wine._ Boil 3½ lbs. lump sugar in 4 quarts of water an hour, skim and let it stand until lukewarm, pour it into a pan, upon 4 quarts of cowslip flowers; add a piece of toasted bread spread with yeast, and let it stand four days: put in as many lemons, sliced, as you have gallons of wine, mix and put it into a cask, and stop close. _Grape Wine._ To 1 gallon of bruised grapes (not over ripe), put 1 gallon of water. Let it stand six days, without stirring, strain it off fine, and to each gallon put 3 lbs. moist sugar; barrel, but do not stop it, till it has done hissing.--_Or_: the fruit barely half ripe, pick from the stalks, and bruise it, then put it in hair cloths, add an equal weight of water, and let it stand eighteen hours, stirring occasionally: dissolve in it from 3 lbs. to 3½ lbs. lump sugar, to each gallon, as you wish the wine to be more or less strong. Put it in a cask, fill it to the brim, and have 2 or 3 quarts in reserve to fill up with, as it diminishes by fermenting. Let it ferment ten days, when that is over, and there is no danger of the cask bursting, fasten it tight, leaving a small vent to open once a week, for a month. Fine and rack the wine in March, and bottle it in October; for a _brisk_ wine, it must ferment eight days longer, and be bottled the following March, in cold weather. _Parsnip Wine._ Boil 1 bushel of sliced parsnips in 60 quarts of water, one hour, then strain it, add 45 lbs. lump sugar, boil one hour more, and when cold ferment with yeast; add a quart of brandy, then bottle it.--_Or_: to each gallon of water add 4 lbs. of parsnips, washed and peeled, which boil till tender; drain, but do not bruise them, for no remedy will make the wine clear: to each gallon of the liquor add 3 lbs. loaf sugar, and ½ oz. crude tartar, and when cooled to the {342}temperature of 75, put in a little new yeast; let it stand four days, in a tub, in a warm room; tun it, and bung up when the fermentation has ceased. March and October are the best seasons. It should remain twelve months in cask before it is bottled. _Almond Wine._ Warm a gallon of water, add 3 lbs. loaf sugar, stir well from the bottom, and put in the white of an egg well beaten. When the water boils, stir, skim, and boil it an hour, put it in a pan to cool, and add ½ pint of yeast. Tun it next day, work it ten days, stirring once a day, then add to every gallon 1 lb. of sun raisins chopped, and rather less than ¼ lb. of almonds (pounded), more of bitter than sweet, and a little isinglass. Stop the cask close, for twelve months. _Cherry Bounce._ To 4 quarts of brandy, 4 lbs. of red cherries, 2 lbs. of black cherries, and 1 quart of raspberries, a few cloves, a stick of cinnamon, and a bit of orange peel: let it stand a month, close stopped, then bottle it; a lump of sugar in each bottle. _Orange Wine._ To 10 gallons of spring water put 30 lbs. of lump sugar: mix well, and put it on the fire with the whites of 7 eggs well beaten; do not stir before it boils: when it has boiled half an hour, skim well, put it into a tub, and let it stand till cold. Then put to it a pint of good ale yeast, and the peels of 10 Seville oranges very thin, let it stand two days, stirring night and morning. Then barrel it, adding the juice of 40 Seville oranges, and their peels. When it has done working, stop it close for six months before it is bottled.--_Or_: to 10 gallons of water, put 32 lbs. loaf sugar, and the whites of 4 eggs, beaten, boil as long as any scum rises, take that off, pour it through a sieve, and boil again, until quite clear; then pour it into a pan. Peel 100 Seville oranges, very thin; when the steam is a little gone off the water, put the peel into it, keeping back about a double handful. When the liquor is quite cold, squeeze in the {343}juice; let it stand two days, stirring occasionally; then strain it, through a hair sieve, into the cask, with the peel in reserve. If the fermentation has ceased, it may be bunged down in a week or ten days. _Orange Brandy._ Steep the rinds of 8 Seville oranges and 3 lemons with 3 lbs. lump sugar, in 1 gallon of brandy, four days and nights. Stir often, and run it through blotting paper. _A Liqueur._ Fill one third of a quart bottle with black currants and a quarter part as much of black cherries, fill up with brandy, put in a cork, and let it stand a month; strain it through linen, put in sugar to taste, let it stand again a month, then strain and bottle it.--_Quince_ may he used the same way, but in _Rum_. _Shrub._ To 1 quart of strained orange juice, put 2 lbs. loaf sugar, and 9 pints of rum or brandy; also the peels of half the oranges. Let it stand one night, then strain, pour into a cask, and shake it four times a day for four days. Let it stand till fine, then bottle it.--_Lemon Shrub_: to 1 gallon of rum or whiskey, put 1½ pint of strained lemon juice, 4 lbs. of lump sugar, the peel of 9 lemons, and 5 bitter almonds. Mix the lemon juice and sugar first, let it stand a week, take off all the scum, then pour it from one jug carefully to another, and bottle it. _Currant Rum._ To every pint of currant juice 1 lb. lump sugar, and to every 2 quarts of juice, 1 pint of water, set it over the fire, in a preserving pan, boil it, take off the scum, as it rises, and pour it into a pan to cool, stir till nearly cold, add to every 3 pints of liquor, 1 quart of rum, and bottle it. _Ratafia._ Infuse 1 oz. each of anise, dill, carraway, coriander, {344}carrot, fennel, and angelica seeds, in 2 quarts of brandy, a fortnight in summer, and three weeks in winter: in the sun in summer, and in a chimney corner in winter. Shake it every day; strain through a jelly bag, and to every pint put 6 oz. of sugar, dissolved in water. Strain again, that it may be quite fine.--_Or_: _for Pudding Sauces_: blanch an equal quantity of peach, apricot, and nectarine kernels, slit and put them into a wide-mouthed bottle, with 1 oz. white sugar candy; fill it with brandy. _Noyeau._ Put ¼ lb. sweet and ¼ lb. bitter almonds with 2 lbs. sugar and the rinds of 3 lemons into a quart of brandy (white is best), with ½ pint new milk: shake and mix well together, every day for a fortnight; then strain and bottle it. _Real Drogheda Usquebaugh._ 1 oz. anise seeds, ½ oz. fennel, 1 oz. green liquorice, 1 drachm coriander seeds, of cloves and mace, each 1 drachm, 1 lb. raisins of the sun, and ½ lb. figs. Slice the liquorice, bruise the other ingredients, and infuse all in a gallon of brandy eight days. Shake it 2 or 3 times a day; strain it, add 1 oz. of saffron in a bag: in two days bottle it. _Milk Punch._ Take 2 quarts of water, 1 quart of milk, ½ pint of lemon juice, 1 quart of brandy, and sugar to your taste: put the milk and water together a little warm, then the sugar, then the lemon juice, stir well, then add the brandy; stir again, run it through a flannel bag, till very fine; then bottle it. It will keep a fortnight or more.--_Or_: steep the rinds of 6 lemons in a bottle of rum three days; add 1 quart of lemon juice, 3 quarts of cold soft water, 3 quarts of rum, 3 lbs. lump sugar, and 2 nutmegs grated; mix well, add 2 quarts boiling milk, let it stand five hours; strain through a jelly bag, and bottle it. _Excellent Punch._ Put a piece of lemon peel into 3 pints of barley water, let {345}it cool, add the juice of 6 lemons, and ½ pint of brandy; sweeten to taste, and put it in the cool, for four hours. Add a little fine old rum. _Norfolk Punch._ Steep the pulp of 12 lemons and 12 oranges, in 4 gallons of rum or brandy, twenty-four hours. Boil 12 lbs. of double refined sugar in 6 gallons of water, with the whites of 6 eggs, beaten to a froth; scum well; when cold, put it into the vessel with the rum, 6 quarts of orange juice, the juice of 12 lemons, also 2 quarts of new milk. Shake the vessel, to mix it; stop close, and let it stand in the cask two months, before you bottle it. _Roman Punch._ To the juice of 12 lemons and 2 oranges, add the peel of 1 orange cut thin, and 2 lbs. pounded loaf sugar, mix well, pass through a sieve, and mix it, gradually, with the whites of 10 eggs, beaten to a froth. Ice it a little, then add champagne or rum to your taste. _Regent's Punch._ A bottle of champagne, a ¼ pint of brandy, a wine glass of good old rum, and a pint of very strong green tea, with capillaire or any other syrup, to sweeten. _A cool Tankard._ Mix 2 wine-glassfuls of sherry, and 1 of brandy, in a tankard, with a hot toast, and sugar to taste; pour in a bottle of clear nice tasted ale, and stir it with a sprig of balm: then let it settle and serve it. _Porter Cup._ Put a bottle of porter, the same of table ale, a wine-glass of brandy, a dessert-spoonful of syrup of ginger, 3 lumps of sugar, and half a nutmeg grated into a covered jug, and set it in a cold place half an hour; just before you serve it stir in a table-spoonful of carbonate of soda. {346}_Cider Cup._ Begin with whatever quantity of brandy you choose, and go on, doubling the other ingredients, namely: sherry, cider, soda water, a little lemon peel and cinnamon, sugar to your taste, and a bush of borage. Some persons put in a very little piece of the peel of cucumber, but this must be used sparingly, as the flavour is strong. _Ginger Beer._ Boil 14 lbs. lump sugar in 1½ gallon of water, with 2 oz. ginger, bruised, one hour; then add the whites of 8 eggs, well beaten; boil a little longer, and take off the scum as it rises; strain into a tub, and let it stand till cold; put it into a cask with the peel of 14 lemons cut thin, also the juice, a pint of brandy, and half a spoonful of ale-yeast at the top. Stop the cask close for a fortnight: then bottle, and in another fortnight it will be ready. Stone bottles are best.--_Or_: 1 oz. powdered ginger, ½ oz. cream of tartar, 1 large lemon sliced, 2 lbs. lump sugar, to 1 gallon of water, simmered half an hour: finish as above. _Ginger Imperial._--Boil 2 oz. cream of tartar, the rind and juice of 2 lemons, 4 pieces of ginger bruised, and 1 lb. of sugar, in 6 quarts of water, half an hour. When cool, add 2 or 3 spoonsful yeast, and let it stand twenty-four hours, then bottle in ½ pint bottles, and tie down the corks. In three days it will be ready. An improvement to this is ¾ lb. sugar, ¼ lb. honey, and 1 tea-spoonful of essence of lemon. _Spruce Beer._ Mix a pint of spruce with 12 lbs. of treacle, stir in 3 gallons of water, let it stand half an hour, put in 3 more gallons of water, and a pint of yeast, stir well, and pour it into a 10 gallon cask, fill that with water, and let it work till fine; bottle it; let the bottles lie on their sides three days, then stand them up, in three more days it will be ready. _Crême d'Orange._ Slice 16 oranges, pour over them 1 gallon of rectified {347}spirits, and 1¼ pint of orange flower water; in ten days, add 7 lbs. of clarified syrup, a quart of water, and ½ oz. of tincture of saffron: keep it closed, and in a fortnight strain the liquor through a jelly bag, let it settle, then pour from the sediment, and bottle it. _Raspberry or Mulberry Brandy or Wine._ Bruise fine ripe fruit with the back of a wooden spoon, and strain into a jar through a flannel bag, with 1 lb. of fine powdered loaf sugar to every quart of juice; stir well, let it stand three days, covered close; stir each day: pour it off clear, and put 1 quart of brandy, or 2 of sherry, to each quart of juice; bottle it, and it will be ready in a fortnight. _Spring Sherbet._ Scrape 10 sticks of rhubarb and boil them, ten minutes, in a quart of water; strain the liquor through a tammis cloth into a jug, add the peel of 1 lemon, very thin, and 2 table-spoonsful of clarified sugar; in six hours it is ready. ---- FLIP. While a quart of ale is warming on the fire, beat 3 eggs with 4 oz. moist sugar, a tea-spoonful of grated ginger or nutmeg, and a quart of rum or brandy. When the ale is near boiling, pour it into one pitcher, the eggs and rum into another, and turn it from one to the other, until smooth as cream. _Egg Wine._ To 1 quart of Lisbon white wine, put 1 quart of water, sweeten to taste, and add a little nutmeg. Have ready the yolks of 3 eggs well beaten; boil the mixed wine and water, and pour it quickly on the beaten eggs, and pour from one bason to another, until it froths high. Serve in cups. _To Mull Wine._ Boil the quantity you choose, of cinnamon, nutmeg {348}grated, cloves or mace, in a ¼ pint of water; add a pint of Port, and sugar to taste, boil it up, and serve it hot. _The Pope's Posset._ Blanch, pound, then boil in a little water, ½ lb. sweet, and a very few bitter almonds, strain, and put the liquid into a quart of heated white wine, with sugar to sweeten; beat well, and serve hot. CHAPTER XXIX. THE DAIRY. THIS, of all the departments of country house-keeping, is the one which most quickly suffers from neglect; and of all the appendages to a country dwelling, there is nothing which so successfully rivals the flower garden, in exciting admiration, as a nice dairy. From the show-dairy, with its painted glass windows, marble fountains and china bowls, to that of the common farm house, with its red brick floor, deal shelves, and brown milk-pans, the dairy is always an object of interest, and is associated with every idea of real comfort, as well as of imaginary enjoyment, attendant upon a country life. The management of this important department in a country establishment, from the milking of the cows, to the making of the butter and the cheese, must necessarily be almost wholly intrusted to a dairy maid, who ought to be _experienced_ in the various duties of her office, or she cannot be skilful in the performance of them. Those persons who have excelled in dairy work, have generally learnt their business when quite young, as a knowledge of it is not to be hastily acquired. The great art of butter and cheese-making, consists in extreme care and scrupulous cleanliness; and an experienced dairy maid knows, that when her butter has a bad taste, some of the dairy utensils, the churn, the pail, or the pans, have been neglected in the scalding, _or_, the butter {349}itself not well made: unless, indeed, as is sometimes the case, the fault lies in the food provided for the cows. _Note._--COBBETT'S "Cottage Economy" contains directions for the keeping and feeding of cows. The utmost care and diligence, on the part of the dairy maid, may, however, prove ineffectual, if the dairy itself be not convenient, and provided with the proper utensils. The principal requisites of a dairy are, coolness in summer, and a temperature warmer than the external air, in very cold weather. The building should, therefore, be so constructed, as to exclude the sun in summer, and the cold in winter. The windows should never front the South, South East, or South West. They should be latticed, or, which is preferable, wired, to admit a free circulation of air, with glazed frames, to be shut and opened, at pleasure. The room should be lofty, and the walls thick, as nothing more effectually preserves an even temperature, or excludes extremes of cold and heat. It should be paved with brick or stone, and laid with a proper descent, so that all water may be drained off. The floor should be washed every day in summer, and three or four times a week in the winter. The utensils should not be scalded in the dairy, as the steam from hot water is injurious to milk. Neither rennet, cheese, or cheese-press, should be kept in it, as they diffuse an acidity. The dairy should not be used as a larder; it cannot be too scrupulously devoted to its own proper purposes. The cows should be milked twice a day, and as nearly at the same hour as possible; and they should be milked _quite clean_: this is a matter of great consequence, not only as being conducive to the health of the animals, but if neglected, very much diminishes the value of their produce; for that which is milked last, is much richer than that which is first milked. Some persons when they strain the milk into pans, for creaming, pour into each one, a little boiling hot water (in the proportion of 1 quart of water to 3 pails of milk); this was never done in our dairy in Hampshire, but I believe the effect is, to destroy the taste of turnip. It is very good, for this purpose, to keep a piece of saltpetre in the cream pot. This latter should have a stick in it, and be well {350}stirred up twice a day, or, every time the dairy maid goes into the dairy. The cream should not be kept longer than four days, before it is made into butter. If twice a week be too often to churn, it ought not to be less frequent than three times in a fortnight. In private families the milk is generally skimmed only once, and this leaves the milk very good; but where butter is made for sale, and quantity rather than quality, is the object, a second skimming is generally resorted to. Some dairy maids object to the second skimming, on account of the bitter taste, which they say the cream so skimmed is sure to give the butter. _To Make Butter._ In summer the churn should be filled with cold spring water, and in winter scalded with hot water, preparatory to churning; then pour the cream in, through a straining cloth. In warm weather the churning should be performed in a cool place; and, in a general way, the butter will come in an hour; but it often does come in half the time, though it is not the better for coming so quickly. In very cold weather the churning must be done in a warm place; indeed, it is sometimes necessary to bring the churn near the fire, but this should never be allowed but in extreme cold weather, when the butter will sometimes