The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 354, October 9, 1886

Spanish Rice.—Boil four ounces of rice, wash it in cold water, then dry it before the fire. Put half an ounce of butter in a frying-pan; when quite hot throw in the rice, fry it a light colour, add a dessertspoonful of grated cheese and a little cayenne and salt. A dessertspoonful of plain tomato sauce may be added or not. The rice must be served very hot.

Toad in the Hole.—Trim some neck of mutton cutlets nicely, or take some cold meat or fowl and place in the bottom of a pie-dish that you have first buttered. Then make a batter thus: take four ounces of flour, mix one egg with it, add half a pint of milk and a little salt, put pepper and salt over the meat in the dish, pour the batter in, and put in a tolerably quick oven; it will take about three-quarters of an hour to bake. Batter is best mixed some hours before it is wanted, but it must not be put in the dish with the meat until you are going to bake it.

Melbourne Pudding.—Boil half a pint of red currants with half a pound of loaf sugar for half an hour, add half a pound of raspberries and boil ten minutes. Butter a plain mould or pudding basin and line it with slices from a tin loaf or French roll, cut a quarter of an inch thick; the top pieces must be cut into triangles to make them fit neatly, while the side pieces are half an inch wide; pour the fruit into the bread while hot, cover the top with more bread, put in a cool place until the next day, then turn out and serve with custard or cream.

Curried Eggs.—Make a sauce with a quarter of a pint of milk, a teaspoonful of curry powder, a teaspoonful of flour, and a little salt; mix these ingredients together and boil them three minutes. Boil three eggs hard, remove the shells, put the sauce in a dish, put the eggs in it, then cut each egg in two and serve.

Rice Meringue.—Boil half a small teacupful of rice in milk; when done put it in a pie-dish, spread a layer of jam over the top of it, beat the white of an egg to a stiff froth, put it over the jam, sift about a tablespoonful of pounded sugar over it; put it in the oven to set, and serve hot.

Potiron.—Take one pound of pumpkin without seeds or rind, cut it into small pieces, put it in a stewpan with a quarter of a pint of water, simmer it slowly for an hour and a half; then rub it through a sieve with a wooden spoon, put it back in the saucepan, add three quarters of a pint of milk, a piece of butter the size of a walnut, a saltspoonful of powdered sugar and pepper and salt to taste, stir it occasionally, and serve it as soon as it boils.

Baked Haddock.—Wash and dry the fish, then mix a saltspoonful of salt with the juice of half a lemon, and rub it all over the fish and let it remain for three hours, then prepare some bread-crumbs, mix with them a teaspoonful of finely chopped parsley, a little grated lemon peel, cayenne pepper, and salt; next dry the fish and brush it over with egg, cover it with the prepared crumbs, put it in a greased baking dish with some small lumps of butter on the top of it, bake it from 25 to 35 minutes, according to the size of the fish. It must be basted with the butter that runs into the tin. When done put the fish on a dish, squeeze the other half lemon into the baking tin, pour it over the fish, and serve.

Bread and Jam Pudding.—Take a small pudding basin or mould, grease it well with butter; then shake brown sugar all over the butter. Take four ounces bread-crumbs, three ounces finely chopped suet, and three ounces of any preserve. Put these ingredients in the basin in layers, beginning with the bread-crumbs. Just before putting the pudding in the oven, mix an egg with rather less than half a pint of milk, and add it to it. Bake about three-quarters of an hour in a quick oven, turn out and serve.

Shrimp Toast.—Trim and fry three slices of bread in butter. Take two tablespoonfuls of shelled shrimps, put them into a saucepan with a dessertspoonful of milk, a lump of butter the size of a pigeon's egg, half a teaspoonful of anchovy sauce, and a little cayenne pepper. Shake in a dessertspoonful of flour, boil for two minutes, stirring all the time; then put on the fried bread, and serve very hot.

Roast Fillet of Mutton.—Procure the thick end of a leg of mutton. Have it boned and tied round. It may be stuffed where the bone is taken out, or skewered up and roasted plain.

Strawberry Cream without cream.—Take a quarter of a pound of strawberry jam; rub it through a sieve. Add two ounces of pounded sugar to it, and beat it up with the whites of two fresh eggs until it is all frothy (it will take some time to beat); put it in a glass dish and serve soon after it is made.

