Year: 1873

else beginning with G, viz: chance.
Now, given your ingredients combined
in certain manner, and as an absolute
result your bread is just as sure to rise
as the sun is to rise in the east. You
can't keep it down unless you put mill
stone on it. suppose, Belle, you have
wasted some food in your experiments ?"


"Some if you could see the bread
and pies and cake have thrown away,
you would be Mortified. | sometimes
think we shall come to want as a punish
ment."


"Well, we won't waste any more. In
six lessons you can learn to make as good
bread as anybody, or you are not the
bright woman think you are. So this
week we will make bread every day. OF
course, we cannot eat it all, but what we
do MT want we will give to the poor"


And so every day ! sat by the table
and gave Belle instructions, while the
pretty hands, which even hard work
could not deface, nodded theloaves which
came out of the oven snowy within, a
delicate brown without,-the sweet and
odorous staff of life. Saturday | left
her to her own devices, and | don't be-
lieve she blushed more when Harry pro-
posed to her than when he gave her that
highest praise man can Offer" this is
just as good as my mothers" Poor
Harry what digestion he must have
had to begin with, and what a bette noir
my mothers bread " is to many a
young housekeeper


So here was one great trouble disposed
of. Like many other troubles in life, it
needed only to be grappled with and it
disappeared.


But how, in the meantime, did it fare
with the order of the house?


Disorder is chronic trouble, and, like
many other chronic troubles sometimes
needs sharp alternative to break it up.


Thursday afternoon saw something
in the parlor which made me sit down
and think a little. The result was a
note, thus:


DEAR HARRY viii you come
down to the house as soon as you can
conveniently? In great haste,


KITTY"


Down came Harry at pace like the
lope of California horse. Breathless
he rushed in.


"Is Belle sick?"


"No," 1 replied "but come into the
parlor moment"


Now that he was here, confess | was
little afraid of the result. Men have
SO much armour propre, and do so hate
to be made ridiculous, that l felt as if l
had drawn the elephant in rattle and
didn't know what to do with it.


Harry" said l severely, ''you re-
member our compact, and the duty of
parents to set a good example ?"


l could see glimmer of suspicion in
his face. Then I made desperate
plunge.


Look over on the sofa. / only sent
for you to hang up your overcoat."


Pause, awful to me, while Harry vi
brated between anger and merriment.
Finally, good fellow that he was, he sat
back in his chair and laughed heartily.
" Kitty, I'll pay you for this, if live.
The idea of getting man home from
his office to hang up his overcoat What
will you bet that you don't catch me
again ?'


"Bet You are demoralizing have
lived in New York, and seen Jerome
Park; | have been in Saratoga, and
heard about the races, but / have never
made bet. However, just to make
up with you, Harry, I'll bet the price
of that new China set which Belle looked
at so longingly the other day."


Very well" said Harry but you
see if she gets it F"


After this it was source of much ST.
lent amusement to Belle and myself to
see Harry every morning, sauntering
carelessly around the room, as if he had
no object whatever, but slyly looking out
of the corners of his eyes to see if any
thing Of his was astray, and then pounc-
ing upon the offending article, like the
eagle upon his prey. l lost my bet.


And now descend we at one full swoop,
from aesthetics to-potatoes.


Perhaps you know very little about
them except in their daintiness. You
may have driven out from your hotel
this summer and returned with cornu-
copia of potatoes la Saratoga" and
entertained kind of dim fancy, if you
have thought about it at all, that they
grow in some such mysterious way, but
the original article is no more like these
crisp, brown, brittle bits of deliciousness
than the original What is it :" is like
civilized. cultivated man. No; the orig