be five or six hours in coming: when this is the case, it is almost always of a white colour and a poor taste. The butter being come, pour off the buttermilk, leaving the butter in the churn, pour in a pailful of cold water, wash the butter about, pour off the water, and pour in a fresh pailful; let the butter stand in this ten minutes. Scald a milk-pan, and stand it half an hour or more in cold water, lift the butter out of the churn into it, pour fresh water over, and wash the butter about well, drain the water off as dry as possible, and then proceed to work the buttermilk out of the butter. Some persons do this with the hands (which should first be dipped in hot water), others with a straining-cloth: if the latter, scald and wring it dry; then work the butter by squeezing it, by degrees, from one side of the pan to the other, pour cold water over to rinse, and pour that off; then work the butter back again, and rinse again; repeat this till the rinsing water is no longer coloured with milk, {351}and then you may be sure that the buttermilk is all worked out; for, if there be any of it left, the butter will have streaks of white when cut, and will not be sweet. Having worked out the milk, the next thing is, to put in the salt. The quantity must depend, in some measure, on taste; some persons like their butter very much salted, while others think that the flavour of salt should not be distinguishable in fresh butter. Roll it quite fine, and you may allow ½ lb. to 5 lbs. butter: press the butter out thin, sprinkle over it some salt, fold up the butter, press it out again, strew over more salt, fold it up again, and so on, till all the salt is in, work the butter about well, to mix the salt with it, and pour off whatever liquid there may be in the pan. Take the butter out, a piece at a time (if the quantity be great), on a square wooden trencher (previously scalded and dipped into cold water), and, either with the hand, a fresh cloth, or a flat, thin piece of wood (made for the purpose), beat the butter out thin, fold it up, beat it out again, and repeat this several times, till the water is all beaten out. By the time it has arrived at this latter stage, it ought to be quite firm, except in extreme hot weather, when no pains are sufficient to make it so. When the water is all out, make up the butter, in what form and size you choose; place it on a board, or a marble slab, in a cool place, but not before a window, as too much air will not benefit it; spread over it a cheese-cloth, first scalded, then dipped in cold water, and it will harden in a few hours. Different parts of England vary so much in the butter they produce, that what is considered very good in one county would be regarded as inferior in another. This is caused by difference in the pasturage, and not by variation in the mode of preparing the cream or making the butter; except, indeed, in some parts of the West of England. In Devonshire the cream is always, I believe, prepared according to the following directions, which were written for me by a Devonshire lady. _To make Butter without a Churn._ Spread a linen cloth in a large bason, pour in the cream, tie it up like a pudding, fold another cloth over it, and bury it in a hole two feet deep, in light earth, put all the earth {352}lightly in, lay a turf on the top, and leave it twenty-four hours; take it up, and it will be found in the state that butter is when it is just come. The buttermilk is lost, but this method answers very well in hot weather. We tried it in America. _Clouted Cream._ Strain the milk, from the cow, into glazed earthenware vessels, and let it stand twelve hours in summer, and twenty-four, or thirty-six, in winter, before you scald it. Then place the vessels over a very small fire or hearth, for half or three-quarters of an hour, until the surface begins to swell, and the shape of the bottom of the pan appears on it (but if made hot enough to simmer, it will be spoiled); then set it to cool, and in twelve hours' time in summer, and eighteen or twenty-four in winter, the cream may be taken off with a skimmer which has holes. _Butter from Clouted Cream._ Scald well a large wooden bowl, then rinse it with cold water, but do not wipe it dry. Put in the cream, work it well with the hand (in one direction only), until the milk comes from it, which should be drained off, and will serve for making cakes and puddings; when the milk is all beaten out, wash the butter with cold water to cleanse it from the milk, then salt it, thus: spread it out on the bottom of the bowl, sprinkle salt over, roll it up, wash it again with cold water, beat out again, then shape and print it, as you please. The hands should be well washed in hot water, before you begin to work the butter. In winter and in weather of a moderate temperature the butter is speedily made, but in very hot weather it will take nearly or quite an hour of stirring round, and working with the hand, before it will come into butter. _To Pot Butter for Winter use._ In the summer, when there is plenty of butter, care should be taken to preserve enough for winter use. But observe, that none but good butter, well made, and quite free from buttermilk, will pot well. Have potting pans, to hold from 6 to 10 lbs. of butter. Put a thick layer of butter {353}in the pan, press it down hard, then a layer of salt, press that down, then more butter, and so on: allowing 1 oz. of salt to every lb. of butter. If too salt, it can be freshened by being washed in cold water, before it is sent to table. Always keep the top well covered with salt, and as that turns to brine, more salt may be required. Tie paper over, and keep the pan in the dairy, or cellar. Some persons use one quarter part of lump sugar, and the same of saltpetre, to two parts of common salt. _To Make Cheese._ The milk should be just lukewarm, whether skimmed or not. To a pailful put 2 table-spoonsful of rennet, cover the milk, and let it stand, to turn: strike down the curd with the skimming dish, or break it with the hand, pour off the whey, put the curd into a cheese-cloth, and let two persons hold the four corners, and move it about, from side to side, to extract the whey: lay it into the vat, fold the cloth smoothly over the cheese, cover it with the lid of the vat, and put a weight of 10 or 12 lbs. on the top. Let it stand twelve hours; then take it carefully out, put it on a wooden trencher, or a clean hanging shelf, and sprinkle salt thickly over the top. The next day, wipe it dry all over, turn it the other side upwards, sprinkle salt on the top, and repeat this every day, for a week: after that, turn it every day, and occasionally wipe it.--_Another_: to 6 quarts new milk, add 2 quarts lukewarm water, and sufficient rennet to turn it: when the curd is settled put it into a small vat, about a foot square, and 1½ inch deep, with holes in the bottom; place a lid on it, and put on that a lb. weight, for a day.--_Another_: put 5 quarts of the last of the milking into a pan, with 2 table-spoonsful of rennet; when the curd is come, strike it down with the skimming dish two or three times, to break it: let it stand two hours. Spread a cheese-cloth on a sieve, put the curd on it, and let the whey drain; break the curd with the hand, put it into a vat, and a 2 lbs. weight on the top. When it has stood twelve hours, take it out and bind a cloth round it. Turn it every day, from one board to another. Cover the cheese with nettle leaves, and put it between 2 pewter plates, to ripen. It will be ready in three weeks. {354}CHAPTER XXX. COOKERY FOR THE SICK. OFTEN when the Doctor's skill has saved the life of his patient, and it remains for the diligent nurse to prepare the cooling drinks and restorative foods, the taste and the appetite of sick persons are so capricious that they will reject the very thing which they had just before chosen: and frequently, if consulted upon the subject, will object to something which, if it had appeared unexpectedly before them, they would, perhaps, have cheerfully partaken of. Everything which is prepared for a sick person should be delicately clean, served quickly, in the nicest order; and in a small quantity at a time. _See, in the Index_, _Mutton_ and _Chicken_ broths. _Mutton Chops to Stew._ Chops for an invalid may be stewed till tender, in cold water to cover them, over a _slow fire_; scum carefully, add 1 onion, and if approved, 3 turnips. The broth will be very delicate. _A Nourishing Broth._ Put 1 lb. lean beef, 1 lb. scrag of veal, and 1 lb. scrag of mutton, into a saucepan with water enough to cover, and a little salt, let it boil to throw up the scum, take that off, pour off the water, and take off all the scum hanging about the meat: pour in 2½ quarts of warm (not hot) water, let it boil, and simmer gently till very much reduced, and the meat in rags. A faggot of herbs may be added, and a few peppercorns: also an onion, if desired. When the broth is cold remove the fat. If to serve at once, the fat may be taken off, by laying a piece of blotting paper over the top.--_Tapioca_ is very nice in broths for invalids.--_Or_: put {355}a knuckle of veal, with very little meat, and 2 shanks of mutton, into an earthen jar or pan, with 3 blades of mace, 2 peppercorns, an onion, a thick slice of bread, 3 quarts of water, and salt: tie a paper over, and bake it, four hours: then strain, and take off the fat. _Calf's-feet Broth._ Boil 3 feet in 4 quarts of water, with a little salt: it should boil up first, then simmer, till the liquor is wasted half: strain, and put it by. This may be warmed (the fat taken off), a tea-cupful at a time, with either white or Port wine, and is very nourishing.--_Or_: boil the feet with 2 oz. lean veal, the same of beef, half a penny roll, a blade of mace, salt, and nutmeg, in 4 quarts of water: when well boiled, strain it, and take off the fat. _Eel Broth._ This is very strengthening, ½ lb. small eels will make 1 pint of broth. Clean, and put them into a saucepan with 3 quarts of water, parsley, a slice of onion, a few peppercorns, and salt; simmer, till the broth tastes well, then strain it. _Beef Tea._ Notch 1½ lb. of beef (the veiny piece), put it into a saucepan with a quart of water, let it boil, take off the scum, and let it continue to simmer two hours. Beef tea should be free from fat and scum, and not burned. _Beef Jelly._ Let a shin of beef be in water an hour, take it out, and drain it; cut it in small pieces, break the bones, and put all in a stew-pan or jar, with 6 quarts of milk. Put it in the oven, and stew it till reduced to 3 quarts; skim off the fat, take out the bones, strain through a jelly bag, and add 1 oz. hartshorn shavings and a stick of cinnamon. Boil again gently over a slow fire, but be careful not to burn. Take every morning fasting, and at noon, a tea-cupful, warmed with a glass of wine. {356}_Shank Jelly_ (_very strengthening_). Soak 12 shanks of mutton, then brush and scour them very clean. Lay them in a saucepan with 3 blades of mace, an onion, 20 Jamaica and 40 black peppers, a bunch of sweet herbs, a crust of bread, browned by toasting, and 3 quarts of water; set the saucepan over a slow fire or hearth, keep it covered, let it simmer, as gently as possible, five hours. Strain, and keep it in a cold place. You may add 1 lb. of lean beef. _For a Weak Stomach._ Cut 2 lbs. of lean veal and some turnips into thin slices. Put a layer of veal and a layer of turnips into a stone jar, cover close and set it in a kettle of water. Boil two hours, then strain it. You may not have more than a tea-cupful of liquor, which is to be taken, a spoonful at a time, as often as agreeable. This has been known to stay on a weak stomach, when nothing else would.--_Or_: put a cow heel into a covered earthen jar or pan, with 3 pints of milk, 3 pints of water, 1 oz. hartshorn shavings, and a little fine sugar. Let it stand six hours in a moderate oven, then strain it.--_Or_: bake a neat's foot, in 2 quarts of water and 2 quarts of new milk, with ½ lb. sun raisins, stoned. When the foot is in pieces, set it by to get cold, and take off the fat. A tea-cupful, dissolved in warm milk or wine. _Bread Jelly, for a Sick Person._ Pare all the crust off a penny roll, cut the crumb in slices, toast these on both sides, of a light brown. Have ready a quart of water, boiled, and cold, put the slices of bread into it, and boil gently until the liquor is a jelly, which you will ascertain, by putting some in a spoon, to cool. Strain through a thin cloth, and put it by for use. Warm a tea-cupful, add sugar, grated lemon peel, and wine or milk as you choose; for children the latter. This jelly is said to be so strengthening that one spoonful contains more nourishment than a tea-cupful of any other jelly.--_Or_: grate some crumbs very fine; put a large tea-cupful of water into a saucepan, with a glass of white wine, sugar and nutmeg to taste, make this boil, stir in the crumbs, by degrees, {357}boil very fast, stirring all the time, till it is as thick as you like. _Jelly for a Sick Person._ Boil 1 oz. of isinglass, in a quart of water, with 40 Jamaica peppers, and a crust of bread; let the water reduce one half. A large spoonful of this may be taken in wine and water, milk, or tea.--_Or_: boil ¼ oz. of isinglass shavings in a pint of new milk, till reduced half; sweeten to taste, and take it lukewarm. _Panada._ Boil a chicken, till 3 parts cooked, in a quart of water, let it get cold, take off the skin, cut the white meat into pieces, and pound it in a marble mortar, with a little of the water it was boiled in, salt and nutmeg. Boil it in more of the liquid, till of the proper consistency. _Strengthening Jelly._ Boil ¾ lb. hartshorn shavings, 1½ oz. of isinglass and candied eringo root, in 5 quarts of water, to a strong jelly, strain it, add ¼ lb. brown sugar candy, the juice of a Seville orange, and ½ pint of white wine. A wine-glassful three times a day.--_Or_: put 2 oz. of the best isinglass, 1 oz. gum arabic, 2 oz. white sugar candy, and a little nutmeg, in a white jar with a pint of Port or sherry, and simmer it twenty-four hours in a vessel of water; then strain it. Take the size of a walnut three times a day. _Gloucester Jelly._ Boil 2 oz. hartshorn shavings, 2 oz. pearl barley, 1 oz. sago, ½ oz. candied eringo root, and 3 pints of water, till reduced to a quart. A tea-cupful, warmed, morning and evening, in wine, milk, broth, or water. _Port Wine Jelly._ Boil 1 pint of Port wine, 1 oz. isinglass, 1 oz. sugar candy, ¼ oz. gum arabic, and ½ a nutmeg, grated, five {358}minutes, and strain it through muslin. Some add lemon peel and juice, cloves, and nutmeg. For table, colour it with cochineal. _Arrow-root Jelly._ If genuine, this is very nourishing. Put ½ pint of water into a saucepan, with a wine-glass of sherry, or a table-spoonful of brandy, sugar, and grated nutmeg; let it come quickly to a boil; rub smooth a dessert-spoonful of arrow-root in two table-spoonsful of cold water; stir this by degrees into the wine and water, put it all into the same saucepan, and boil it three minutes.--_Or_: pour _boiling_ (not merely _hot_) water over the arrow-root, and keep stirring; it will soon thicken. Add brandy, lump sugar, and, if approved, lemon juice. _Tapioca Jelly._ Wash well, and soak it five or six hours, changing the water two or three times; simmer it in the last water, with a piece of lemon peel, until clear; add lemon juice, wine, and sugar to taste. _Sago to Boil._ Put a large table-spoonful into ¾ of a pint of water. Stir and boil very gently, till it is as thick as you require. Add wine, sugar, and nutmeg to taste.--_Tapioca_ in the same way. Soak both these two or three hours before they are boiled. They may be boiled in milk, like rice. _Gruel._ Put 2 table-spoonsful of the best grits into ½ pint cold water; let it boil gently, and stir often, till it is as thick as you require. When done, strain, and serve it directly; or if to be put by, stir till quite cold. Boil in it a piece of ginger, and, if for caudle, lemon peel also. _Barley Gruel_--Wash 5 oz. of pearl barley, boil it in two quarts of water, with a stick of cinnamon, till reduced half; strain, then warm it with 2 wine-glassfuls of wine. {359}_Barley Cream._ Boil 1 lb. of veal, free from skin and fat, with 1 oz. pearl barley, in a quart of water, till reduced to a pint, then rub it through a sieve till it is of the consistency of cream, perfectly smooth; add salt and spice to taste. _Water Gruel._ Put a large spoonful of oatmeal into a pint of water, mix well, and let it boil up three or four times, stirring constantly; then strain, add salt to taste, and a piece of butter. Stir till the butter is melted, and the gruel will be fine and smooth. _Caudle._ Make some smooth gruel, well boiled, strain, and stir it. Some like half brandy and half white wine; others, wine, sugar, lemon peel, and nutmeg.--_Or_: add to ¼ pint gruel a large table-spoonful of brandy, the same of white wine, capillaire, a little nutmeg and lemon peel. Some use _ale_; no wine or brandy. _Rice Caudle_--Soak 2 table-spoonsful of rice in water, an hour, then simmer it gently in 1¼ pint of milk till it will pulp through a sieve; put the pulp and milk back into the saucepan, with a bruised clove and a bit of sugar. Simmer ten minutes; if too thick, add warm milk.--_Or_: rub smooth some ground rice with cold water, then mix with boiling water; simmer it a few minutes, add lemon peel, nutmeg pounded, cinnamon, and sugar, a little brandy, and boil it for a minute. _Rice Milk._ Wash, pick, then soak the rice in water, boil it in milk, with lemon peel and nutmeg: stir often, or it may burn.