Turnip Soup can be made the same as potiron, but a teaspoonful of flour should be added with the butter.

Apple Charlotte.—Cut some strips of bread from a tin loaf or French roll; dip them in oiled butter, line a mould or pudding basin with them. Peel and cut up a pound and a half of apples; boil them with a little sugar. When done, put them in the basin you have lined; cover the top with bread dipped in butter; bake half an hour, turn on to a dish, and serve.

Cheese Toast.—Beat up an egg, add two ounces of grated cheese, one dessertspoonful of milk, cayenne, and salt to it, make it hot in a saucepan, and pour it on to a round of hot buttered toast; cut in pieces and serve immediately.

Brunoise.—Take two tablespoonfuls of carrots, the same of turnips, onions, and celery, all cut in very small dice. Put a piece of butter (about an ounce) in a stewpan with a small teaspoonful of powdered sugar, toss the carrots in this until they begin to take colour, then put in the celery, then the turnips, then the onions; when all the vegetables are coloured, put in a pint and a quarter of hot water or liquor in which meat or poultry has been boiled, let the soup simmer two hours, skim, and serve with the vegetables in it. The vegetables must not be burnt at all, but only slightly browned.

Stewed Mutton Cutlets.—Cut two carrots, two turnips, and two potatoes into dice, trim some cutlets and toss them in butter in a stewpan, with a sprinkling of pepper and salt, till they begin to colour, then put in the carrots and three-quarters of a pint of hot water, a tablespoonful of tomato sauce, and a small bunch of sweet herbs and parsley; stew gently fifteen minutes, add the potatoes and turnips, and simmer about an hour or until tender; add a piece of butter rolled in flour, a small piece of glaze, and pepper and salt to taste. Remove the herbs and serve the cutlets round the vegetables, with as much of the gravy as is required.

Mustard Sauce.—Mix one teaspoonful of flour with half a teaspoonful of mustard and one ounce of butter, add half a teacupful of water, boil for five minutes, add half a teaspoonful of vinegar, and serve.

Rumpsteak aux Fines Herbes.—Mince equal parts of tarragon, chervil, and garden cress with half a shalot, mix them with a little butter, pepper, and salt, broil the steak and place on it.

Dressed Crab.—Take all the meat from a crab, cut it up as for salad, mix a tablespoonful of bread-crumbs with it, mix together a saltspoonful each of pepper, mustard and salt, with a tablespoonful of vinegar and two tablespoonfuls of salad oil, mix all with the crab, put it back in the shell, cover it lightly with bread-crumbs, put a little piece of butter on the top, bake half an hour, and serve hot.

Bread and Butter Fritters.—Take some rounds of bread and butter that you have shaped with a pastry cutter, spread half of them with jam, cover the jam with the remaining pieces, dip them in batter and fry them; serve with sifted sugar over them.

Tomato Soup.—Boil a tin of tomatoes until well cooked, then press them through a sieve; to a pint of tomatoes add half a teaspoonful of carbonate of soda. Put a piece of butter the size of a pigeon's egg into a saucepan; when it bubbles stir in a teaspoonful of flour, cook it a few minutes; add half a pint of hot milk, a little salt and cayenne; when it boils add the tomatoes; make the soup quite hot (but do not let it boil), and serve.

Cocoanut Pudding.—Butter a small dish, cut a sponge cake in slices, place it in the dish, mix the yolk of an egg with a teacupful of milk, pour it over the cake, then strew two ounces of grated cocoanut over it; next beat the white of the egg to a froth, add a teaspoonful of pounded sugar, and put over the top of the pudding; bake in a moderate oven.

Vegetable Soup without Meat.—Cut up a plateful of all kinds of vegetables, viz., onions, carrots, potatoes, beans, parsnips, celery, peas, parsley, leeks, turnip, cauliflower, spinach, cabbage, lettuce, or as many of these as you can procure. Put a large lump of butter (as big as a large egg) into a saucepan; when very hot, put in the onions, stir; when light brown, stir in a dessertspoonful of flour, fry until deep gold colour, stir in a pint of boiling water, some pepper and salt, add all the vegetables, let them simmer (adding more water if necessary) for two hours; put the whole through a sieve, make hot again, and serve.

