We started to-day to spend a week in a French country house, sleeping one night on our way at beautiful Chartres, which, as I am not writing a guidebook, I shall not describe. The weather was bitterly cold; and when we humbly asked at the hotel for some hot water, the answer we got was 'On n'echauffe plus.' The French submit more meekly than we do to this kind of regulation, which is curious, as they are so much more sensible, as a rule, than we are in most of the details of life. I was interested to see in the small court of the hotel a quantity of most flourishing Hepat-icas. These flowers, Mr. Bright tells us, defeated all his efforts in his Lancashire garden. I have tried them in various aspects, but they make a sorry show with me in Surrey. In this little back-yard they shone in the sunshine, pink and blue, double and single. I suppose the secret is that they do not mind cold, but they want sun. I wonder if anyone is very successful with them in England? How I remember them, in the days of my youth, pushing through the dead leaves in the little oak woods in the valleys up the country behind Nice, then, as now, 'Le pays du Soleil,' but probably long since all changed into villas and gardens instead of woods and fields.

A French country house ! How different it all is! In some ways we manage best, in others they do. This was rather a cosmopolitan than a typically French house, and yet in a country how traditions linger and customs cling ! We saw and did many interesting things, thanks to the cordial hospitality and kindness of our host and hostess. I, however, will only allude to certain domestic details which I learnt during my stay, and which may instruct you as they did me. What interested me much from a housekeeping point of view was, not only the excellence of the cooking, as that now can be seen elsewhere, but the management of the kitchen. It seems a small thing to state as an example, but I was told that no French housekeeper who at all respects herself would ever allow lard to come into her house. Everything is fried in what they call graisse, and we call suet. Five or six pounds are bought from the butcher-anywhere in England they will let you have it at sixpence a pound. This is boiled for two or three hours, skimmed and strained, and poured into jars ready for use, taking the place of lard when butter or oil are not used. Since I came home I have never had any lard in my house. Many people here do not know that dripping can be cleared by frying some pieces of raw potato in it till they turn brown; this will clarify it nicely.

All chickens, game, birds of any kind, are roasted far more slowly than with us, and at wood fires. The livers, gizzards, etc, are chopped up and put inside the bird. It is always basted with butter, which is poured round the bird when sent to table. This is a very great improvement with all birds, especially fowls, on the pale watery gravy or the thick tasteless sauce as served in England. Our method of sticking the liver and gizzard into the wing is a useless waste, for they shrivel into a hardened mass before our fierce coal fires. The French, if they do not think the livers, etc., necessary for improving the gravy in the roasting, often make them the foundation of a pie or side-dish. This cutting up the liver and basting with butter is a hint well worth remembering, and should be universally applied in the roasting of all birds. I noticed that all roast meat was basted with fat or butter, and the gravy served just as it was, without straining or clarifying, with all the goodness of the meat in it. This we have practised ever since at home, with great approval. Many people would object to this as greasy. I only say, 'Try it.'

A very good, easily made French soup is as follows:Potage Paysanne.-Cut one large onion into dice, put them into a stewpan with two ounces of butter, and fry a nice golden colour. Then take a half-inch-thick slice of bread toasted to the same colour; break it into small pieces, and put them into the stewpan with a pint of good stock. Simmer gently for thirty-five minutes, then serve. Quantity for four persons.

The following receipt for a tame duck I can thoroughly recommend; if you follow it exactly, it cannot go wrong:Caneton a l'Orange.-Take a good fat duck, clean it out, and put the liver apart. Singe the duck, and clean it very carefully. Then mince the liver with a little onion and some grated bacon or ham, add salt and pepper. Put the stuffing inside the duck. Now close the opening of the duck; leave the skin of the neck long, and bring it round under the duck to close the tail. Spread on the table a clean pudding-cloth, and roll the duck in this rather tightly, to preserve the shape. Tie up the two ends of the cloth with string. Put into a stewpan, with boiling salted water. Continue to boil it quietly for one hour for an ordinary duck, one hour and ten minutes if large; it will then be cooked, and ought to be a good pink colour. (Chickens boiled in the same way are excellent.) Take three oranges, peel them with a spoon, cut the peel in quarters, taking out all the white; shred the peel as if for Julienne soup; put it into water for seven or eight minutes, drain on a cloth. Take the rest of the orange, removing all the white; put the pulp into a good reduced stock half glazed. Add Spanish sauce (see 'Dainty Dishes'), two or three spoonfuls, and a little red wine-port is best. Pass through a sieve, and then add the chips of orange-peel. Unpack the duck, serve on a dish, surround it with pieces of orange; put a little sauce over the duck and the rest in a sauce-boat.

Another good and useful receipt is the following:French Pie.-Cut up 2 lbs. of lean veal, 2 lbs. of bacon, and 2 lbs. of lean pork, in very thin slices. Place them in layers in a fireproof pie-dish. Moisten with stock, and chop up a little herb and very little onion, and put it between the slices of meat. Cover with a sham crust of flour and water. Take all the cuttings, parings, bones, etc.; cook these in water or weak stock, and reduce to a large teacupful.

When the pie has baked some time slowly, take it out, take off the crust and pour in the teacupful of stock. When it has cooled, it improves the appearance of the dish to put some well-made aspic jelly (see 'Dainty Dishes') on the top.

As it was the end of Lent, I had the chance of seeing several maigre dishes. All the good cooking which hung about monasteries and convents was swept out of England by the Reformation. It has returned only in my lifetime, for gastronomic or health reasons rather than for religious mortification. The old object was to make tasty and palatable what the rules of the Church allowed. The French have a real talent for making good dishes out of nothing, and this they share with no other nation in the world. Ox-tails are not used to make soup in France, or were not; but when the French refugees came over here, they found ox-tails were thrown away and were very cheap. They immediately utilised them, and made the excellent ox-tail soup which we use in England to this day. The black cooks of America, I am told, never spoil good materials, and they cook good things excellently. The English have a peculiar gift for taking the taste out of the best materials that are to be found in the world. A few terrible tricks of the trade are answerable for a good deal of this-iron pots and spoons; soda thrown into many things; water poured over roasted meat for gravy; soups cleared with the white of eggs. This will spoil the best soup in the world, not only taking away all flavour of meat and vegetables, but supplying a taste that is not unlike the smell of a dirty cloth. Of late, in the effort to keep pace with foreign cooking, things in England have grown too messy, and I sometimes regret the real Old English dishes of my childhood. The system of trying to make one thing look like another is very objectionable, I think, and wanting in good taste. But I must return to my maigre receipts. The details can be found in 'Dainty Dishes.'