--_Ground Rice Milk_: rub a table-spoonful quite smooth, with a little cold water; stir in, by degrees, 1½ pint of milk, with cinnamon, lemon peel, and nutmeg; boil till thick enough, and sweeten to taste. _A Mutton Custard for a Cough._ Into a pint of good skim milk, shred 1 oz. of fresh {360}mutton suet, and let it boil; then simmer gently an hour, stirring it from time to time. Strain, and take it at bed-time. Old fashioned, but good for tightness of the chest.--_Another remedy for the same_: heat the yolk of a fresh egg, and mix with a dessert-spoonful of honey, and the same of oatmeal; beat well, put it into a tumbler, and stir in by degrees, boiling water sufficient to fill it.--_Or_: mix a fresh laid egg, well beaten, with ¼ pint of new milk _warmed_, a table-spoonful of capillaire, the same of rose water, and a little grated nutmeg. Do not warm the milk after the egg is added to it. _Artificial Asses Milk._ To ½ oz. candied eringo root, add ½ oz. hartshorn shavings, and ½ oz. pearl barley; boil them in a pint of water over a slow fire till the water is reduced half. Mix a tea-cupful, with the same quantity of warmed milk, and take it half an hour before rising. _Onion Porridge._ Put 12 small, and 6 large onions, cut small, into a saucepan with a large piece of butter, shake over the fire, but do not let them burn: when half cooked, pour in a pint of boiling water, and simmer it till they are cooked. Some thicken with flour. _French Milk Porridge._ Stir some oatmeal and water together, and let it stand to settle; pour off the liquid, add fresh water to the oatmeal, and let it stand: the next day pass it through a sieve, boil the water, and while boiling, stir in some milk, in the proportion of 3 parts to 1 of water. _White Wine Whey._ Let ½ pint new milk come to a boil, pour in as much white wine as will turn it; let it boil up, and set the saucepan aside till the curd forms: then pour the whey off, or strain it, if required. Some add ½ pint of boiling water, and a bit of sugar; lemon juice may be added. {361}_Rennet Whey._ Steep a piece of rennet, about an inch square, in a small tea-cupful of water, boiled and become a little cool. Then warm a quart of new milk, to the same temperature as from the cow, and when in this state, add a table-spoonful of the rennet. Let it stand before the fire until it thickens, then in a vessel of boiling water, on the fire, to separate the curds from the milk. _Vinegar or Lemon Whey._ Pour into boiling milk as much vinegar or lemon juice as will make a small quantity clear, dilute with warm water till it be of an agreeable acid; sweeten it to taste. _Mustard Whey._ Strew into a pint of milk, just coming to a boil, flour of mustard to turn it; let it stand a few minutes, then strain it. _Treacle Posset._ Into a pint of boiling milk pour 2 table-spoonsful of treacle, stir briskly till it curdles, then strain it. _Orgeat._ Beat 2 oz. of sweet, and 2 or 3 bitter almonds, with a tea-spoonful of orange-flower water, to a paste: mix them with a quart of milk and water, and sweeten with sugar or capillaire. Some add a little brandy. _Lemonade._ Pare 6 lemons very thin, and put the rinds into 3 pints of boiling water, and keep covered till cold. Boil 1 lb. of lump sugar in water to make a thin syrup, with the white of an egg to clear it. Squeeze 8 lemons in a separate bason, mix all together, add a quart of boiling milk, and pass it through a jelly bag till clear. Keep it till the next day.--_Or_: pour boiling water on a little of the peel, and cover close. Boil water and sugar together to a thin {362}syrup, skim, and let it cool; then mix the juice, the syrup and water, in which the peel has infused, all together, and strain through a jelly bag. Some add capillaire. _Barley Water._ Wash 1 oz. of pearl barley, boil it in very little water, pour the latter off, then pour a quart of fresh water over, and boil it till reduced to half the quantity. Some boil lemon peel in it, others add lemon juice or cream of tartar, and sugar. A small quantity of gum arabic is good boiled in it.--_Another_, and by some doctors considered the best, is merely to pour boiling water on the barley, let it stand a quarter of an hour, and then pour it off clear. _Capillaire._ Put 14 lbs. of loaf sugar, 3 lbs. coarse sugar, and 6 eggs well beaten, into 3 quarts of water; boil it up twice, skim well, and add ¼ pint of orange-flower water. Strain through a jelly bag, and bottle it. A spoonful or two in a tumbler of either warm or cold water is a pleasant drink. _Linseed Tea._ Boil 1 quart of water, and as it boils put in a table-spoonful of linseed; add two onions, boil a few minutes, then strain it, put in the juice of a lemon, and sugar to your taste. If it gets thick by standing, add a little boiling water.--_Or_: put the linseed in a piece of muslin, then in a quart jug, pour boiling water over and cover it close, an hour. _Lemon and Orange Water._ Put 3 slices lemon peel into a tea-pot, with a dessert-spoonful of capillaire, and pour ½ pint of boiling water over.--_Or_: pour boiling water over preserved orange or lemon.--_Or_: boil lemon or orange juice in some thin syrup of sugar and water. _Apple Water._ Pour boiling water over slices of apple in a covered jug. {363}_Toast and Water._ Toast a piece of bread quite brown, without burning, put it in a covered jug, and pour boiling water on it; before the water is quite cold strain it off. _A Drink for Sick Persons._ Boil 1 oz. of pearl barley in 2 pints of water, with 1 oz. sweet almonds beaten fine, and a bit of lemon peel; when boiled to a smooth liquor, add syrup of lemons and capillaire.--_Or_: _to take in a fever_: boil 1½ oz. tamarinds with ¾ oz. raisins and 2 oz. currants stoned, in 3 pints of water, till reduced half; add a little grated lemon peel. _Saline Draughts._ Pour ½ pint spring water on 2 drachms salt of wormwood, and 4 table-spoonsful lemon juice; 2 table-spoonsful lump sugar may be added, if approved.--_Or_: pour 4 table-spoonsful lemon juice on 80 grains of salt of wormwood, add a small piece of sugar, finely pounded. When the salt is killed, add 4 table-spoonsful of plain mint water, and the same of spring water; strain, and divide it into 4 draughts, 1 to be taken every six hours. If the patient be bilious, add 10 grains of rhubarb, and 4 of jalap, to the morning and evening draught.--_Or_: pour into one glass a table-spoonful of lemon juice, and dissolve in it a lump of sugar; dissolve ½ a tea-spoonful of carbonate of soda in 2 table-spoonsful of water, in another glass: pour the two together, and drink in a state of effervescence. For delicate persons, a wine-glassful of sherry takes away the debilitating effect. _Coffee._ To be good must be made of a good kind, for poor, cheap coffee, though ever so strong, is not good. A breakfast-cup, quite full, before it is ground, makes a quart of good coffee. When the water boils in the coffee-pot, pour in the coffee, set it over the fire; the coffee will rise to the top, in boiling, and will then fall; boil it slowly three minutes longer, pour out a cupful, pour it back, then another, and let it stand five minutes by the side of the fire. A small {364}piece of dried sole skin will fine it, or 2 lumps of sugar.--Coffee requires cream or boiled milk. _Chocolate._ Some prefer milk alone, others milk, and half its quantity in water; let it boil (be careful it do not burn), and put in the chocolate, scraped; in quantity according to the strength desired; mill it quickly, and let it boil up, then mill it again.--For sick persons, use thin gruel, not milk. _Tea._ For invalids who do not take tea for breakfast, its flavour may be given, by boiling a dessert-spoonful of green tea in a pint of milk, five minutes, then strain it. This renders it comparatively harmless. _Barley Sugar._ Put the beaten whites of 2 eggs in an earthen pipkin with a pint of water, and 2 lbs. clarified lump sugar, flavoured with essence or oil of lemons; boil quickly, skimming all the time, till stiff enough. Pour into a shallow brown dish, and form it as you please. _Everton Toffy._ To ¼ lb. treacle, put ½ lb. sugar, and 2 oz. butter, boil them together until they become hard when dropped in cold water. Then take the pan off the fire, and pour the toffy immediately into a tin dish. {365}CHAPTER XXXI. MEDICAL RECIPES. IN almost every family little illnesses are likely to occur, which may require medicine, though not, perhaps, the aid of a Doctor; it is, therefore, convenient to keep a small supply of common medicines in the house, especially in the country. The list I give was written by a medical gentleman; but while I am induced to insert it in this work, from a belief that it may, in some cases, be found of use, I cannot refrain from observing that it is far from my desire to lead any young housekeeper to adopt the fatal error that _Doctors_ may be dispensed with, when anything approaching to serious illness betrays itself. Too many instances have occurred wherein life has been lost, for the want of timely medical skill, which might, perhaps, have arrested the progress of disease at its feeble commencement, and before it had acquired sufficient strength to baffle opposition. The following receipts have all been tried by the persons who gave them to me; many of them may be old fashioned, but some I can assert to be good. That for the _croup_ has been resorted to, several times in our own family, and always with success. The complaint is a violent one, its attacks are sudden and the progress of the disease is so rapid that there ought not to be an _instant_ of delay in administering the remedies. The _croup_ is of common occurrence in America, and the following receipt came from that country. _For the Croup._ The healthiest children are the most liable to this complaint, which is caused by sudden changings in the atmosphere, draughts of cold air, and checking of the perspiration, {366}It betrays itself by a hoarse croaking cough, something like the hooping cough.--Put the child into a warm bath placed opposite the fire; cover it all over with flannel, or a blanket; in the meantime chop an onion or two, squeeze the juice through a piece of muslin, mix it in the proportion of 1 tea-spoonful with 2 table-spoonsful treacle; get the child to swallow as much of this, from time to time, as you can: when it has been in the bath ten or twelve minutes, take it out in a blanket, and as quickly as you can, rub the stomach and chest with a mixture of rum and oil, or goose grease, wrap the child in a flannel and put it to bed, or keep it in the lap by the fire; if the child go to sleep, it will be almost sure to awake free from the disorder. These remedies may not succeed if there be delay in applying them. _For Weakness of Stomach._ 1 drachm of prepared Columba root, and ½ drachm of rhubarb root, infused in ½ pint of boiling water, one day: add 1 oz. tincture of Columba, and a little sugar. 2 table-spoonsful, twice a day.--_Or_: put about 25 camomile flowers into ½ a pint boiling water, with 3 cloves, and 2 hops, cover close and let it stand all night: a tea-cupful first in the morning, and again an hour before dinner. If giddiness ensues, the camomile does not agree with the patient, and must not be continued. Where it does agree, this will be found to restore the appetite. _Camphor Julep._ Rub ¼ oz. of camphor in a mortar, with a few drops of spirits of wine, and a few lumps of sugar; add, by degrees, a quart of water, boiled, and cold. Let it stand twenty-four hours, then strain through muslin, and bottle it. _For Bilious Complaints and Indigestion._ Pour over twenty grains each of rhubarb and ginger, and a handful of camomile flowers, a pint of boiling water. A wine-glassful the first in the morning, and an hour before dinner. {367}_A Mild Aperient._ (_To take in the spring._) Put 1 oz. of senna into a jar, and pour 1 quart of boiling water over it; fill up the vessel, with prunes and figs; cover with paper, and set it in the oven, with household bread. Take every morning, one or two prunes, and a wine-glass of the liquor.--_Or_: dissolve 3 oz. of Spanish liquorice in one pint boiling water, add 1 oz. socotrine aloes in powder, and 1 pint brandy. Take 1 tea-spoonful in a wine-glassful of water, either in the morning, at night, or both.--_Or_: a large tea-spoonful of magnesia, a lump of sugar, a dessert-spoonful of lemon juice, in ½ pint of spring water. _Gout Cordial._ Rhubarb 1 oz., senna, coriander seeds, sweet fennel seeds, cochineal, saffron, and liquorice root, of each, a ¼ oz., and of jar raisins 4 oz. Let the raisins be stoned, and all the ingredients be bruised. Put them into a quart of French brandy. Shake well every day for a fortnight. Take 1 table-spoonful, with peppermint, or plain water. _Hallett's Gout and Bilious Cordial._ Infuse in a gallon of distilled aniseed water, 3 oz. Turkey rhubarb, 4 oz. senna leaves, 4 oz. guaiacum shavings, 3 oz. elecampagne root, 1 oz. fennel seed, 14 oz. saffron, 14 oz. cochineal, 1 lb. sun raisins, 1 oz. aniseed; shake it every day for a fortnight; strain and bottle it.--A table-spoonful (or two) an hour after dinner. _For Nervous Affections._ Take a small wine-glassful of the following mixture: a tea-spoonful of sal volatile, of tincture of hops, and an equal portion of infusion of orange peel and of gentian. _Mustard Whey, for Dropsy and for Rheumatism._ Boil 1½ oz. bruised mustard seed, in a quart of milk and water, till the curd which forms is separated. Strain it and take a tea-cupful three times a day. _Another for Rheumatism._--A handful of scraped horse-radish, and a {368}table-spoonful of whole mustard seed, infused in a bottle of Madeira; the longer the better. A wine-glassful in bed at night, and another before the patient rises. _An Embrocation for Rheumatism._ Dissolve 1 oz. of gum camphor in 6 oz. of rectified spirits of wine; add by degrees, shaking the phial frequently, 2 oz. spirits of sal ammoniac and 2 drachms oil of lavender. This has been used with success.--_Another_: (known to mitigate the tic douloureux), is the _caja peeta oil_, but it _must_ be genuine. It is also good for strains, bruises, and chilblains.--_Or_: a mixture of 6 drachms French soap, 6 drachms ether, and 1 oz. spirits of wine. _For a Sore Throat._ At the beginning of a sore throat, get fresh ivy leaves, tack them together, warm them, and put the shady side to the throat.--_Or_: wet bread-crumbs with brandy, and tie them round the throat. Make a gargle of 2 carrots, sliced and boiled, and use it often.--_Or_: dissolve 4 oz. camphor in a pint of rectified spirits of wine. Dip a piece of new Welsh flannel into this, and apply it to the throat. Be careful to wet frequently. _A remedy for a Common Cold._ 3 grains compound extract of colocynth, and 3 grains of soap, in 2 pills, taken at going to bed. The following night, take 16 or 18 grains of compound powder of contrayerva, and ½ a pint vinegar whey.--Breakfast in bed the next morning. _Syrup for a Cough._ Boil 1 oz. balsam of tolu, very gently, two hours, in a quart of water; add 1 lb. white sugar candy, finely beaten, and boil it half an hour longer. Strain through a flannel bag twice; when cold, bottle it. You may add 2 oz. syrup of red poppies, and the same of raspberry vinegar. A spoonful when the cough is troublesome.--_Or_: 2 oz. honey, 4 table-spoonsful vinegar, 2 oz. syrup white poppies, and 2 oz. gum arabic: boil gently to the consistency of treacle; {369}a tea-spoonful when the cough is troublesome.--_Or_: 1 table-spoonful treacle, 1 of honey, 1 of vinegar, 15 drops laudanum, and 15 drops peppermint. Simmer together a quarter of an hour. A dessert-spoonful to be taken at going to bed.--_Or_: mix together in a phial, 2 drachms of compound tincture of benjamin, 6 drachms ethereal spirits of nitre, 3 drachms of compound tincture of camphor, and 5 drachms of oxymel; a tea-spoonful in a wine-glass of warm water, when the cough is troublesome.--_Or_: mix 1 oz. gum arabic, 1 oz. sugar candy, and the juice of a lemon; pour on it a pint of boiling water; a little when the cough is troublesome. _Extract of Malt, for a Cough._ Over ½ a bushel of pale ground malt, pour hot (not boiling) water to cover it, let it stand eight and forty hours; drain off the liquor, without squeezing the grains, into a stew-pan large enough to boil quickly, without boiling over. When it begins to thicken, stir, till it is as thick as treacle. A dessert-spoonful three times a day. _For a Cold and Cough._ To 3 quarts of water, put ¼ lb. linseed, two pennyworth stick liquorice, and ¼ lb. sun raisins. Boil it, until the water be reduced half; add a spoonful of rum and of lemon juice. A ¼ pint at bed time, and in smaller quantities, during the night, if the cough be troublesome. _For the Hooping Cough._ Dissolve 1 scruple of salt of tartar in 1¼ pint of cold water: add 10 grains of pounded cochineal, and sweeten with lump sugar.--The dose increased in proportion to the age of the patient; for a child five years old, a table-spoonful is sufficient; for adults 2 table-spoonsful 3 times a day.