Raspberry Sponge.—Dissolve half an ounce of gelatine in half a pint of milk. Beat three large tablespoonfuls of raspberry jam in another half pint of milk, and rub it through a sieve; add a teaspoonful of pounded sugar, a little grated lemon peel, the white of an egg, and the milk with the gelatine in it; whisk until it is all frothy. If the gelatine does not entirely dissolve in cold milk, it must be melted over the fire before being added to the jam and other ingredients.

Vegetable marrow soup is made like potiron.

Pounded Meat Cutlets in Italian Paste.—Take half pound of cold mutton, all lean, three ounces of cooked ham, one small shalot; chop and pound all together; add pepper and salt, one ounce of butter, and three tablespoonfuls of gravy. For the paste, one yolk of egg, three tablespoonfuls of cold water, with six ounces of dried flour; knead well to strong paste, roll out very thin, divide into six, put some of the meat in each, form into six cutlets; fry in boiling fat, and serve with sauce in a tureen or plain with fried parsley round.

Macaroni with Tomato Sauce.—Boil two ounces of macaroni in water, with a lump of butter, and a little salt. When nearly done, strain off the water; add three tablespoonfuls of milk, and a little (one ounce) Parmesan or other grated cheese and pepper to taste; stir until it is rather thick. Then dish it up with a little hot tomato sauce in the centre.

Semolina Soup.—Take a pint and a half of liquor from boiled meat, or stock from bones in which vegetables have been boiled. Add two ounces of semolina, and season to taste; if needed, a very small teaspoonful of Liebig extract, or a small piece of glaze can be added.

Spanish Soufflé.—Cut two sponge cakes in slices. Spread apricot or other jam on them. Pile them on a dish, squeeze the juice of a lemon over them. Whip three teaspoonfuls of cream up with the white of one egg to a froth; put it over the cakes; blanch and chop four almonds; put them in the oven to colour, then sprinkle over the whip, and serve.

A DREAM OF QUEEN'S GARDENS. 1

A STORY FOR GIRLS.—IN TWO PARTSBy DANIEL DORMER, Author of "Out of the Mists."

PART I.

A PRETTY QUEEN

"Any letter for me this morning, Brightie?"

Hazel is leaning rather perilously over the banisters, trying to catch a glimpse of the old woman coming slowly up the stairs far below.

"Yes—one. Don't come for it, I'm coming up. And pray, child, don't hang over those rickety rails like that."

Miss Bright, or "Brightie," as Hazel Deane had grown affectionately to call her, is a heavy, strongly-made woman of sixty-three years. She finds the stairs in this house in Union-square, where she and Hazel lodge, rather trying; they are many and steep, so she pauses half-way to recover breath. Looking up she sees Hazel, a white, dark-eyed face, and a form so slender that even those unsafe rails could hardly give way under so slight a weight. "More than ever like one of my Cape jasmine stars," thinks old Brightie. She has always mentally compared the girl to one of those pure, white stars, which she used so specially to love, shining on their invisible stems, amidst the dark green leaf-sprays at her sister's home. Oh, how the poor, lonely old woman's heart had ached for that country home of her younger days, as she sat wearily at her business of plain sewing day after day in her attic in Union-square!

And Hazel, looking down, saw her one friend in the world. A ray of sunlight streamed in through the narrow staircase window on to Miss Bright. It makes the black cap which covers her whole head, with strings flying back over her shoulders, look very rusty. It makes her old alpaca gown, patched and repatched, and the little black silk apron that she wears, look more than ever shiny. It strikes upon the large, old-fashioned white pearl buttons down the front of her bodice, and upon the glasses of her spectacles, till she looks like some strange, black creature staring all over with big, round eyes. To Hazel's affectionate mind, however, there is nothing in the least ludicrous in the sight. She only notes the panting breath, and says, with a touch of impatience in her anxiety—

"Why will you persist in toiling up and down those horrid stairs, instead of sending me, Brightie? It is really very unkind of you."

When Brightie has delivered up Hazel's envelope, with its scrawled direction, she retires into her own room, next door, and shuts herself in. She is filled with an unwonted excitement, for she holds a second letter in her hand, and it is her own. The rarest thing it is for her to have a letter, and the post-mark is "Firdorf," the very same beautiful country place for which she had pined; there she and Janie, her only sister, had lived together, and Janie had died there. The hands, aged with work and deprivation more than with time, shake as they break the seal, the aged eyes grow dim again and again as they read.

