The fun of cooking

^ ^ Some things, like cake, cannot bear to have the oven door opened while they are baking," said Mother Blair; **but salmon does not mind if you open quickly ; so, Mildred, put these in as fast as you can; they will take about twenty minutes to bake. I do believe that is all we have to make except the tea, and that takes only a moment when everything else is ready. I will give you the receipt for it now, and after everybody is here and you have said *How do you dor to them, you can slip out and make this, and while it stands you can put the other things on the table. But perhaps you had better make some coffee too ; the men may like it ' * TEA Fill the kettle with fresh, cold water and let it boil up hard. Scald out an earthen tea-kettle, and put in two rounded teaspoonfuls of tea for six people, or more, if you want it quite strong. Pour on six cups of boiling water and let the pot stand where it is warm for just two minutes. Scald out the pot you are going to send to the table, and strain the tea into that. Have a jug of hot water ready to send in with it. She looked Carefully in the Oven through a tiny crack COFFEE 1 rounded tablespoonful of ground coffee for each person; and 1 extra tablespoonful. % cup of cold water. 1 egg shell, washed and broken, with a little bit of the white. Mix these in a bowL Then put in a very clean pot and add 1 cup of boiling water for each person and 1 cup more. Let it boil up hard just once; stir it, pour in 1 tablespoonful of cold water; let it stand three minutes, strain and put in a hot pot. Just before the door-bell rang, Mildred went to the refrigerator to look at her custards and found them nice and cold. Then she looked carefully in the oven through a tiny crack, and found the muffins were done and the salmon beautifully brown ; so she took up the potatoes, and put them in the covered dish on the back of the-stove where they would keep hot, and asked Brownie to lay the hot plates around the table, one for each person. Then she went into the parlor and said **How do you doT* to the guests, and after a moment slipped out again, and put everything on the sideboard, made the tea, filled the glasses, and put butter on the bread-and-butter plates. Then Brownie asked everybody to come to supper. When they had all sat down, Mildred passed the dish of salmon, offering it on the left side, of course, just as Norah always did; then she put the dish down before her father and passed the potatoes and muffins in the same way, while Mother Blair poured the ' tea and handed it around without rising from her seat. And then everybody began to eat, and say, "Oh, how good this salmon is!" and "Did you ever taste such muffins?" and "Did you really, really make all these good things yourselves, children? We don't see how you ever did itl" And they ate at two helpings of everything, and Father Blair ate three. And when it was time to take [illustration: Jack served the custards] the dishes off, there was not a speck of salmon left, nor a spoonful of potato, nor even a single muffin. Then Brownie quietly took the crumbs off as she had seen Norah do, brushing them onto a plate with a folded napkin; and as she was doing this. Jack slipped out to the refrigerator and got the custards, all as cold as ice and brown on top, looking as pretty as could be in their cunning cups; each cup was set on a dessert plate and a spoon laid by its side, and the fresh cakes were passed with them. Soon after supper the company went home, and then Mildred said: **I feel exactly like a toy balloon — so light inside 1 Wasn^t that a good supper f And did n't they like the things we had! And isn't it fun to have company! When I am grown up and have a house of my own, I shall have company every day in the weef