--Abstain from all acids. _Garlic Syrup, for Hooping, or any other Cough._ Put 3 roots of garlic, sliced thinly and transversely, with 4 oz. honey, and 4 oz. vinegar, into a ½ pint bason, {370}and set that into a large wash-hand bason; let it infuse half an hour, then strain it. Take the first in the morning, and the last at night, a tea-spoonful of the syrup, in an equal quantity of brandy and water; put the water in the glass first. _Almond Emulsion for a Cough._ Beat well in a marble mortar, 6 drachms of sweet almonds blanched, and 2 drachms of white sugar, add 1 pint cold water, by degrees; strain, then add 2 table-spoonsful of sweet spirits of nitre. Cork, and keep it in a cool place, or in cold water. A tea-spoonful three times a day. _For a Hoarseness._ Sweeten a ¼ pint of hyssop water with sugar candy, and set it over the fire; when quite hot, stir in the yolk of an egg well beaten, and drink it off; this may be taken night and morning.--_Or_: put a new laid egg in as much lemon juice as will cover it: let it stand twenty-four hours, and the shell will be dissolved. Break the egg, then take away the skin. Beat it well together, add 2 oz. of brown sugar candy pounded, ¼ pint of rum, a wine-glassful of salad oil, and beat all well together. A table-spoonful the first in the morning, and the last at night. _Plaster for a Cough._ Beat together 1 oz. each, of bees-wax, white Burgundy pitch, and rosin, ¼ oz. coarse turpentine, ½ oz. oil of mace; spread it on white leather, the shape of a heart; when it flies off, renew it, two or three times. _Bark Gargle._ Boil 1 oz. powdered bark and 1 drachm myrrh, in 1½ pint of water, over a slow fire, till one third is wasted; strain, then add a table-spoonful of honey, and a tea-spoonful of spirits of lavender. _An excellent Gargle for a Sore Throat._ Half fill a teapot with _dark_ red rose leaves, pour boiling {371}water over; when cold strain it into a 6 oz. bottle, add a tea-spoonful of tincture of myrrh, and 25 drops of elixir of vitriol: if the throat be ulcerated, a tea-spoonful of tincture of cayenne. _Chilblains._ Make a liniment, of 1 oz. of palma oil, 1 oz. of expressed oil of mace, and 2 drachms of camphor. _For Burns or Scalds._ Keep in a bottle, tightly corked, ½ oz. of trefoil, and the same of sweet oil; apply with a feather, immediately that the accident has occurred. _Linseed_ or olive oil, applied instantly, will draw out the fire; _treacle_ will have the same effect, and is recommended by some persons, in preference to anything else. Others say that _fine flour_, applied _instantly_, is the best thing; as soon as it becomes warm, replace it with fresh. _Wadding_ also laid on the part instantly is good to draw out the fire. _For Bruises, Cuts, or Wounds._ Keep in the house a bottle containing a mixture of ¾ oz. of scented trefoil, of rum, and of sweet oil.--_Or_: have a bottle three parts full of brandy, fill it quite full with the white leaves of the flowers of the garden lily, and cork it close. Lay some of the leaves on the wound, and keep it wet with the liquor. The root of the same lily is used to make _strong_ poultices. _For a Sprain._ Stir the white of an egg with alum, until it curdles; rub the part affected often. _Vegetable Ointment._ A small handful of smallage, red pimple, feverfew, rue, and pittory of the wall; simmer them in 1 lb. of unsalted butter, over a slow fire, half an hour: stir and press well, then strain it. {372}_Opodeldoc._ Put a pint of rectified spirits of wine in a bottle, with 1 oz. camphor, and 6 oz. soft soap; shake it three times a day for three days, and it is ready. _Elder Ointment._ Melt 3 lbs. of mutton suet in 1 pint of olive oil, and boil in it 4 lbs. weight of elder flowers, full blown, till nearly crisp; then strain, and press out the ointment.--_Another_: take 4 oz. each, of the inner bark of the elder tree, and the leaves, boil them in 2 pints of linseed oil, and 6 oz. of white wax. Press it through a strainer. _A Carrot Poultice._ Boil washed carrots, and pound them to a pulp with a wooden pestle; add an equal quantity of wheaten meal, and 2 table-spoonsful yeast, and wet it with beer or porter. Let it stand before the fire to ferment. The _soft_ part to be made into a poultice with lard. _An Excellent Bitter._ Cut ½ oz. of gentian in thin slices into a stone jar, with the same quantity of fresh orange peel and sliced ginger. Pour over them 1 quart of boiling water, and let it stand ten hours. Strain it, add a gill of sherry, and bottle it. For a weak stomach, a wine-glassful the first thing in the morning will create an appetite. _For Weak Eyes._ (Dr. Bailey's.) Boil 2 quarts of water, and stir into it ¼ oz. camphor, pounded in a mortar with a bitter almond, 1 oz. bolalmanack, and ½ oz. copperas; when cold, bottle it. Bathe the eyes often.--_Or_: dissolve in spring water, 10 grains of white vitriol, and 10 grains of sugar of lead. Wash the eyes four or five times a day.--_Or_: boil in spring water five minutes, ¼ oz. white copperas and ¼ oz. of common {373}salt. Put a drop in the eye with a feather the last thing at night. The bottle to be marked _poison_.--_Another_, and very good: put 10 drops of laudanum and 6 drops of goulard into a ¼ pint of elderflower water: bathe the eyes with it. _For the Tooth-ache._ Each of the following remedies _have_ been known to alleviate suffering. Turn up a wine-glass, put a little powdered alum on the round part, rub it to a paste with sweet spirits of nitre, and apply it directly to the cavity of the tooth, if there be one, if not, on the gum round it. Repeat this often.--_Or_: mix 2 drachms of alum, in impalpable powder, and 2 drachms of nitrous spirits of ether.--_Or_: 2 drachms of alum powdered very fine, with 7 drachms of nitrous spirits of ether.--_Or_: a drop of ether and of laudanum on cotton: this will also relieve the _ear-ache_.--_Or_: 1 oz. tincture of myrrh, 1 oz. tincture of gumlac, ½ oz. tincture of bark: mix the two last, shake well, add the myrrh by degrees, and shake well together. 1 table-spoonful to 2 of hot water; wash the mouth frequently, holding it in for some time.--_For an intermitting pain in the Teeth_: boil ½ oz. bark, grossly powdered, in a pint of cold water, till it wastes to a pint; then strain through muslin and bottle it. When the teeth are free from pain, put 2 table-spoonsful of laudanum, then gargle and wash the mouth well with it. Repeat it several times in the day. _Peppermint Water._ Pour 5 drops of oil of peppermint on a lump of sugar. Put the sugar into a ½ pint phial, with a tea-spoonful of brandy, and fill up with water. _Soda Water._ To 40 grains of carbonate of soda, add 30 grains of tartaric acid in small crystals. Fill a soda bottle with spring water, put the mixture in, and cork it instantly, with a well fitting cork. {374}_Medicinal Imperial._ Useful in the Spring, or in slight Fevers, or Colds. Pour 3 quarts of boiling water over 1½ oz. of cream of tartar, 1 oz. Epsom salts, ¾ lb. lump sugar, the peel of 3 lemons, and the juice of 1; cover close half an hour, then boil up, skim and strain it through thin muslin, into decanters.--A wine-glassful before breakfast. _Lime Water._ Mix 4 oz. quick lime in 6 pints of soft water, and let it stand covered an hour; then pour off the liquid. _Seidlitz Powders._ Put into one tumbler, 2 drachms of Rochelle salts, and 2 scruples of carbonate of soda; into another tumbler put 2 scruples of tartaric acid, fill each tumbler rather more than a quarter part, then pour the two together.--_Or_: mix carefully 2 drachms of sulphate of magnesia in fine powder, with 2 scruples of bicarbonate of soda, and mark the packet No. 1; in another packet, marked No. 2, put 40 grains of tartaric acid in fine powder. Mix in two different tumblers, each a quarter part filled with water, and drink in a state of effervescence. _Medicines to keep in the House._ Camomile Flowers. Camphorated Spirits. Castor Oil. Epsom Salts. Hartshorn. Jalap Powder. Magnesia Calcined. Peppermint Water. Rhubarb. Sal. Volatile. Salt of Wormwood. Senna Leaves. Soda Carbonate. Spirits of Lavender. Sweet Spirits of Nitre. Tincture Rhubarb. Tincture Myrrh. {375}CHAPTER XXXII. VARIOUS RECEIPTS. _Eau de Cologne._ INTO 2 quarts spirits of wine, at 36, put 2 drachms essence of bergamot, the same of essence of cedrat (a superior kind of bergamot), 2 drachms essence of citron, 1 oz. essence of rosemary, and a ¼ drachm of the essence of neroly (an oil produced from the flowers of the Seville orange tree); let it stand 24 hours, then strain through brown paper, and bottle it. _Lavender Water._ Into 1 pint of spirits of wine put 1 oz. oil of lavender, ½ a drachm essence of ambergris, ½ a drachm essence of bergamot. Keep it three months.--_Or_: 8 oz. spirits of wine, 1 drachm oil of lavender, 10 drops of ambergris, and 20 drops of essence of bergamot. _Milk of Roses._ Thirty grains of salt of tartar, pulverised, 2 oz. oil of almonds, 6 oz. of rose water; mix the two first, then the rose water by degrees.--_Or_: 2 oz. of sweet almonds in a paste, 40 drops oil of lavender, and 40 oz. rose water.--_Or_: 1 oz. oil of almonds, 1 pint rose water, and 10 drops of oil of tartar. _Henry's Aromatic Vinegar._ Camphor, 2 drachms; oil of cloves, ½ a drachm; oil of lavender, 1 drachm; oil of rosemary, 1 drachm; and a ½ oz. of the best white wine vinegar; macerate for ten days, then strain it through paper. {376}_Wash for the Skin._ An infusion of horse-radish in milk, or the fresh juice of house leek, are both good.--_Honey water_, very thick, is good in frosty weather.--Also, a wash made of 4 oz. potash, 4 oz. rose water, and 2 oz. lemon juice, mixed with 2 quarts of water; pour 2 table-spoonsful in a bason of water. _Pomade Divine._ Put ½ lb. of beef marrow into an earthen vessel, fill it with spring water, and change that every day for ten days, drain it off, put a pint of rose water to it, let it stand 24 hours; take the marrow out, drain and wipe it thoroughly dry in a thin cloth, beat it to a fine powder, add 1 oz. of benjamin, the same of storax, cypress nuts, florence, cinnamon, nutmeg, and ½ oz. of cloves: mix all these together first, then mix up with the marrow, and put into a pewter vessel with a close-fitting lid; put this vessel into a copper of boiling water, and boil it three hours, having boiling water to replenish the copper, so that the pewter vessel may be covered with water all the time. In three hours pour the mixture through fine muslin into pots, and, when cold, cover close with paper. _Lip Salve, very good._ Two oz. white wax, 2 oz. of unsalted lard, ½ oz. spermaceti, 1 oz. oil sweet almonds, 2 drachms balsam of Peru, a lump of sugar, and 2 drachms of alkali root; simmer together, then strain through muslin. _Pomatum._ Mix ½ lb. fresh lard with 4 oz. marrow, and beat them with a shilling bottle of essence of lemon. _Cold Cream._ To ½ a pint of rose water add ½ a pint of oil of almonds, 1 oz. virgin wax, and 1 oz. spermaceti; melt over a slow fire, and beat them together till quite cold.--_Or_: melt ½ lb. hog's lard in a bason over steam; add ¾ pint rose water, {377}and ½ a wine-glassful of oil of almonds; stir together with care till of a proper consistency. _For Chapped Hands._ Mix 1/3 pint double distilled rose water, ½ oz. oil of almonds and 7 grains salt of tartar.--_Or_: yolks of 3 eggs, 3 table-spoonsful honey, 4 table-spoonsful brandy, and 4 sweet almonds, pounded.--_Or_: dissolve a tea-spoonful of pulverised borax in a tea-cupful of boiling soft water, add a tea-spoonful of honey, and mix well together. After washing, wipe the hands very dry, and put the mixture on with a feather.--_Oil of Almonds_ or spermaceti rubbed on at night are soft and healing. _Almond Paste for the Hands._ To 1 lb. stale bread grated, ½ lb. bitter almonds (blanched and pounded), ¼ lb. honey, and 3 table-spoonsful of oil of almonds. Beat well together and keep it in jars with bladders tied over. As you use it add more honey and oil, if it requires moisture. _Tooth Powder._ Bol ammoniac, gum mastic, red coral, and myrrh, of each an equal quantity finely powdered.--_Another_: 3 oz. camphor, 1 oz. powdered cinchona bark, 1 oz. prepared charcoal, and sufficient spirits of wine to dissolve the camphor. Mix thoroughly, and pass through a fine sieve.--The mixture of chalk and camphor is very good for preserving as well as cleansing teeth. _Curling Fluid._ Melt a bit of bees-wax, about the size of a filbert kernel, slowly, in 1 oz. of oil of almonds, and then add a drop or two of ottar of rose. _To clean Carpets._ Mix ox gall and water; rub the carpet with a flannel dipped into the mixture, then with a linen cloth. Sometimes carpets shrink after being wetted, therefore fasten them to the floor. {378}_To clean Silk Dresses._ The dress must be taken to pieces. Take out all grease spots, with spirits of turpentine; rub the silk over, with a sponge dipped in an equal quantity of honey, and soft soap, with spirits of wine, sufficient to make it nearly liquid. When well cleaned, dip the silk in cold spring-water, hang it up to dry; when nearly cold, smooth it on the wrong side, with a cool iron.--_Or_: make some strong salt and water, in the proportion of a handful of salt to a bucket of cold water, lay in the breadths of silk, do not rub, but occasionally lift them up and down singly, for three days, rinse the silk in cold spring-water, hang it up to dry, and when nearly dry, smooth it out; iron it on the wrong side with a cool iron. _To take Grease out of Silk or Stuff._ Moisten ½ lb. fuller's earth with water, dry it before the fire, then pound, sift, and mix it with 2 oz. starch (beaten and sifted), ½ the white of an egg, ¼ pint camphorated spirits, and of turpentine; mix well, and bottle it. Spread it over the spot: if too dry moisten with soft water. _To remove Grease from Satin, Silk, Muslin, Drawing-paper, and other things._ Drop pure water upon the spot, and scrape on it caked magnesia, until it is saturated with the powder. When dry brush it off, and the grease, in most cases, will be removed. Some find _soda_ to answer. _To clean Blond._ Soap it well, with curd soap, in lukewarm water, and let it lie all night; then wash it out, rinse in cold water, made blue, fold in a cloth, and iron it, with a cool iron. _To Wash Silk Stockings._ Put them into lukewarm water to cover them, soap the feet well, and rub that part which is soiled, with smelt blue; lay them smooth in the water, strew some blue {379}between the folds, and let them lie all night; be careful in washing to rub them well, as the blue is hard to come out: the second lather must be of equal heat, but not quite so blue. Cut bear is used to tinge them pink. _To clean Floor Cloths._ Sweep, then rub the floor cloth with a damp flannel, then with milk or milk and water, and polish with a clean dry cloth. This is better than wax. _To clean Stone Stairs._ Boil in 2 quarts of water ½ pint of size, the same of stone blue, 2 table-spoonsful of whitening, and 2 cakes of pipe-maker's clay. Wet a flannel with this, wash the stones with it, and when dry, rub with a clean flannel and brush. _To take Oil from Stone or Boards._ To a strong ley of pearl-ashes, add some unslacked lime, let it settle, pour it off clear; lower it with water, and scour the grease spots; but it must be done quickly. _To get a Stopper out of a Decanter._ Drop a few drops of spirits of wine on it, and it will soon come out. _To take Rust from Steel._ Rub well with sweet oil, and two days after, rub with unslacked lime till the rust disappears. _To clean Steel Stoves and Fire Irons._ Rub with a piece of flannel dipped in oil, then in emery powder; polish with a leather and rotten stone. _To clean Paint._ Put a very little pearl-ash or soda into the water, to soften it, then wash the paint with a flannel and soft soap; wash the soap off, and wipe dry with clean linen cloths. {380}_To clean Papered Walls._ The very best method is to rub with stale bread. Cut the crust off very thick, and wipe straight down from the top, then go to the top again, and so on. _To clean Tin Covers._ They should be wiped dry after being used, to prevent their becoming rusty. Mix a little fine whitening with sweet oil, and rub well, wipe this off clean, then polish with a leather and dry whitening. _To clean Copper Utensils._ If the kitchen be damp, or very hot, the coppers will turn black. Rub brick dust over, then a flannel dipped in oil; polish with leather and rotten stone. _Marking Ink._ Mix 5 scruples of silver caustic, 2 drachms of gum arabic, 1 scruple of sap gum, in 1 oz. distilled water, in a glass bottle. The _wash_ to use previously; ½ oz. of soda subcarbonate in 2 oz. distilled water. _Ink._ Infuse in a gallon of rain or soft water, ¾ lb. of blue galls, bruised; stir every day, for three weeks. Add 4 oz. green copperas, 4 oz. logwood chips, 6 oz. gum arabic, and a wine-glassful of brandy.--_Or_: put 1½ oz. nut galls pounded, 1 oz. gum arabic, 1 oz. copperas into 1½ pint of rain water: shake every day for a fortnight, and it is ready. _Blacking for Shoes._ Boil 6 oz. ivory black, 1 oz. bees-wax, and 1 oz. mutton suet, in 3 pints of water till melted and mixed.--_Or_: 1 quart vinegar, 6 oz. treacle, 2 oz. ivory black, and the yolks of 2 eggs, well beaten. Boil together till well mixed, keep it covered close.