Prepare your beans, which should be young, with the bean just forming; when eaten, the presence and shape of the bean or grain itself ought not to be felt; what we desire to eat is the green pod, the juicy envelope of the grain. Gather the beans young. The preparation consists in pinching of the ends, removing the stringy fibre lengthwise, and slicing the bean slantingly into two or three sections.

For one pound of green beans you want a pot that will hold nearly a gallon of water, in which you will put half an ounce of salt. When the water boils put in your beans, cook, and drain them. In a frying-pan for sauteing, you melt two ounces of butter; then you put in the beans, fry them for seven or eight minutes on a brisk fire, add salt and pepper to taste, and sprinkle over with finely chopped parsley or chervil. A teaspoonful of lemon-juice may also be added with advantage before serving.

The French make great use of lettuce as a vegetable, and a most excellent vegetable it is. I will give you a few recipes of applications of the cooked lettuce which have come under my notice.

First of all, an amiable Parisian hostess, who has published some of her secrets in the "100 Recettes de Mile. Francoise" (Paris: I. Renoult), introduced me to