What to eat, how to serve it

they finally leave the table two hours half have passed since they seated selves, and they are quite ready to stand the drawing-room chatting for a while their prolonged seance. A LARGE DINNER As no music or other entertainment beyond the dinner has been arranged for the guests, they remain only about an hour after the meal is ended, and then make their acknowledgments and adieux to the host and hostess, and wend their respective ways homeward. FAMILY DINNERS FOR SPRING Lentil Boup. Fricasseed Chicken. Rice Croquettes. Buttered Sweet Potatoes. Peach Brown Betty. Lentil Soup. — One pint lentils, two quarts cold water, one onion, one tablespoonful flour, two teaspoonfuls butter, pepper and celery-salt to taste. Soak the lentils overnight in cold water ; drain them the next morning, and put them over the fire with two quarts of water and the onion ; simsr for several hours until the lentils are very soft. If the water boils away too fast, replenish the amount from the tea-kettle, When the lentils are done, rub them through a colander and return them to the fire; Cook the butter and flour together in a small saucepan until the mixture bubbles, and stir to the soup. Season to taste, and pour on FAMILY DINNEE8 FOB SPRING tiny squares of fried bread laid in your tureen, and serve. Buttered Sweet Potatoes, — Boil good-sized sweet potatoes, scrape them, and slice them lengthwise ; butter each piece, lay all in a pan, and set them in the oven until the butter is well melted into the potatoes. Peach Brown Betty, — Stew a pound of evaporated peaches until tender and plump ; place a layer of these in the bottom of a pudding dish, sprinkle them plentifully with sugar, and strew them quite thickly with fine bread-crumbs, scattering a little cinnamon over this; then arrange another layer of peaches, more sugar, crumbs, and spice, and so continue until the dish is full. Just before adding the last layer, which should be of crumbs, pour in as much of the liquor in which the peaches were stewed as the dish will hold without "floating" the contents. After the top stratum of crumbs is in place, dot it with bits of butter ; bake it covered for half an hour in a moderate oven, uncover and brown. Eat with hard sauce. Hard Sauce. — One tablespoon ful butter, one cup powdered sugar, half-teaspoonful flavoring. Cream the butter and sugar together until very light, flavor, press into a cup or small mould, turn out, and pass with the pudding. Boiled Mutton, Sauce Soubise. Mashed Turnips. Baked Hominy. Apple Charlotte. Boiled Mutton, Sauce Soubise. — In purchasing your mutton, select a fine large leg, and have it cut in two, in such a way that the knuckle and the lower part of the leg will make a good piece for boiling, leaving the upper part for roasting. Sauce Soiibise. — Four onions chopped, one tablespoonf ul flour, one tablespoonf ul butter, one cup of the liquor in which the mutton was boiled ; pepper and salt to taste. Stew the onions until very tender ; drain them, and rub them through a colander ; put the butter and flour together in a little saucepan, cook them until they bubble ; add the mutton liquor, which must have been cooled and skimmed; stir all together until thick and FAMILY DINNERS FOR SPRING smooth ; add the pepper, salt, and the strained onions; pass. with the boiled mutton. If properly made, this is a very appetizing sauce. Baked Hominy, — To two cupfuls of cold boiled hominy add a tablespoonf ul of melted butter, a tablespoonful of white sugar, one egg beaten, a cupful of milk, and a little salt ; beat all together until light, and bake in a buttered pudding dish. Serve as a vegetable.