--_Or_: mix into a pint of small beer, 4 oz. ivory black, 3 oz. coarse sugar and a table-spoonful sweet oil. {381}_Pot Pourri._ Mix together one handful of orange flowers, of sweet marjoram, lemon thyme, lavender flowers, clove pinks, rosemary, of myrtle flowers, 2 of stock flowers, 2 of damask roses, ½ a handful of mint, and the rinds of 2 lemons, dried and pounded; lay some bay salt at the bottom of your jar, then a layer of the mixture, till the jar is full. _To Thicken the Hair._ Simmer ½ lb. of the best lard in a tea-cupful of olive oil half an hour, scumming all the time: add 9 drops of any scent. Rub it in three times a week. _To Destroy Bugs._ Corrosive sublimate, in spirits of wine, poured into crevices, or put on with a feather; it should be repeated as often as necessary. A deadly poison. _Paste._ Mix a very small portion of white lead in paste which is to be used about books, drawings, &c., &c. This will keep away the worm which is so destructive. _Poison._ {382}CHAPTER XXXIII. COOKERY FOR THE POOR. I HAVE selected such receipts as appear to be the most profitable to adopt; and the insertion of these will accomplish nearly all that I can hope to effect under the above head, for we all know that a supply of food alone can avert the misery of hunger, and that if there were a thousand different _systems_ for feeding the poor by the means of voluntary aid, the success of each system must depend on the practical efforts made in its application. Some persons object to making soups, &c., for the poor, on the ground that poor people are not so well satisfied with this mode of relief as they would be if the materials were given them to dispose of in their own way. This objection is just in some cases, but not so in all; because, as respects domestic management, there are two distinct classes among the poor, the one having learned arts of economy while faring well, and the other being ignorant of those arts from never having had enough means to encourage them to make such things their study. It is true that the old-fashioned English cottagers, that class so fast falling into decay, are by no means wanting in the knowledge of housekeeping and of cooking in an economical manner. Not only does their labour in the fields produce fertility, bring the richest harvests, and cause those appearances on the face of the country which make it admired as one of the most beautiful in the world; but the habitations of the labourers themselves, their neat cottages, and their gardens so abounding at once with the useful and the elegant; these have always been regarded as one complete feature, and that not the least important, in the landscape of England. And, if we look at the interior of these dwellings, we there find every thing corresponding with what we have remarked without. Where the father, after having done a hard day's work for his master, will continue, in the evening, to toil upon his own small {383}plot of ground for a couple of hours, and where the children are bred up to respect the edges of the borders, the twigs of the shrubs, and the stems of the flowers, and to be industrious and even delighted in such things, it is natural that the mother should take the same pains with all that belongs to the inside of the dwelling. And, accordingly, those who have occasionally visited the poor of the rural districts of England, must have observed, that if they are often deficient in the means of living well, they are, as often, patterns of cleanliness, and as anxious to make a respectable appearance with their scanty furniture, to polish their half dozen pewter platters, to scrub their plain table or dresser, to keep clean and to set in order their few cups and saucers of china-ware, as their betters are to make a display of the greatest luxuries of life. These excellent habits of the people are so fixed, that we see a portion of them still clinging to those labourers, perhaps the most of all to be commiserated, who are employed in the factories of the north of England. But the condition of the other class is very different. Some of these have never, from their earliest infancy, been accustomed to any of those scenes in which, though there be difficulties, there are circumstances to excite perseverance, and to reward painstaking. These are born in absolute want; their experience under the roof of their parents has been but a course of destitution; and they go forth into the world rather as fugitives from misery than as seekers to be more prosperous. If they obtain employment, their labour is perhaps repaid by wages barely sufficient to keep them alive; destitute of the means of practising anything like household management, never having known what it is to have a home, worthy to be so called, for a single day, it is scarcely possible for them to obtain that knowledge, simple as it is, which is required to contrive the various modes of making much out of a little. Besides, if the poor people existing in this condition were ever so inclined to do well, there are the strongest inducements held out to them to mismanage their small stock of means; they are continually standing in need of some temporary sustenance; and, who can wonder if thus bereft of all power to _provide_ or to _economise_, they yield to destruction, and suffer themselves to be allured by the {384}glare of the gin-palace, or the revelry of the pot-house! It is one of the signs of misery with such persons, that they are little acquainted with the art of cookery. Here and there may be found a poor woman who has become skilful by serving in the kitchens of other persons: but this is only an exception, and too rare to be of account. In almost every family there are, occasionally, things which may be spared from its consumption, to be converted, by an experienced cook, into palatable and nourishing food for poor people, but which, if given to them in the shape of fragments, they would be totally ignorant how to make use of. Such, for instance, as bones with very little meat on them, trimmings of meat, of poultry, &c., some cooked, some uncooked, crusts of bread, and pieces of dripping; yet these, with a little pepper, salt, and flour to thicken, may, by careful cooking and scumming, be made to produce an excellent meal for a family of children.--Few servants are unwilling to take the trouble of helping their poor fellow creatures, and, if the head of every family would give as much as she can spare to the poor who live immediately in her own neighbourhood, more general good would be done than ladies can reasonably hope to do by subscribing their money to "societies," which, though they may have been established by the best-intentioned persons, and for the kindest of purposes, can never be so beneficial in their effects as that charity which one individual bestows on another. The relief which is doled out by a "Society" is accompanied by very imperfect, if any, inquiries into the particular circumstances of the persons relieved; by no expressions of sympathy, by no encouraging promises for the future, to cheer the heart of the anxious mother as she bends her way homeward with her kettle of soup: the soup which has been obtained by presenting a ticket is apportioned to the little hungry creatures, without their being reminded who it is that has so kindly provided for them, and after it is eaten there is no more thought about the source whence it came than about the hunger which it has removed. The private mode of charity is superior to the public in every way. There are great advantages arising from the former which the latter can never procure. Not only must the attentions of a known individual be the most {385}gratefully appreciated by a poor man and woman, but the child which has often gone to bed satisfied and happy, after a supper provided by some good neighbour, cannot be expected to grow up without some of those feelings of personal respect and attachment for its benefactor, which, while they prevent the contrast of riches with poverty from becoming odious, are the strongest assurances of union between him who claims a property in the soil and him whose labour makes that property of value. Self-interest and humanity are not the least at variance in this matter; the same course of policy is dictated to both. It may seem glorious to be advertised throughout Europe, and to be read of in newspapers, as a large subscriber to a public Institution; but the benefits which are confined to a single parish are the more lasting from being local, and the fame of the distributor, though bounded in distance, is all the more deserved, the longer kept alive and cherished, and, consequently, the better worth endeavouring to obtain. The soup I would recommend for poor people, should be made of the shin, or any coarse parts of beef, shanks and scrags of mutton, also trimmings of any fresh meat or poultry. 1 pound of meat to every pint of soup (that is, every three ½ pints of water), and then all the meat should not be boiled to rags, but some be left to eat. There should be a sufficient quantity of turnips, carrots, onions and herbs; also pepper and salt; and dumplings, of either white or brown flour, would be a good addition. A quart of soup, made in this way, with about ½ lb. of meat, and a dumpling for each person, would be a good dinner for a poor man, his wife and children; and such a one as a lady who has a kitchen at her command, may often regale them with. Less meat will do where there is pot-liquor. The liquor of all boiled meat should be saved, in a clean pan, and made the next day into soup. That of a leg of mutton will require but little meat in addition, to make good soup. The liquor of any fresh meat, of boiled pork, if the latter be not very salt, will make good peas soup, without any meat.--Soak a quart of peas all night, in soft water, or pot-liquor, and, if the former, some bones or pieces of meat; a small piece of pork would be very good. Put in 2 onions, cut up, a head of celery, a {386}bunch of sweet herbs, and what salt and pepper you think it requires. Let it boil, and then simmer gently _by the side_ full three hours, or longer if the peas be not done; stir the peas up from the bottom now and then. When you have neither meat nor pot-liquor, mix 2 or 3 oz. of dripping with an equal quantity of oatmeal, and stir it, by degrees, into the soup, or boil in it some dumplings of flour and suet. In houses where a brick oven is heated once a week or oftener, for bread, it would give little additional trouble to bake a dish of some sort or other for a poor family. Soup may be made in this way: first put the meat on the fire in just enough water to cover it; when it boils, take off the scum, pour off the water, put the meat into an earthen pan, with 3 carrots cut up, a turnip, 2 onions, pepper and salt, and stale dry crusts of bread; pour over boiling water, in the proportion of a gallon to 2 lbs. meat, and let it bake three hours. Shanks of mutton, cowheels, ox and sheep's head, may be cooked in this way, but the two latter must be parboiled, to cleanse them; and will require four or five hours' baking. The soup made of ox head is not so nourishing as that of shin of beef. If there be room in the oven, a plain pudding may be baked as follows. Pour boiling skim milk over stale pieces of bread, and cover with a plate or dish. When it has soaked up the milk, beat the bread, dust in a little flour, add sugar, an egg or two, or shred suet, or pieces of dripping, and more milk if required; butter a brown pan, pour in the pudding, and bake it three-quarters of an hour.--_Or_: a batter pudding, made with two eggs, a quart of milk; or if eggs be scarce, leave them out, and use dripping; rub it into the flour, with a little salt, mix this by degrees with some milk into a batter and bake it. A batter pudding of this kind, rather thick, is very good with pieces of meat baked in it; in the proportion of 1 lb. solid meat, to a batter made with 1 quart of milk. Pickled pork, not very salt, makes a very good pudding. A plain rice pudding, without egg or butter, made with skim milk, and suet or dripping, is excellent food for children. But rice costs something, and my object is to point out to young housekeepers how they can best assist the poor without injury to their own purses; and, therefore, I do not {387}urge the use of barley, rice, sugar, currants, &c. &c. They do not, of themselves, produce much nourishment; sufficient, perhaps, for children, and for persons who do not labour, but for hard working people, the object is to provide as much animal food as possible; therefore, when money is laid out, it ought to be for meat. Puddings with suet approach very nearly to meat. A thick crust, with a slice of bacon or pork in it, and boiled, makes a good pudding. _Hasty pudding_, made with skim milk, in the proportion of 1 quart to 3 table-spoonsful of flour, would be a good supper for children, and the cost not worth consideration, to any lady who has a dairy. _Buttermilk_ puddings, too, are cheap and easily made. _Milk_ is of great value to the poor. Where there is a garden well stocked with vegetables, a meal for poor people may often be prepared, at little expense, by cooking cabbages, lettuces, turnips or carrots, &c. &c. in the water which has been saved from boiling meat, or thin broth. The vegetables, stewed slowly till tender, with or without a small piece of meat, and the gravy seasoned and thickened, will be much more nourishing, as well as palatable, than plain boiled. _To dress Cabbages, Lettuces, Brocoli and Cauliflower._ Put ½ lb. bacon or pork, in slices, at the bottom of a stew-pan, upon them a large cabbage, or two small ones, in quarters; a small bunch of herbs, some pepper and salt, the same quantity of bacon or pork on the top, and a quart of water or pot liquor; let it simmer till the cabbage is quite tender. _Another_: wash a large cabbage or lettuce, open the leaves, and put between them little pieces of bacon or pork, and any fragments of fresh meat cut up; tie up the cabbage securely, and stew it till tender in a very little broth or water, with a little butter rolled in flour, and some seasonings. A little meat will go a great way in making this a palatable dish. Turnips, carrots, and potatoes, either raw, or such as have been cooked the day before, may be {388}just warmed up, or stewed till tender in a little weak broth, thickened with flour, and seasoned with salt and pepper, and then, poured with the gravy on slices of bread in a tureen, they will be good food for children. In "COBBETT'S _Cottage Economy_" there will be found a variety of receipts for cooking Indian corn meal. THE END. {389}INDEX. PAGE Allice, to broil, 128 Anchovy toasts, 185 Artichokes, to boil, 221 Jerusalem, ib. bottoms, 222 Asparagus, to boil, 215 Bacon, to salt and cure, 25, 26 to boil, 65 to broil or fry, 90 Baking, directions for, 81 Beans, Windsor, 217 French, 218 Beef, to joint, 45 to carve, 49 to salt, 29 to smoke, 30 round of, to boil, 61 edge-bone of, to do., ib. brisket of, to do., ib. sirloin of, to roast, 69 rump of, to do., 70 ribs of, to do., ib. steaks, to broil, 83 with potatoes, 84 to fry, 88 to stew, ragout, or braise, 136 à la mode, 137 to collar, 138 royale, ib. to fricandeau, ib. bouilli, 140 steaks, to stew, 141 rolled, 142 olives, ib. marrow bones, 143 heart, ib. hunter's, ib. Hamburgh, 144 hung, 144 à la Flamande, ib. to press, ib. to hash or mince, ib. cecils, 145 collops, ib. en Miroton, 146 bubble and squeak, ib. to pot, ib. Beer, to brew, 334 ginger, 346 spruce, ib. Beet root, to boil, 219 Birds, small, to roast, 79 Biscuits, to make, 276 Indian corn, 277 Dr. Oliver's, ib. lemon, ib. Blanch, directions to, 134 Boiling, general directions for, 59 Boudins, to make, 171 Braise, directions to, 135 Brawn, mock, 175 pickle for, 30 Bread border, a, 181 to make, 268 French, 270 rice, ib. Brill, to boil, 116 Brocoli, to boil, 216 to fry, ib. Broiling, general directions for, 83 Broth, Scotch barley, 108 mutton, 109 veal, ib. chicken, ib. Butter, to make, 350 without a churn, 351 from clouted cream, 352 to pot, ib. to clarify, 87 to brown, 193 to melt, 192 parsley and, ib. Cabbage, to boil, 214 red, to stew, ib. to curry, ib. à la Bourgeoise, ib. lettuce, with forcemeat, 222 Cakes, to make, 270 common currant, 272, 273 rich plum, 272 very good, ib. without butter, 273 rich seed, ib. a rice, 274 harvest, ib. temperance, ib. sponge, ib. Marlborough, ib. gingerbread, ib. parkin, 276 volatile, ib. hunting, ib. rough, ib. rock, ib. rusks, 277 maccaroons, 278 ratafia, ib. jumbles, ib. small plum, ib. carraway, ib. Shrewsbury, 279 shortbread, ib. Derby short, ib. cinnamon, ib. rout, ib. Queen, 280 buns, ib. Sally Lunn's tea, 281 breakfast, ib. Yorkshire, ib. Roehampton rolls, 282 muffins, ib. crumpets, ib. Scotch slim, 283 Calf's head, to boil, 63 heart and pluck, 152 to dress, 154 to fricassee, 155 brains, ib. mock turtle, 156 tails, to dress, 153 Catsup, mushroom, 329 walnut, 330 oyster, ib. tomata, 331 lobster, ib. Cardoons, to boil, 223 Carp, to stew, 125 Carrots, to boil, 219 Carving, directions for, 47 Cauliflower, to boil, 216 with parmesan, ib. to stew, ib. to fry, ib. Caviare, mock, 185 Celery, to stew, 220 Cellar, observations relating to the, 332 Cheese, to make, 353 to toast, 187 Chicken, to broil, 85 to braise, 169 to fricassee, 170 curry of, 176 Chutney, beef or ham, 178 fish, ib. Cider, to make, 336 cup, 346 Cocks, black, to roast, 78 Cod, to boil, 116 to fry, 117 head and shoulders, ib. to bake, 118 sounds, ib. cabeached, ib. Colcannon, 212 Cow-heel, to boil, 66 Crab, to boil, 128 to eat hot, 129 to pot, ib. Cray Fish, to boil, 128 to pot, 130 in jelly, ib. Cream, clouted, to make, 352 Crumbs, to fry, 91 Cucumbers, to stew, 220 to dress, 226 Curry, directions for making, 176 kebobbed, 177 of fish, 178 balls, 190 powder, 207 vegetables to, 214 Confectionary, to make, 283 custards, ib. rich, to bake or boil, 284 lemon, ib. orange, 285 Spanish, ib. with apples, ib. with rice, 286 trifle, a, ib. gooseberry or apple, ib. tipsy cake, ib. crême patisserie, 287 cream, chocolate, ib. a plain, ib. Italian, 288 lemon, ib. orange, ib. " frothed, 289 alamode, ib. velvet, ib. vanilla, ib. burnt, ib. snow, ib. currant