Six little cooks

to let you make all that you possible could, so we'll try to get them all in. Everybody can help Grace with the fruit cake, Amy can make very nice sponge cake, Jessie jelly cake, Rose chocolate, and Edith macaroons." " And what shall / do? " inquired Mabel. " Make us some of the best wine jelly you ever tasted. And as the weather is very warm just now, we mustn't put quite so much water to it, or it won't ' stand.' ""What is nice to go with the jelly, Aunt Jane?* " Soft custard or whipped cream ; the cream is rather more attractive, I think We'll see who has the most time left for it. As we want the greatest possible variety, there is one more thing that would look very pretty on the table with the jelly — chocolate meringue." " Oh, do let's have it," exclaimed the children. " So we will, and now I think our list of dainties is full enough. "We'll make the fruit cake to-day, the others to-morrow, except the sponge, which must be made the same morning; the jelly to-morrow, and the whipped cream and meringue the next day, BO as to have them nice and fresh. All kinds of biscuit and tea cake, of course, must be made the day they are eaten." I wish I could tell you of the fan they all had in preparing this feast of good things, and the well-deserved compliments that were paid them by every one who joined in the repast. But as my efforts have been limited to giving my little readers some account of their cooking lessons, I must not transgress bounds by describing any thing outside. You can imagine for yourselves that it was a proud and happy day for the mothers and fathers of our little friends when they had such convincing proof of their children's progress as was afforded by the excellent supper prepared by them, and that the young people themselves, when they shall put in practice in future years the lessons of that happy time, will always look back with pleasure and gratification to the summer in which they were members of Aunt Jane's Cooking Class. 232 SIX LITTLE COOKS. AFTERTHOUGHT. I am told that prefaces are out of fashion; but as I have something to say, — not to my readers, exactly, but to their mothers and aunts, — I have begged permission to introduce it here. This little volume does not profess to be a complete handbook of cookery, and many topics relating to that delightful art are left untouched. My object is only to excite such an interest in the pursuit of it as may induce little people of ten or twelve years old to make some playful attempts at a beginning, with the hope that in future years they may be inclined to follow it up in serious earnest. A word as to the recipes, which have all been thoroughly tested. Some of them are taken from those precious old manuscript books which we all remember as the unfailing storehouses of good things; others have been contributed by the kindness of friends at whose tables I have enjoyed the dishes they represent; and for such as are due to neither of these sources, I am indebted principally to Mrs. Miller's charming work, "In the Kitchen,'' and Marion Harland's admirable manual, entitled " Common Sense in the Household." With these acknowledgments, which my conscience will not allow me to withhold, I take my '"e^ THE AUTHOB. •*• WEBSTER BRANCH J465 Avenue BISCUIT, TEA-CAKES, ETC.