It is fully three parts of an hour before Brightie has got through the letter—not that the words are many or hard to understand; but rather that the hindrances are many. The glasses of the large spectacles grow so misty from time to time that they require polishing. Then, too, Miss Bright's mind exhibits foolish tendencies, refusing to grasp the meaning of the words, and causing her to explain that she must be dreaming; and still further she is carried back in mind to days long since vanished, and scenes long unvisited, and these detain her long. But at last she rouses herself—has at length fairly accepted the astonishing good news her letter contains, and, with it open in her hand, hastens off to communicate the same to her young friend.

Hazel's door is locked, and Miss Bright has to wait a moment before it is unfastened. Hazel has been crying, and the tears must have been both plentiful and bitter, for unmistakable traces exist, in spite of hurried efforts to efface them. For once, though, Brightie is thoroughly self-engrossed, and fails to notice even Hazel's face.

"I have such wonderful news, my dear!" she exclaims, the moment she is admitted into the room.

Hazel expresses her interest, and, with her loving smile and tender way, ensconces her friend in the one attempt at an easy chair her room possesses, and then kneels beside her to listen.

"Well, my dear, you have heard me speak of my sister's house at Firdorf?"

"Of course! Often. Where you used to live, and the flowers were so lovely."

"Yes! and where the sweet white jasmine used to blossom, filling the air with its delicious fragrance when we sat in the summer evenings beneath the trellis work, in front of the dear old home."

As she speaks of the jasmine, old Miss Bright's hand is laid caressingly on Hazel's hair, and her eyes—happily not too keen without her glasses, or they would detect the tear marks—rest with softened look, full of tender memories, on the girl's sympathetic, upturned face.

"There were always we three there—I, and my sister and her boy. You have heard how the home was broken up, how Tom ran away, and how we lost our money, and how Janie's spirit broke down under it, till at length she gave up praying for Tom's return, and drooped and died?"

Miss Bright is making a long pause. Her large, rough face is heavy and sorrowful. She has quite forgotten her good news for the moment, has forgotten her friend kneeling beside her, has forgotten all save the memory of the sorrow which seemed to have terminated all of joy the world held for her. Hazel steals a gentle arm round the bowed neck, and kisses the worn, absent face as softly and soothingly as though it were some beautiful child's. The touch recalls the wandering thoughts, Brightie clasps the hand that she is holding in her own more tightly, and goes on:—

"Well, to be sure, and I haven't told you the news after all, dearie! It is that Tom has come back. He has made a great deal of money, and got quite reformed and come back. And he has bought back the old house, and now has just found out my address and wants me to go down and live with him; wants me to forgive him, he says, and let him be a comfort to me. I have, of course, nothing to forgive, except for Janie's sake."

"Oh, Brightie, what good, good news it is! I am so very glad. You will at last have some rest, and not be obliged to try your eyes over that fine sewing, and be taken proper care of, and have all sorts of nice things. I am so glad! How soon can you go, dear?—to-morrow? I should like you to go to-morrow."

Hazel began very bravely, went on unsteadily, and finally ended by laying her head down on Brightie's broad shoulder, fairly sobbing.

"I should like you to go to-morrow! Why, Hazel, Hazel, my tender-hearted little pet, are you crying, then? Because you are sure I am not going to-morrow? Neither to-morrow nor any other time. Don't you know I could not leave you without a friend in this great, careless world?"

Brightie's words are news to herself as she speaks them. She had not considered the possibility of such a thing before. Here was the longed-for home open to her, waiting to receive her again. Her one relation, her own nephew, the same merry-faced Tom of old, dear days, writing to her begging her to show her forgiveness and go to him to be cherished all the days of her life. And all this must be foregone—renounced. She must give it all up, and when Tom comes in two days, as he said he should, to fetch her, she must withstand his pleading and send him back alone, and never see the sweet garden and fresh sea again.