and raspberry, ib. strawberry, ib. clouted, 291 ice, ib. Paris curd, ib. blancmange, 292 rice, ib. with preserves, ib. jaunemange, ib. flummery, 293 Dutch, ib. rice cups, ib. syllabub, ib. solid, ib. whipt, ib. jelly, calf's feet, ib. punch, 295 savoury, ib. orange and lemon, 295 arrow-root, 296 hartshorn, ib. apple, ib. isinglass, ib. strawberry, 297 gâteau de pomme, ib. bird's-nest, a, ib. sponge, lemon and orange, ib. souffle, a good, 298 rice, ib. orange, ib. lemon, ib. omelet, 299 sweet, ib. of apples, ib. fool, gooseberry and apple, 300 orange, ib. oranges, stewed, ib. apples, red, in jelly, ib. pears, to stew, ib. apples, to bake, 301 cheesecakes, ib. lemon, ib. curd, 302 orange, ib. apple, ib. rice, ib. Lent potatoes, ib. plums, French, stewed, 303 Dairy, the, observations upon, 348 Devils, 185 Dory, John, to boil, 116 Duck, to truss and carve, 57 to boil, 65 to roast, 77 wild, to do., ib. salmi, 175 to bake, 81 to dress with peas, 173 to ragout, 174 to hash, ib. curry of, 177 Dumplings, apple, 249 yeast, 265 hard, ib. Eels, to stew, 126 to fry, ib. to collar, 127 to spitchcock, ib. Eggs, to fry, 89, 182 to poach, 182 to butter, 183 to fricassee, ib. to ragout, ib. Swiss, ib. Scotch, ib. à la tripe, ib. à la maître d'hotel, 184 with asparagus, ib. with mushrooms, 185 balls, 190 Endive, to stew, 222 Essence of ginger, 328 allspice, nutmeg, cloves, mace, cinnamon, ib. savoury spice, ib. cayenne, ib. orange and lemon peel, ib. Fawn, to roast, 72 to bake, 82 Fish, seasons for, 31 directions for cooking, 114 soups, 111 to pull, 131 cake, 130 pies, 237 patties, 240 flounders, to fry, 123 Flour, to brown, 192 Forcemeat, balls of, 189 fish, 190 Fondu, 184 Fowl, to truss and carve, 55, 56 to boil, 64 to roast, 76 guinea, to do., 77 pea, to do., ib. to broil, 86 to force, 169 à la chingara, 170 to pull, 171 wild, to ragout, 174 Fritters, to make, 267 curd, ib. apple, 267 Frying, general directions for, 87 Furniture, to clean, 21 Game, seasons for, 31 to truss and carve, 55 Glaze, directions to, 135 Godiveau, to make, 188 Goose, to truss and carve, 55 to roast, 76 green, to do., 77 to bake, 81 to braise, 171 Gratin, to make, 188 Gravy, directions for making, 191 ham extract for, 193 to draw plain, ib. beef, 194 savoury, ib. without meat, 195 to keep a week, 196 jelly, for cold meat, ib. savoury, for venison, ib. mutton, for venison or hare, ib. orange, for game and wildfowl, 197 Grouse, to roast, 78 Gudgeon, to boil, 127 to bake, ib. to fry, ib. Haddock, to boil, 122 to stew, ib. to bake, 123 to fry, ib. to broil, ib. Haggis, Scotch, 176 Ham, to cure, 26 mutton, to do., 28 to carve, 52 to boil, 65 to bake, 82 to broil or fry, 90 Haricots blanc, 224 Hare, to roast, 80 to bake, 82 mock, 147 to jug, 166 to stew, 167 to hash, 167 to pot, 168 to braise, 171 en daube, ib. Heart, bullock's, to roast, 71 Heart, calf's, to roast, ib. sheep's, to roast, ib. calf's and sheep's, to dress, 152 Herrings, to fry, 123 to boil, 124 to bake, ib. to pickle, ib. to broil, ib. Indian corn pudding, 251 mush, 256 hommony, ib. polenta, 257 biscuits, 277 Irish stew, 140 Jointing, observations and directions relating to, 44, 45, 46 Kale, to boil, 215 Kidney, to broil, 84 to dress, 160 Kitchen, directions for arranging of the, 35 Knives, to clean, 22 Lamb, to carve, 49 to boil, 62 to roast, 74 chops, to broil, 84 to fry, 88 to dress, 160 leg of, with vegetables, 162 breast of, to stew, ib. cutlets and steaks, 163 shoulder of, stuffed, ib. head, ib. fricassee, ib. sweetbreads, 164 curry of, 177 Lard, directions to, 134 Larks, to roast, 79 Laver, to dress, 224 Lentils, to boil, 223 Lettuce, to stew, 222 Liver, to fry, 90 Lobster, to boil, 128 to eat hot, 129 to pot, ib. Maccaroni, to dress, 186 paste, to make, 231 pie, 233 Mackerel, to boil, 124 to broil, 123 to bake, 124 to pickle, ib. Maids, to boil, 122 Marrow, vegetable, to boil, 222 to stuff, ib. Meat, the season for, 30 to preserve, 23 to salt, 24 Mutton, to joint, 45 to carve, 48 to salt and smoke, 28 leg of, to boil, 61 neck of, to do., 62 leg of, to roast, 70 loin of, to do., ib. haunch of, to do., ib. to dress as venison, 71 saddle of, 70 shoulder of, ib. chops, to broil, 84 to fry, 88 to haricot, 157 leg of, with carrots, 158 loin of, to roll or stew, ib. shoulder of, 159 breast of, to grill, ib. neck of, to stew, ib. kidneys, to dress, 160 chops and collops, ib. cutlets à la maintenon, 161 to hash, ib. hunters' pie, ib. Morels, to stew, 220 Mushrooms, to stew, ib. Omelets, 181 Onions, to dress, 220 Ortolan, to roast, 78 Ox cheek, to bake, 82 to stew, 139 palates, ib. to pickle, ib. tails, to stew, 140 Oysters, to stew, 132 to keep, 133 Pain Perdu, to make, 267 Pancakes, to make, 266 whole rice, ib. ground rice, ib. Parsley, to fry, 91 Partridge, to truss and carve, 58 to roast, 77 to broil, 86 to stew, 172 Parsnips, to boil, 219 Pastry, general directions for making, 227 glazing for, 228 iceing for, ib. Paste, plain, for meat pies, 227 richer, ib. elegant, ib. a flaky, 229 puff, ib. crisp, ib. good light, ib. short, ib. for preserved fruits, 230 raised, for meat pies, ib. rice, ib. maccaroni, ib. for patties, 239 for puddings, 246 Patties, to make, 239 chicken, turkey and ham, veal, 240 rabbit and hare, ib. beef, ib. oyster, ib. lobster and shrimp, 241 Peas, to boil, 217 Perch, to fry, 123 to stew, 124 Pheasant, to truss and carve, 58 to roast, 77 Pickles, observations on the making of, 318 Pickle, walnuts to, 319 gherkins, 320 onions, ib. cucumbers and onions, 321 cabbage, red, ib. mangoes, melon, ib. beet root, ib. mushrooms, 322 India, ib. lemons, 323 cauliflower and brocoli, ib. Pie, meat, 231 venison, ib. beefsteak, 232 pork, ib. sausage, ib. mutton, 233 lamb, ib. veal, ib. maccaroni, ib. calf's head, 234 sweetbread, ib. pigeon, rook, or moor-fowl, ib. hare, 235 chicken, ib. rabbit, ib. goose, ib. giblet, 236 partridge or perigord, ib. pheasant, ib. a sea, 237 parsley, ib. herb, ib. fish, ib. lobster, 238 herring, eel, mackerel, ib. shrimp or prawn, 239 salt fish, ib. rhubarb, 241 gooseberry, or green currant, 241 green apricot, ib. apple, ib. codling, ib. cranberry, ib. of preserved fruits, ib. small puffs, ib. Spanish puffs, 243 apple, ib. orange, ib. lemon, ib. mince, ib. without meat, 244 a bride's, ib. Pig, sucking, to roast, 71 to bake, 81 harslet, to fry, 90 to roast, ib. to collar, 165 head, to roast, ib. feet and ears, soused, 166 to fricassee, ib. Pigeons, to roast, 78 to broil, 85 to braise, 169 Pike or jack, to boil, 125 to bake, ib. Pillau, a, 179 Pipers, to dress, 128 Plate, to clean, 21 Plaice, to fry, 123 Plovers, to roast, 78 Potatoes, to boil, 211 to fry, broil, or stew, 212 to mash, ib. to roast, ib. pie, 213 balls, ib. ragout, ib. à la maître d'hotel, ib. a border of, 181 Pork, to joint, 46 to boil, 63 petit-toes, to cook, 64 to salt, 28 to roast, 74 griskin, to ditto, 75 to bake, 81 chops, to broil, 85 bladebone of, ib. chops, to fry, 88 with onions, 165 to roll, ib. corned, with peas, 166 Porter, cup, 345 Poor, the, cooking for, 382 Poultry, seasons for, 31 to truss and carve, 54, 55, 56, 57 to boil, 64 to roast, 75 to broil, 85 to dress, 169 Powder, curry, 207 savoury, ib. horse-radish, 209 pea, ib. mushroom, ib. anchovy, ib. Prawns, to pot, 130 to butter, ib. in jelly, ib. Preserves, to make, 303 sugar, to clarify, 304 jelly, currant, ib. apple, 307 quince, 308 jam, currant, 305 raspberry, ib. strawberry, ib. gooseberry, ib. green, ib. damson, ib. rhubarb, ib. butter, black, 306 fruit, for puddings, ib. for winter use, ib. to bottle, ib. damsons for tarts, 307 marmalade, apple, ib. orange, 312 quince, 308 cheese, damson, 309 apricot, ib. orange, ib. pine apple, ib. cucumber, 310 strawberries, ib. raspberries, ib. strawberries in wine, 311 gooseberries, whole, ib. morella cherries, ib. in brandy, 316 cherries en chemise, 311 in syrup, ib. to dry, 312 apricots to dry, ib. to preserve, 314 orange chips, 312 to preserve, 313 plums, to preserve, 314 in brandy, 316 greengages, 314 pears, 315 fruit, to candy, 316 grapes, in brandy, 317 barberries, ib. Puddings, general directions for making, 245 paste, for meat, 246 beefsteak, 247 suet, ib. meat in batter, ib. kidney, 248 fish, ib. black, ib. hog's, ib. apples, currants, gooseberries, cherries, damsons, rhubarb and plums, 249 apple, baked, 262 green apricot, 249 roll, ib. plum, ib. a Christmas, 250 marrow, ib. French plum, 251 maigre plum, ib. bread, ib. and butter, 252 custard, ib. little, 253 an excellent, ib. oatmeal, ib. batter, ib. Yorkshire, ib. potatoe, 254 carrot, ib. hasty, ib. buttermilk, ib. save-all, 255 camp, ib. pretty, ib. nursery, ib. arrow root, ib. ground rice, 256 semolina, ib. whole rice, 257 snow balls, 258 Buxton, ib. vermicelli, 259 sago, ib. tapioca, ib. pearl barley, ib. millet, ib. maccaroni, ib. one always liked, 260 cheese, ib. ratafia, ib. Staffordshire, ib. baked almond, ib. wafer, 261 orange, ib. lemon, ib. cabinet, ib. gooseberry, baked, 262 quince, ib. Swiss apple, 263 peach, apricot and nectarine, ib. a Charlotte, ib. bakewell, 264 citron, ib. maccaroon, ib. new college, 265 paradise, ib. Punch, excellent, 344 milk, ib. Norfolk, ib. Roman, ib. Regent's, ib. Quails, to roast, 78 Rabbit, to truss and carve, 53 to boil, 65 to roast, 81 to bake, 82 to broil, 84 to fry, 89 with fine herbs, 167 to fricassee, 168 to pot, ib. to braise, 169 curry of, 176 Welch, 187 Rails, to roast, 78 to ragout, 174 Ramakins, 184 Recipes, medicinal, 365 Recipe, for the croup, ib. for weakness of stomach, 366 camphor julep, ib. for bilious complaints, ib. a mild aperient, 367 gout cordial, ib. Hallett's, ib. for nervous affections, ib. mustard whey, ib. almond emulsion, 370 for hoarseness, ib. plaster for a cough, ib. bark gargle, ib. gargle for a sore throat, ib. for chilblains, 371 burns, ib. cuts or wounds, ib. a sprain, ib. vegetable ointment, ib. elder, 372 opodeldoc, ib. carrot poultice, ib. for weak eyes, ib. toothache, 373 peppermint water, ib. soda water, ib. medicinal imperial, 374 lime water, ib. seidlitz powders, ib. medicines to keep in the house, ib. Receipts, various, 375 eau de Cologne, ib. lavender water, ib. milk of roses, ib. aromatic vinegar, ib. wash for the skin, 376 pomade divine, ib. lip salve, ib. pomatum, ib. cold cream, ib. for chapped hands, 377 almond paste, ib. tooth powder, ib. curling fluid, ib. to clean carpets, ib. silk dresses, 378 to take grease out of silk or stuff, 378 to clean blond, ib. silk stockings, ib. floor cloths, 379 stone stairs, ib. to take oil from stone or boards, ib. to take rust from steel, ib. to clean stoves and fire irons, ib. to clean paint, ib. to clean papered walls, 380 to clean tin covers, ib. to clean copper utensils, ib. marking ink, ib. ink, to make, ib. blacking for shoes, ib. pot pourri, 381 to thicken hair, ib. to destroy bugs, ib. paste, to make, ib. Rice, to boil for curry, 178 border, 181 white pot, 267 rissoles, 180 Roasting, general directions for, 67 roux, white, 192 brown, ib. Salads, directions for making, 224 lobster, 226 Italian, ib. Salmon, to boil, 119 to grill, ib. to bake, 120 to pickle, ib. to dry, 121 to collar, ib. to pot, ib. Salmagundi, a, 131 Salsify, 221 Samphire, to boil, 224 Sandwiches, 185 Sardinias, to broil, 124 Sauces, directions for making, 191 list of, ib. sauce blanche, 192 maître d'hotel, 193 white gravy, 194 for game and wild fowl, 197 for goose, duck and pork, ib. Robert, for broils, ib. for turkey or fowl, 198 liver, ib. egg, for poultry and fish, ib. mushroom, ib. celery, ib. rimolade, 199 tomata, ib. apple, ib. gooseberry, ib. cucumber, 200 onion, ib. eschalot, ib. partout, ib. chetna, 201 carrier, ib. horse-radish, ib. mint, ib. for cold meat, ib. coratch, 202 miser's, ib. poor man's, ib. for roast beef, ib. lemon, ib. caper, ib. bread, 203 rice, ib. sweet, ib. sharp, ib. store, for ragouts, ib. for tench, 204 good store, for fish and stews, ib. plain fish, ib. excellent fish, ib. oyster, 205 anchovy, ib. shrimp, ib. cockle, ib. roe, ib. Dutch fish, ib. for devils, 206 Sausages, to fry, 89 to make, 180 Scorzonera and skirrets, 221 Seasonings, directions for preparing, 206 Shad, to broil, 128 Shrimps, to pot, 130 in jelly, ib. Sippets, to fry, 91 Sick, the, cooking for, 354 chops, to stew, ib. broth, a nourishing, ib. calf's feet broth, 355 eel broth, ib. beef tea, ib. beef jelly, ib. shank jelly, 356 for a weak stomach, ib. bread jelly, ib. jelly for a sick person, 357 panada, ib. Gloucester jelly, ib. port wine jelly, ib. arrow root jelly, 358 tapioca jelly, ib. sago, to boil, ib. gruel, ib. barley cream, 359 water gruel, ib. caudle, ib. rice milk, ib. mutton custard, ib. asses milk, 360 onion porridge, ib. milk porridge, ib. white wine whey, ib. rennet whey, 361 vinegar or lemon whey, ib. mustard, ib. treacle posset, ib. orgeat, ib. lemonade, ib. barley water, 362 capillaire, ib. linseed tea, ib. lemon and orange water, ib. apple water, ib. toast and water, 363 drink for sick persons, ib. saline draughts, ib. coffee, ib. chocolate, 364 tea, ib. barley sugar, 364 Everton toffy, ib. Skate, to boil, 122 to fry, ib. Smelts, to fry, 127 to bake, ib. to boil, ib. Snipe, to roast, 78 to ragout, 174 Sole, to boil, 116 to fry, 123 Soup, general directions for making, 92 stock, plain, 95 bouilli, ib. good clear gravy, 96 vermicelli, ib. maccaroni, ib. carrot, ib. turnip, ib. asparagus, ib. celery, ib. julienne, 97 clear, ib. clear herb, ib. brown, ib. plain white, 98 another white, ib. another, with herbs, ib. lorraine, 99 onion, ib. onion maîgre, ib. green pea, ib. another, 100 artichoke, ib. good maîgre, ib. another maîgre, 111 yellow pea, 101 carrot, plain, ib. mock turtle, 102 hare, 103, 104 rabbit, 104 game and venison, ib. knuckle of veal, 105 mulligatawny, ib. ox-tail, 106 grouse, 107 partridge, ib. pheasant, ib. poacher's, 107 hotch potch, 108 pepper pot, ib. cock-a-leekie, 109 milk, ib. ox-head, 110 giblet, ib. stock for fish, 111 lobster, 112 oyster, 113 maîgre, ib. cray fish, ib. eel, ib. Spinach, to boil, 214 au gras, 215 Sprats, to fry, 127 to bake, ib. to boil, ib. Stuffing, to make, 187 seasonings for, 188 for veal, 189 poultry, ib. fish, ib. goose, ib. duck, ib. hare, ib. pike, 190 Sturgeon, to dress, 121 Suet, to clarify, 88 Sweetbreads, to broil, 84 to fry, 90 to dress, 153, 164 Tankard, a cool, 345 Teal, to roast, 78 Tench, to fry, 123 to stew, 124 Thornback, to boil, 122 Tongue, to pickle, 28 to boil, 66 to stew, 140 Tripe, to boil, 66 to fry, 91 to fricassee, 175 in the Scotch fashion, 176 Trout, to boil, 122 to fry, ib. to stew, 127 Turbot, to boil, 115 Turkey, to truss and carve, 54 to boil, 65 to roast, 75 to braise, 168 to pull, 171 Turnips, to boil, 218 tops, ib. Veal, to joint, 46 to boil, 63 fillet of, to roast, 73 shoulder of, to do., ib. loin of, to do., ib. breast of, to do., ib. neck of, to do., 74 to bake, 81 to broil, 84 cutlets, to fry, 88 à la mode, 137 fillet of, to stew, 147 neck of, to braise, 148 to stew, ragout, or collar, ib. olives or rolls, 149 Scotch collops, 150 en fricandeau, ib. knuckle of, with rice, ib. granadin of, 151 à la daube, ib. to haricot, ib. cutlets à la maintenon, 152 heart, ib. pluck, ib. sweetbread, 153 mock turtle, 156 to mince, ib. to pot, 157 cake, ib. curry of, 176 Vegetables, the seasons for, 33 directions for cooking, 210 Vinegar, gooseberry, 324 good common, ib. cider, ib. of wine lees, 325 cayenne, ib. Chili, ib. eschalot, ib. tarragon, ib. for salads, 326 garlic, ib. green mint, ib. horse-radish, 326 camp, ib. cucumber, ib. basil, ib. raspberry, ib. Venison, to joint, 44 to carve, 47 to roast, 72 to hash, 164 shoulder of, to stew, ib. collops and steaks, ib. Wine and cordials, to make, 337 British sherry or malt, ib. Madeira, 338 frontiniac, ib. red currant, ib. raisin, 339 gooseberry, ib. elder, ib. ginger, 340 mountain, ib. primrose, ib. cowslip, 341 grape, ib. parsnip, ib. almond, 342 cherry bounce, ib. orange, ib. brandy, 343 a liqueur, ib. shrub, ib. currant rum, ib. ratafia, ib. noyeau, 344 usquebaugh, ib. crême d'orange, 346 raspberry brandy and wine, 347 mulberry brandy, ib. sherbet, ib. flip, ib. egg, ib. to mull, ib. posset, the Pope's, 348 Widgeons, to roast, 78 Wheat-ears, to roast, 79 Whitings, to fry, 123 Woodcock, to roast, 78 to ragout, 174 N.B.--_All the Books undermentioned are published by A. COBBETT, at No. 137, Strand, London, and are to be had of all other Booksellers._ SELECTIONS FROM COBBETT'S POLITICAL REGISTER; BEING _A Complete Abridgement of the 100 Volumes which comprise the writings of_ "PORCUPINE," _and the_ "WEEKLY POLITICAL REGISTER" (_from 1794 to 1835_) WITH NOTES, HISTORICAL AND EXPLANATORY, BY JOHN M. COBBETT AND JAMES P. COBBETT, ESQRS., BARRISTERS-AT-LAW, Is now published, in Six Volumes, 8vo., with a COMPLETE ANALYTICAL INDEX to the whole. The Index to this work gives it an advantage over the original one, which, being without any general Index, and the indices to the volumes being scanty, where there are any, and being omitted in a great many of the volumes, is, in fact, a work very difficult to refer to. The great object of the editors of this abridgement has been to preserve a series of the best papers of Mr. COBBETT'S writings, and to render them easily referred to by a General Analytical Index. The price of the Six Volumes 8vo. is 2l. 10s. boards. ---- THE COBBETT LIBRARY. When I am asked what books a young man or young woman ought to read, I always answer, Let him or her read _all_ the books that I have written. This does, it will doubtless be said, _smell of the shop_. No matter. It is what I recommend; and experience has taught me that it is my duty to give the recommendation. I am speaking here of books other than THE REGISTER; and even these, that I call my LIBRARY, consist of _thirty-nine_ distinct books; two of them being TRANSLATIONS; _seven_ of them being written BY MY SONS; _one_ (TULL'S HUSBANDRY) revised and edited, and one published by me, and written by the Rev. Mr. O'CALLAGHAN, a most virtuous Catholic Priest. I divide these books into classes, as follows:--1 BOOKS FOR TEACHING LANGUAGE; 2. ON DOMESTIC MANAGEMENT AND DUTIES; 3. ON RURAL AFFAIRS; 4. ON THE MANAGEMENT OF NATIONAL AFFAIRS; 5. HISTORY; 6. TRAVELS; 7. LAWS; 8. MISCELLANEOUS POLITICS. Here is a great variety of subjects, and all of them very _dry_; nevertheless, the manner of treating them is in general such as to induce the reader to go through the book when he has once begun it. I will now speak of each book separately, under the several heads above-mentioned. N.B.