The fun of cooking

the oven by this time, and Miss Betty said they were lovely, but told her to put a bit of butter on top of each one, so they would be brown. * * Now copy off your rule, ' * she added. STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKES Make the usual rule for biscuits, but divide it, unless you wish a good many. Butter the top of each biscuit; when baked, gently separate them into two layers. Put a little butter on each half. Crush some ripe strawberries and sweeten them; arrange the lower halves of the biscuits on a dish, or put one on each plate; cover with the berries, put on the tops, sift sugar over them, and add two or three berries to each. Pass cream with them. If some day you want to make one large shortcake, Mildred, all you have to do is to make one very large biscuit, and split it open just as you have done these small ones. "Shall we make the cocoa now?" Mildred asked, as she finished writing her receipt. My dear, that had to be very, very cold for luncheon, so Ellen made it right after breakfast, and put it on ice; but it doesn't matter, because you know how to make that. However, as we can't put any ice in it—that makes it horrid and watery—you may put a piece of ice in each of these tall glasses to chill them, and that will help make the cocoa cold; we will take it out at the last moment and put the cocoa in. Here comes Jack with the berries, just in time! Jack had two baskets of them, one of the biggest, loveliest ones, all laid on pretty strawberry leaves. Those Miss Betty washed and dried and put on the ice at once, with the leaves ; the smaller ones she gave to Brownie to hull after washing. Then she read this receipt aloud : STRAWBERRIES FOR A FIRST COURSE Wash, dry, and chill the berries, but do not hull them. Put a little paper doily on a small, pretty plate and arrange the berries on the leaves around the edge in a circle, the points toward the center; in the middle put a little heap of sifted, powdered sugar. To eat them, take them by the hulls and dip in the sugar. "There!" she said, as she and Mildred finished arranging them, "don't they look pretty! I think for breakfast or luncheon they are delicious this way. Now you see, Brownie, why the finger-bowls had to go at the top of the plate ; these small plates go right before you on the table, and when Ellen takes them off, she can take off the others, too. Aren't the biscuits done yet, Mildred?" Mildred ran to look — she had forgotten all about them, but luckily they were exactly right, a beautiful brown. So she took them out of the pan and carefully opened them at the side, using a knife at first, and then tearing them gently apart so they would not be heavy. When Brownie finished the berries, Mildred crushed them a little and sweetened them, but did not put them on the biscuits ; Miss Betty said that must be done only just before serving, or the crust would be soaked with the juice. So she helped fill the glasses with water, and put on the bread and butter and cocoa, while Miss Betty and Brownie arranged the salad on plates and put the hot chicken in little dishes, each with a bit of parsley on top. Then they all sat down and ate up the luncheon, and nobody could say which was the best thing, the beautiful berries, or the lovely hot chicken, or the ice-cold cocoa, or the salad, or the shortcakes— it was all so good. When they had finished, Mildred said there was only one fault to find with the lunch—that they had strawberries only twice. "That's exactly the way I feel!" nodded Miss Betty. "In strawberry time, I want to have them in the place of meat and potatoes and bread, and everything else, and at least at all three meals a day, and between times, too! Now would you like some more strawberry receipts for your cook-book?"