Six little cooks

" There is one condition I must positively make," said Mrs. Yernon, as the impatient cooks left the dinner table. " I can not have Rhoda come back from her ' afternoon out' to find a disorderly kitchen and a great pile of dishes and pans to be washed. If you work in her nice, clean kitchen, you must clear up all traces of yourselves before she comes back." " Oh, yes, we will," said all at once, and they did it, too, for they knew that if they failed to keep their part of the agreement they would not enjoy the privilege another time. So as soon as Rhoda had washed the dishes and " tidied up," as she called it, in the kitchen, they took possession of her dominions and set to work, after a parting caution from Aunt Jane as to the prime necessity of clean hands and nails. "We need not follow them through the afternoon's operations, which were quite successful, and produced a great dish full of nice ginger-snaps, and two flat, thin pansful of cake. Then they washed the utensils they had used, scraped the flour from the pie-board, and wiped it from the table without spilling any on the floor except a little dusting of it, which was easily disposed of with a broom, and put every article back into its place. " Why, bless ye, honey," said Rhoda, when Mrs. Yernon asked her about it in the evening, " you wouldn't never have knowed they'd been there at all !" FIFTH DAY. " Grace, yon and I are invited out to exercise onr art to-day," said Mrs. King, one morning. "Your Aunt Carroll has sent over to say that she expects company to lunch; her cook is sick, and the other girl very husy ironing, and as it will be all she can do herself to entertain her friends and see to the table, she would like to have us get the lunch ready, with Rose and Jessie's help, and then I am to be company, and you three girls are to wait on table." "That will be glorious 1" said Grace. "May I write down the recipes now?" "Yes, and Rose can copy them from your book. We will begin with " No. 46 — CHOCOLATE. Take two oz. (or two squares) of Baker's chocolate, break it into a little boiling water and stir over the fire until it becomes a smooth paste. If unsweetened choco- late is used, add eight even tablespoonfuls granulated sugar, then add, little by little, a pint of boiling water and a pint of scalded milk Stir it thoroughly, and allow it to simmer (not boil) for ten minutes; then serve. No. 47 — SARATOGA POTATOES. Pare raw potatoes; slice them as thin as possible with a potato-cutter (when this is not at hand, they must be sliced with a knife); lay them in cold water for an hour or more, then dry them in a towel. Have melted lard at least two inches deep in a kettle; when it is hot cover the surface with the dried slices, sprinkle a little salt over them, turn them with a skimmer, and when done lay them on a doubled brown paper in the open oven. Fry them all in this way, piling them up on the paper as fast as they are taken out of the kettle. No. 48 — CHICKEN CKOQUETTES.