--All the books are bound in boards, which will be borne in mind when the price is looked at.--W.C. 1. BOOKS FOR TEACHING LANGUAGE. ENGLISH SPELLING-BOOK. I have been frequently asked by mothers of families, by some fathers, and by some schoolmasters even, to write a book that they could _begin_ teaching by; one that should begin at a beginning of book learning, and smooth the way along to my own English Grammar, which is the entrance-gate. I often promised to comply with these requests, and, from time to time, in the intervals of political heats, I have thought of the thing, till, at last, I found time enough to sit down and put it upon paper. The objection to the common spelling books is, that the writers aim at teaching several important sciences in a little book in which the whole aim should be the teaching of spelling and reading. We are presented with a little ARITHMETIC, a little ASTRONOMY, a little GEOGRAPHY, and a good deal of RELIGION! No wonder the poor little things imbibe a hatred of books in the first that they look into! Disapproving heartily of these books, I have carefully abstained from everything beyond the object in view, namely, the teaching of a child to spell and read; and this work I have made as pleasant as I could, by introducing such stories as children most delight in, accompanied by those little woodcut illustrations which amuse them. At the end of the book there is a "Stepping-stone to the English Grammar." It is but a step; it is designed to teach a child the different _parts of speech_, and the use of _points_, with one or two small matters of the kind. The book is in the duodecimo form, contains 176 pages of print, and the price is 1s. 6d.--W. C. ENGLISH GRAMMAR. COBBETT'S ENGLISH GRAMMAR. (_Price_ 3s.)--This work is in a series of letters addressed to my son James, when he was 14 years old. I made him _copy the whole of it_ before it went to press, and that made him a _grammarian at once_; and how able an one it made him will be seen by his own Grammar of the ITALIAN LANGUAGE, his RIDE IN FRANCE, and his TOUR IN ITALY. There are at the end of this Grammar "Six Lessons intended to prevent Statesmen from using false Grammar;" and I really wish that our statesmen would attend to the instructions of the whole book. Thousands upon thousands of young men have been made correct writers by it; and it is next to impossible that they should have read it with attention without its producing such effect. It is a book of principles, clearly laid down; and when once these are got into the mind they never quit it. More than 100,000 copies of this work have been sold.--W. C. FRENCH GRAMMAR. COBBETT'S FRENCH GRAMMAR (_Price_ 5s.); or, _Plain Instructions for the Learning of French_.--This book has had, and has, a very great effect in the producing of its object. More young men have, I dare say, learned French from it than from all the other books that have been published in English for the last fifty years. It is like the former, a book of _principles_, clearly laid down. I had this great advantage too, that I had learnt French _without a master._ I had grubbed it out, bit by bit, and knew well how to remove _all the difficulties_; I remembered what it was that had _puzzled_ and _retarded_ me; and I have taken care, in this, my Grammar, to prevent the reader from experiencing that which, in this respect, I experienced myself. This Grammar, as well as the former, is kept out of _schools_ owing to the fear that the masters and mistresses have of being looked upon as COBBETTITES. So much the worse for the children of the stupid brutes who are the cause of this fear, which _sensible_ people laugh at, and avail themselves of the advantages tendered to them in the books. Teaching French in _English Schools_ is, generally, mere delusion; and as to teaching the _pronunciation_ by _rules_, it is the grossest of all human absurdities. My knowledge of French was so complete thirty-seven years ago, that the very first thing in the shape of a book that I wrote for the press, was a Grammar to _teach_ the Frenchmen English; and, of course, it was _written in French._ I must know all about these two languages; and must be able to give advice to young people on the subject: their time is precious; and I advise them not to waste it upon what are called _lessons_ from masters and mistresses. To learn the pronunciation, there is no way but that of _hearing_ those, and _speaking_ with those, who speak the language well. My Grammar will do the rest.--W. C. A GRAMMAR OF THE ITALIAN LANGUAGE; Or, a Plain and Compendious Introduction to the Study of Italian. By JAMES PAUL COBBETT. This work contains explanations and examples to teach the language practically; and the principles of construction are illustrated by passages from the best Italian authors. Price 6s. A LATIN GRAMMAR. A LATIN GRAMMAR, for the Use of English Boys; being an Explanation of the Rudiments of the Latin Language. By James PAUL COBBETT. _Price_ 3s. boards. FRENCH EXERCISES. EXERCISES TO COBBETT'S FRENCH GRAMMAR (price 2s.) is just published. It is an accompaniment to the French Grammar, and is necessary to the learner who has been diligent in his reading of the Grammar. By JAMES COBBETT. FRENCH AND ENGLISH DICTIONARY. COBBETT'S FRENCH AND ENGLISH DICTIONARY.--This book is now published. Its price is 12s. in boards; and it is a thick octavo volume. GEOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY OF ENGLAND AND WALES. This book was suggested to me by my own frequent want of the information which it contains; a suggestion which, if every compiler did but wait to feel before he puts his shears to work, would spare the world many a voluminous and useless book. I am constantly receiving letters out of the country, the writers living in obscure places, but who seldom think of giving more than the _name_ of the place that they write from; and thus have I been often puzzled to death to find out even the _county_ in which it is before I could return an answer. I one day determined, therefore, for my own convenience, to have a list made out of _every parish_ in the kingdom; but this being done, I found that I had still _townships_ and _hamlets_ to add in order to make my list complete; and when I had got the work only half done, I found it a book; and that, with the addition of bearing, and population, and distance from the next market town, or if a market town, from London, it will be a really useful _Geographical Dictionary._ It is a work which the learned would call _sui generis_; it prompted itself into life, and it has grown in my hands: but I will here insert the whole of the title-page, for that contains a full description of the book. It is a thick octavo volume, _Price_ 12s.--W. C. "A GEOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY OF ENGLAND AND WALES; containing the Names, in Alphabetical Order, of all the Counties, with their several subdivisions into Hundreds, Lathes, Rapes, Wapentakes, Wards, or Divisions; and an Account of the Distribution of the Counties into Circuits, Dioceses, and Parliamentary Divisions. Also the names (under that of each County respectively), in Alphabetical Order, of all the Cities, Boroughs, Market Towns, Villages, Hamlets, and Tithings, with the Distance of each from London, or from the nearest Market Town, and with the population, and other interesting particulars relating to each; besides which there are MAPS; first, one of the whole country, showing the local situation of the Counties relatively to each other, and then each County is also preceded by a Map, showing, in the same manner, the local situation of the Cities, Boroughs, and Market Towns. FOUR TABLES are added; first a Statistical Table of all the Counties; and then three Tables showing the new Divisions and Distributions enacted by the Reform Law of 4th June, 1832." ---- II. BOOKS ON DOMESTIC MANAGEMENT AND DUTIES. COTTAGE ECONOMY. COBBETT'S COTTAGE ECONOMY (_Price_ 2s. 6d.); containing information relative to the brewing of Beer, making of Bread, keeping of Cows, Pigs, Bees, Ewes, Goats, Poultry, and Rabbits, and relative to other matters deemed useful in the conducting of the Affairs of a Labourer's Family; to which are added, instructions relative to the selecting, the cutting and bleaching of the Plants of English Grass and Grain, for the purpose of making Hats and Bonnets; and also instructions for erecting and using Ice-houses, after the Virginian manner. In my own estimation, the book that stands first is the POOR MAN'S FRIEND; and the one that stands next is this COTTAGE ECONOMY; and beyond all description is the pleasure I derive from reflecting on the number of happy families that this little book must have made. I dined in company with a lady in Worcestershire, who desired to see me on account of this book; and she told me that until she read it she knew nothing at all about these two great matters, the making of bread and of beer; but that from the moment she read the book, she began to teach her servants, and that the benefits were very great. But, to the labouring people, there are the arguments in favour of good conduct, sobriety, frugality, industry, all the domestic virtues; here are the reasons for all these; and it must be a real devil in human shape who does not applaud the man who could sit down to write this book, a copy of which every _parson_ ought, upon pain of loss of ears, to present to every girl that he marries, rich or poor.--W. C. "Differing as I do from Mr. Cobbett in his politics, I must say that he has been of great use to the poor. This 'Cottage Economy' gives them hints and advice which have, and continue to be, of the greatest service to them; it contains a little mine of wealth, of which the poor may reap the advantage; for no one understands the character of the English labourer better than Mr. Cobbett. Since writing the above, Mr. Cobbett is no more; his 'Cottage Economy' should be considered as his legacy to the poor."--JESSE'S GLEANINGS. Vol. 2. p. 358. "Whatever difference of opinion may exist as to Cobbett's political writings, and as to his peculiar views and prejudices, there cannot be a doubt that all his works on domestic management, on rural affairs, and on the use of language, are marked by strong sense, and by great clearness of thought and precision of language. His power of conveying instruction is, indeed, almost unequalled; he seems rather to woo the reader to learn than to affect the teacher; he travels with his pupil over the field of knowledge upon which he is engaged, never seeming to forget the steps by which he himself learned. He assumes that nothing is known, and no point is too minute for the most careful investigation. Above all, the pure mother English in which his instructions are conveyed, makes him a double teacher; for whilst the reader is ostensibly receiving instruction on some subject of rural economy, he is at the same time insensibly imbibing a taste for good sound Saxon English--the very type of the substantial matters whereof his instructor delights to discourse. Most of Cobbett's works on rural and domestic economy, though written for the industrious and middle classes of this country, are admirably adapted to the use of settlers in new countries. For an old and thickly-peopled country like England, perhaps Cobbett carried his notion of doing everything at home a little too far; but in a new country, where a man is at times compelled to turn his hand to everything, it is really well to know how everything connected with rural economy should be done, and we really know of no works whence this extended knowledge can be acquired so readily as from those of Cobbett. He understood all the operations incidental to the successful pursuit of husbandry, and his very prejudice of surrounding the farm with a wall of brass, and having every resource within, prompted him to write on rural affairs with completeness. "The little half-crown book, which we now introduce to our readers, contains a mine of most valuable instruction, every line of which is as useful to the colonist as to those for whom it was written. We have just read it through, from the title to the imprint, with especial regard to the wants of the colonists, and we do not believe there is a single sentence of the instructional portion that need be rejected. The treatise on brewing and making bread are particularly applicable to New Zealand. We observe by the published list of prices, that while flour was there selling at a moderate price, bread was enormously high. There is nobody to blame for this; it arises simply out of the high rate of retail profit which prevails in new countries, and we know no reason why bakers should be expected to keep shop for less remuneration than other tradesmen. The remedy then is, not to abuse the baker, but to bake at home. How this is to be accomplished Cobbett here points out. Some idea of the saving by means of home baking in our colonies, where retail profits are high, may be gleaned from the great difference between the price of flour and that of bread at Wellington, at the same date. When flour was selling at 20_l_. per ton, the bakers of Wellington were charging 1s. 8d. for the 4lb. loaf. Now, one cwt. of flour would make from 126lb. to 134lb of bread, that is, on an average, 32 loaves of 4lb. each. These would cost:--flour 20s, yeast 1s, salt 6d, with fuel 1s--together 22s 6d, or something under 9d per 4lb loaf. Here, then, would be an enormous saving to the settler's family by means of home bread making:--is not Cobbett right when he deprecates the idea of the farm labourer going to the baker's shop? and, if he be right in England, where the baker works for a small profit, his recommendation has ten times the force when applied to a colony like New Zealand. Let it be remembered also, that, by home-baking, the quality of the bread is guaranteed. Doubtless, honest bakers do exist; but if there be only a few who occasionally make use potatoes, and other materials less nourishing than wheat, surely the guarantee is worth something where soundness of muscle and sinew is of so much importance. Earnestly, then, do we recommend every New Zealand emigrant to purchase this little book, and make himself master of all it contains."--NEW ZEALAND JOURNAL, 8th January, 1842. ADVICE TO YOUNG MEN. COBBETT'S ADVICE TO YOUNG MEN, and (incidentally) _to Young Women, in the middle and higher Ranks of Life_ (_Price_ 5s.) It was published in fourteen numbers, and is now in one volume complete. SERMONS. COBBETT'S SERMONS (_Price_ 3s. 6d.): There are thirteen of them on the following subjects:--1. Hypocrisy and Cruelty; 2. Drunkenness; 3. Bribery; 4. The Rights of the Poor; 5. Unjust Judges; 6. The Sluggard; 7. Murder; 8. Gaming; 9. Public Robbery; 10. The Unnatural Mother; 11. Forbidding Marriage; 12. Parsons and Tithes; 13. Good Friday; or, _God's Judgment on the Jews_.--More of these Sermons have been sold than of the Sermons of all the Church Parsons put together since mine were published. There are some parsons who have the good sense and virtue to preach them from the pulpit.--W. C. ---- III. BOOKS ON RURAL AFFAIRS. TULL'S HUSBANDRY. COBBETT'S EDITION OF TULL'S HUSBANDRY (_Price_ 15s.): The HORSE-HOEING HUSBANDRY; or, A TREATISE on the Principles of TILLAGE and VEGETATION, wherein is taught a Method of introducing a sort of VINEYARD CULTURE into the CORN-FIELDS, in order to increase their Product and diminish the common Expense. By JETHRO TULL, of Shalborne, in the county of Berks. To which is prefixed an INTRODUCTION, explanatory of some Circumstances connected with the History and Division of the Work: and containing an Account of certain Experiments of recent date, by WILLIAM COBBETT.--From this famous book I learned all my principles relative to farming, gardening, and planting. It really, without a pun, _goes to the root_ of the subject. Before I read this book I had seen enough of _effects_, but really knew nothing about the _causes_. It contains the foundation of all knowledge in the cultivation of the earth.--W. C. YEAR'S RESIDENCE IN AMERICA. COBBETT'S YEAR'S RESIDENCE IN AMERICA, WITH A MAP (_Price_ 5s.); treating of the Face of the Country, the Climate, the Soil, the Products, the Mode of Cultivating the Land, the Prices of Land, of Labour, of Food, of Raiment, of the Expenses of Housekeeping, and of the usual Manner of Living; of the Manners and Customs of the People; and of the Institutions of the Country, Civil, Political, and Religious; in three Parts. The Map is a map of the United States. The book contains a Journal of the Weather for one whole year; and it has an account of my Farming in that country; and also an account of the causes of poor Birkbeck's failure in his undertaking. A book very necessary to all men of property who emigrate to the United States.