It is one of the cruellest days of bitter March weather. Yet early in the day after the talk with Brightie, Hazel goes out in spite of the cutting east wind. Wearily she drags herself about, making one more effort to dispose of the manuscript of a story she has written, which was ignominiously returned to her as useless this morning. Hour after hour she struggles on in a kind of desperation, trying every possible chance of getting rid of her laborious production. She is fully assured in her own mind that she will have no opportunity of getting out of doors, even to try and dispose of it, after to-day for many days to come. Her growing illness makes that certain. But all efforts are worse than useless. It is nearing seven o'clock, and growing quite dark, when she reaches Union-square and stumbles up those endless stairs at length. For the first two flights the stairs are comparatively broad and handsome, and they are thickly carpeted; but above they grow narrow and bare and steep. As she begins to ascend, Hazel meets a lady in a rich dress. There are preparations, too, in the lower rooms, which betoken the commencement of some festivity. Hazel is heartsick and footsore, and these slight matters intensify her loneliness and sadness, till as she enters her own dark, desolate room her swelling heart finds vent in a stifled sob. There has been no scarcity of trouble in the five-and-twenty years of Hazel Deane's life.

And now the trouble that weighs upon her this dreary night is the rejection all round of the treasured writing, offered everywhere with diffidence and hope, received back always with mortification and despair. It is now finally flung aside. Then there is the trouble of losing her friend—her one friend, Miss Bright—for Hazel's delicate little body holds a resolute mind and strong will, and she is determined her friend shall not forego the so long needed rest on her account.

The moon is looking in through the uncurtained window, looking into the cold, bare room, where only two or three cinders glow a dull red in the grate. Beside it Hazel leans back in her chair, musing bitterly on all the gladness gone out of her life. "I am one of those who have none to love them," she thinks, and the tears gather in her eyes again.

She is quoting from Mr. Ruskin's "Queen's Gardens," the book which enabled her to bear patiently a long delay at one of the publishers she had tried that day. She had found it lying upon the table beside her as she waited, and picking it up, had become engrossed in it.

"And I am a woman, and I suppose, therefore, a queen—at least a possible queen," she muses—"a pretty queen!"

(To be concluded.)

THE WEATHER AND HEALTH

By MEDICUS

Me have all heard tell of the "Clerk of the Weather." What a poor, ill-used, roundly-rated, over-worked individual he must be! His whole life must be spent in an impossible endeavour to please everybody. We may imagine the poor man going of a morning towards his office with languid steps and weary, wondering all the while to himself what sort of weather he ought to give the public to-day.

Arrived in front of his desk, he must stagger back with dismay at the piles on piles of letters heaped thereon. To read them all is out of the question; so he sits down and draws one forth, just as you would draw a card from the hand of someone who pretended to tell fortunes.

He opens the letter. It isn't a pleasant one by any means. There is a tone of growling impatience in every line of it. How long, the writer, who is an invalid, wants to know, are these horrible east winds going to prevail down in Devonshire? She has come here for her health's sake; she has been here for three weeks, and all that time it has never ceased to blow, and she has never ceased to cough and ache.

The clerk throws this epistle into the Balaam box and listlessly draws out another. "Don't you think," the writer says, "that a blink of sunshine would be a blessing—and a drop or two of warm rain to bring the fruit on, and the garden stuff? What is the good of having a Clerk of the Weather at all if he cannot attend better to his duties?"

That letter is also pitched into the Balaam box, and a third drawn—a delightful little cocked-hat of a letter, written on delicately-perfumed paper, probably with a dove's quill. She—of course it is a she!—is going to a garden-party on Tuesday week; would he, the Clerk of the Weather, kindly see that not a drop of rain falls on that day? Only bright sunshine, and occasional cloudlets to act as awnings and temper its heat.

The Clerk with a smile places that letter aside for further consideration, and goes on drawing. All and everyone of them either demand impossibilities or merely write to abuse the poor Clerk for some fancied dereliction of duty. One wants rain, another growls because there has been too much wet. This one is grumbling at the fogs, this other at the sunshine; this one suggests snow for a change, and this other begs for a thunderstorm to clear the atmosphere.

And so on and so forth. No wonder the bewildered Clerk jumps up at last and over-turns the table, letters and all, and audibly expresses a desire to let all the winds loose upon the world at once, to revel and tear and do as they like, to bring blinding snow from the far north and drenching rains from the torrid zone, to order a select assortment of thunderstorms from the Cape of Good Hope, and a healthy tornado from the Indian Ocean. But he thinks better of it, burns all the letters, and goes quietly on with his day's duty.

We see, then, that no matter what state of body of mind we may be in, we cannot get weather to order. We really commit an error, if nothing worse, in asking for weather to suit us.