Six little cooks

One and a half Ibs. of flour, one pint or less of boiled rice, two and a half pints of sweet, rich milk, one teaspoonful of salt, four eggs. Put the rice in a four-quart bowl, separating the eggs, putting the yolks with the rice; add the salt, flour, and two pints of the milk, beating very thoroughly, then the remaining half pint of milk; beat the whites of the eggs to a stiff froth, add them to the batter, and beat well together. When thoroughly beaten, make the batter still lighter by lifting and pouring it with a tin cup for five minutes. "Which of these shall we try, aunty?" " The second, I think, although I should prefer either of the others, but we want something very simple, that will not detain you late in the kitchen. We haven't thought of any sweet-cake yet." " Let's have some with fruit in," said Mabel, " because I like to stone the raisins." " Here is a very nice recipe for that, and one that ought to be made to-day, because it wouldn't cut in nice slices if we put it off till to-morrow. Then in the morning we can make some jumbles so as to have a little variety; besides which, some people are afraid of fruit cake." No. 141 — AURORA CAKE. Eleven oz. butter, one and a half pints sugar, two and a half pints flour, half a pint milk, one gill mixed wine and brandy, one and a half Ibs. stoned raisins, a quarter of a teaspoonful baking powder sifted with the flour, five eggs. Cream the butter, add the sugar and yolks and beat until very light; stir in the milk, add alternately the whites beaten to a dry froth, and the flour, then the wine, and lastly the fruit; bake in deep pans, buttered, and lined with paper. " There's some business for you, Mabel; it will take you a long time to find all the seeds in a pound and a half of raisins. In the mean time, the rest of us will be getting the other ingredients ready." By tea-time the next evening, three nicely dressed children were ready to take their places at the table; and when the visitors learned that the fresh tea-biscuit, the waffles and huckleberry cake, the rich, delicate jumbles and fine fruit cake, were the work of those little hands, they could scarcely believe their ears. " But we had to have help with the baking, you know," said Grace, who was too honest to take more praise than she deserved. "You musn't give us credit for that." " That will all come in time," answered Mrs. Brown, " and I should be very proud if my little girls could make as nice things as those, even if somebody else did bake them." ELEVENTH DAY. " It is a drizzling, chilly, forlorn kind of day, Annt Jane ; don't yon think it would be a good time to have a dumpling V' "Excellent; I know yonVe been wanting to try your hand at that, Gracie, for a long time. We'll not only make a dumpling, but we'll write down all kinds of winter recipes that you can make by yourselves on Saturday mornings, if your lessons haven't tired you too much during the week." " Oh, I know we shall want to; see if we don't! And at any rate, we shall want to know how, whether we do it or not."