--W. C. THE ENGLISH GARDENER. COBBETT'S ENGLISH GARDENER (_Price_ 6s.); or a Treatise on the Situation, Soil, Enclosing and Laying-out of Kitchen Gardens; on the Making and Managing of Hot-beds and Green-Houses; and on the Propagation and Cultivation of all sorts of Kitchen-Garden Plants, and of Fruit-Trees, whether of the Garden or the Orchard. And also on the Formation of Shrubberies and Flower-Gardens; and on the Propagation and Cultivation of the several sorts of Shrubs and Flowers; concluding with a Kalendar, giving Instructions relative to the Sowings, Plantings, Prunings, and other labours to be performed in the Gardens, in each Month of the year.--A complete book of the kind. A plan of a Kitchen-Garden, and little plates to explain the works of pruning, grafting, and budding. But it is here, as in all my books, the Principles that are valuable: it is a knowledge of these that fills the reader with delight in the pursuit. I wrote a Gardener for America, and the vile wretch who pirated it there had the baseness to leave out the Dedication. No pursuit is so rational as this, as an amusement or relaxation, and none so innocent and so useful. It naturally leads to Early Rising; to sober contemplation; and is conducive to health. Every young man should be a gardener, if possible, whatever else may be his pursuits.--W. C. THE WOODLANDS. COBBETT'S WOODLANDS (_Price_ 14s.); or, a Treatise on the preparing of Ground for Planting; on the Planting; on the Cultivating; on the Pruning; and on the Cutting down of Forest Trees and Underwoods; describing the usual Growth, and Size, and Uses of each sort of Tree, the Seed of each; the Season and Manner of collecting the Seed, the Manner of Preserving and Sowing it, and also the Manner of Managing the Young Plants until fit to plant out; the Trees being arranged in Alphabetical Order, and the List of them, including those of America as well as those of England, and the English, French, and Latin name being prefixed to the Directions relative to each Tree respectively.--This work takes every tree at ITS SEED, and carries an account of it to the cutting down and converting it to its uses.--W. C. A TREATISE ON COBBETT'S CORN. COBBETT'S CORN-BOOK (_Price_ 5s.); or, A Treatise on Cobbett's Corn, containing Instructions for Propagating and Cultivating the Plant, and for Harvesting and Preserving the Crop, and also an Account of the several Uses to which the Produce is applied, with Minute Directions relative to each Mode of Application. This edition I sell at 5s. that it may get into _numerous hands_. I have had, even _this year_, a noble crop of this corn; and I undertake to pledge myself, that this corn will be in general cultivation in England in two or three years from this time, in spite of all that fools and malignant asses can say against it. When I get time to go out into the country, amongst the labourers in Kent, Sussex, Hants, Wilts, and Berks, who are now _more worthy_ of encouragement and good living than they ever were, though they were always excellent, I promise myself the pleasure of seeing this beautiful crop growing in all their gardens, and to see every man of them once more with a bit of meat on his table and in his satchel, instead of the _infamous potato_.--W. C. ---- IV. MANAGEMENT OF NATIONAL AFFAIRS. THE CURSE OF PAPER MONEY. THE CURSE OF PAPER MONEY; showing the Evils produced in America by Paper Money. By WILLIAM GOUGE; and Reprinted with a Preface, by WILLIAM COBBETT. _Price_ 4s. POOR MAN'S FRIEND. COBBETT'S POOR MAN'S FRIEND (_Price_ 8d.); or, a Defence of the Rights of those who do the Work and Fight the Battles: my _favourite_ work. I bestowed more labour upon it than upon any large volume that I ever wrote. Here it is proved, that according to all laws, Divine as well as human, no one is to die of hunger amidst abundance of food.--W. C. MANCHESTER LECTURES; price 2s. 6d. COBBETT'S MANCHESTER LECTURES. A small duodecimo volume, containing Six Lectures delivered at Manchester in the Winter of 1831. In these lectures I have gone fully into the state of the country, and have put forth what I deem the proper remedy for that state. I fully discussed the questions of Debt, Dead Weight, Sinecures and Pensions, Church, Crown Lands, Army and Navy; and I defy all the doctors of political economy to answer me that book. It contains a statement of the propositions which, please God, I intend to make as a ground-work of relief to our country.--W. C. USURY LAWS.--Price 3s. 6d. USURY LAWS; or, LENDING AT INTEREST; also the Exaction and Payment of certain Church Fees, such as Pew Rents, Burial Fees, and the like, together with forestalling Traffic; all proved to be repugnant to the Divine and Ecclesiastical Law, and Destructive to Civil Society. To which is prefixed a Narrative of the Controversy between the Author and Bishop Coppinger, and of the sufferings of the former in consequence of his adherence to the Truth. By the Reverend JEREMIAH O'CALLAGHAN, Roman Catholic Priest. With a Dedication to the "Society of Friends," by WILLIAM COBBETT. Every young man should read this book, the _history_ of which, besides the learned matter, is very curious. The "Jesuits," as they call them, in France, ought to read this book, and then tell the world how they can find the _impudence_ to preach the _Catholic Religion_, and _to uphold the funding system_ at the same time.--W. C. LEGACY TO LABOURERS; Price 1s. 4d. Or, What is the Right which the Lords, Baronets, and Squires, have to the Lands of England? In Six Letters, addressed to the Working People of England; with a Dedication to Sir Robert Peel. By WM. COBBETT. LEGACY TO PARSONS; Price 1s. 6d. Or, have the Clergy of the Established Church an Equitable Right to the Tithes, or to any other thing called Church Property, greater than the Dissenters have to the same? And ought there, or ought there not, to be a Separation of the Church from the State? In Six Letters addressed to the Church Parsons in general, including the Cathedral and College Clergy and the Bishops; with a Dedication to Blomfield, Bishop of London. By WILLIAM COBBETT. Third Edition. ---- V. HISTORY. PROTESTANT REFORMATION; Price 5s. COBBETT'S HISTORY OF THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION in England and Ireland, showing how that event has impoverished and degraded the main body of the People in these Countries; in a Series of Letters, addressed to all sensible and just Englishmen; with a list of the Abbeys, Priories, Nunneries, Hospitals, and other Religious Foundations, in England and Wales, and in Ireland, confiscated, seized on, or alienated, by the Protestant "Reformation" Sovereigns and Parliaments. This is the book that has done the business of the _Established Church_! This book has been translated into all living languages, and there are two Stereotype Editions of it in the United States of America. This is the source from whence are now pouring in the petitions for the _Abolition of Tithes_.--W. C. This new and cheap edition has been published in Monthly Parts, 6d. each, and is now complete in two vols., 2s. 6d. each vol. ROMAN HISTORY; Price 6s. COBBETT'S ROMAN HISTORY; Vol. I. in English and French, from the foundation of Rome to the Battle of Actium; selected from the best Authors, ancient and modern, with a Series of Questions at the end of each chapter; for the use of schools and young persons in general. Vol. II. AN ABRIDGED HISTORY of the EMPERORS, in French and English; being a continuation of the History of the Roman Republic, published by the same Authors, on the same plan, for the use of schools and young persons in general. This work is in French and English. It is intended as an _Exercise-Book_, to be used with my French Grammar, and it is sold at a _very low price_, to place it within the reach of young men in general.--W. C. LIFE OF ANDREW JACKSON; Price 3s. REGENCY AND REIGN OF GEORGE IV. Price 10s. 6d. COBBETT'S HISTORY OF THE REGENCY AND REIGN OF GEORGE IV.--This work is published in Nos. at 6d. each; and it does _justice_ to the late "_mild and merciful_" King.--W. C. LAFAYETTE'S LIFE (_Price_ 1s.); a brief Account of the Life of that brave and honest man, translated from the French, by Mr. JAMES COBBETT. ---- VI. TRAVELS. LETTERS FROM FRANCE; Price 4s. 6d. MR. JOHN COBBETT'S LETTERS FROM FRANCE, containing observations on that country during a Journey from Calais to the South, as far as Limoges; then back to Paris, and then, after a Residence, from the Eastern parts of France, and through part of the Netherlands; commencing in April, and ending in December, 1824. RIDE IN FRANCE; Price 2s. 6d. MR. JAMES COBBETT'S RIDE OF EIGHT HUNDRED MILES IN FRANCE, in 1823 (the Third Edition); containing a sketch of the Face of the Country, of its Rural Economy, of the Towns and Villages, of Manufactures and Trade, and of such of the Manners and Customs as materially differ from those of England; also, an Account of the Prices of Land, Houses, Fuel, Food, Raiment, Labour, and other things in different parts of the Country; the design being to exhibit a true picture of the Present State of the people of France; to which is added, a General View of the Finances of the Kingdom. TOUR IN ITALY. MR. JAMES COBBETT'S TOUR IN ITALY, and also in Part of FRANCE and SWITZERLAND (_Price_ 4s. 6d.); the Route being from Paris through Lyons to Marseilles, and thence to Nice, Genoa, Pisa, Florence, Rome, Naples, and Mount Vesuvius; and by Rome, Terni, Perugia, Arezzo, Florence, Bologna, Ferrara, Padua, Venice, Verona, Milan, over the Alps, by Mount St. Bernard, Geneva, and the Jura, back into France. The space of time being from October 1828 to September 1829: containing a description of the Country; of the principal Cities and their most striking Curiosities; of the Climate, Soil, Agriculture, Horticulture, and Products; of the Price of Provisions, and of Labour, and of the Dresses and Conditions of the People. And also some account of the Laws and Customs, Civil and Religious, and of the Morals and Demeanor of the Inhabitants in the several States. TOUR IN SCOTLAND. TOUR IN SCOTLAND, by MR. COBBETT; the tour taken in the Autumn of 1832, and the book written during the Tour. It is a small duodecimo volume, 2s. 6d. ---- VII. LAW. MARTENS'S LAW OF NATIONS. Price 17s. COBBETT'S TRANSLATION OF MARTENS'S LAW OF NATIONS; being the Science of National Law, Covenants, Power, &c. Founded upon the Treaties and Customs of Modern Nations in Europe. By G. F. VON MARTENS, Professor of Public Law in the University of Gottingen. Translated from the French, by WM. COBBETT. One of my first literary labours. An excellent Commonplace Book to the Law of Nations.--W. C. ---- VIII. MISCELLANEOUS POLITICS. COLLECTIVE COMMENTARIES; Price 3s. COBBETT'S COLLECTIVE COMMENTARIES; or Remarks on the Proceedings in the Collective Wisdom of the Nation, during the Session which began on the 5th of February, and ended on the 6th of August, in the Third Year of the Reign of King George the Fourth, and in the Year of our Lord, 1822; being the Third Session of the First Parliament of that King. To which are subjoined, a complete List of the Acts passed during the Session, with Elucidations, and other Notices and Matters; forming, altogether, a short but clear History of the Collective Wisdom for the Year. TWOPENNY TRASH; Price 3s. TWOPENNY TRASH, complete in two vols., 12mo. _Just Published, Price 6s., Boards_, SIXTH EDITION, WITH MANY NEW RECEIPTS, OF THE ENGLISH HOUSEKEEPER; OR, MANUAL OF DOMESTIC MANAGEMENT; Containing advice on the Conduct of Household Affairs; in a separate Treatise on each particular Department, and Practical Instruction concerning THE KITCHEN, THE LARDER, THE CELLAR, THE PANTRY, THE OVEN, THE DAIRY, THE STORE ROOM, THE BREWHOUSE. Together with Hints for Laying Out Small Ornamental Gardens; Directions for Cultivating and Preserving Herbs; and some Remarks on the best Means of Rendering Assistance to poor Neighbours. FOR THE USE OF YOUNG LADIES WHO UNDERTAKE THE SUPERINTENDENCE OF THEIR OWN HOUSEKEEPING. BY MISS COBBETT. BOOKS FOR EMIGRANTS. "If the emigrant require elementary works on any subject of domestic management--extending the term domestic matters outside as well as inside of the house--it is not too much to say that the name of Cobbett may be considered a guarantee that he will find the subject treated with completeness, and in a style at once simple and attractive. Whilst we say this, the reader must not be alarmed lest we design to thrust all Cobbett's political views down his throat. Like all strong-passioned men he was not unfrequently inconsistent; on subjects of social and politico-economical science especially, he was as often unsound as sound; he frequently threw himself into the stream of popular prejudice, not only closing his mind to the reasonings of others, but scarcely daring to use his own strong powers lest he should be convinced against his previous determination. But on the subjects embraced by the Cottage Economy, and others of a like character, Cobbett was and is a trustworthy instructor, and we hesitate not to say that the emigrant who will follow his instructions will, in a few years, find himself a wiser, a wealthier, a better, and, above all, a happier man, in consequence of having done so. The English Housekeeper is by Miss Cobbett, and bears evident marks of the Cobbett school of domestic management. The same wholesome healthy tone--the same simplicity of taste pervades all its recommendations; and even in the good sound mother-English in which it is written we recognise the pure source whence it sprung. It cannot be expected that we should examine all the receipts and pronounce our opinion on their merits. To confess the truth, we are not competent to the task. The reader, therefore, must be content with the information that this part of the work appears to be very amply stored with the good things of this world, and, what is more to the purpose, a very cursory glance has convinced us that the colonist family might avail themselves of the greater part of this division of the book with advantage and profit. The truly valuable portions of the work are those which relate to domestic management. We have not space to go into particulars, and extracts would scarcely serve any good purpose. As one might expect from a Cobbett, the chapter devoted to the Cellar contains some excellent directions for the making of British wines, many of which will be found applicable to New Zealand and the Australian Colonies, and afford a cheap luxury to colonist's family. Here also we have some useful directions brewing, in addition to the instructions given in the Cottage Economy. Cookery for the Sick, and Cookery for the Poor, are two valuable chapters; and it is an additional recommendation that many of the articles under these heads may easily be made at sea. In conclusion, we earnestly recommend the books to the emigrant's notice. The general instructions may be studied with profit during the voyage, and when fairly settled we have no doubt the colonist's wife would insensibly find the book constantly in her hand."--_New Zealand Journal_, Jan. 22, 1842. THE ENGLISH HOUSEKEEPER; OR, MANUAL OF DOMESTIC MANAGEMENT. "This excellent household book has now reached a third edition. We can recommend it heartily to every young lady who undertakes the management of her domestic affairs, not only for the valuable instructions it contains concerning all that relates to the kitchen and cookery, but for the sensible advice it offers to females in the most important duties of domestic life. This to us most interesting portion of the work is written in the plain, forcible, and convincing style of the author's late father. There is the same wholesome and practical advice put forward in that easy, familiar way which impresses itself indelibly upon the reader's mind. There are some observations upon the mode of educating daughters which should be attentively perused by every mother. There is a truth and beauty, and a spirit of kind womanly feeling in the chapter on servants. It is a noble vindication of the poor, which ought to be written in letters of gold upon the walls of the rich man's chamber. Of the culinary receipts, the directions for managing the pantry, larder, store-room, &c., we can speak in terms of unqualified commendation. The medical and miscellaneous receipts are numerous and valuable."--SUNDAY TIMES, January 30, 1842. "If we had seen the _twentieth_ edition on the title of the 'English Housekeeper,' instead of the _third_, we should not have been surprised. We passed our humble opinion on the merits of this work upon its first appearance. Now we behold a new and improved edition, enlarged, and with numerous indispensible recipes, rendering it one of the most complete works of the kind that has come under our criticism; everything as regards housekeeping being laid down in a clear, concise style, not only of essential utility to the young housekeeper, but to the already experienced practitioner. Miss Cobbett must have devoted years to the production of the volume, for turn to what page you will, it abounds with striking and useful, as well as practical facts, so admirably arranged, that a very young lady might become, after a few hours' perusal, well qualified to discharge the domestic duties of a wife."--BLACKWOOD'S LADIES' MAGAZINE, 1842. ---- G. PEIRCE, PRINTER, 310, STRAND.