"And the " - you sigh, with a sense of resentment upon you, however amiable your disposition, for the provocation is dire - "cookery-books and young housekeepers' assist-tants, and all that sort of thing, are such humbugs! - Dark lanterns at best - too often Will-o'-the-wisps."

My dear, would you mind handing me the book which lies nearest you on the table there? "Dickens?" Of course. You will usually find something of his in every room in this house - almost as surely as you will a Bible. It rests and refreshes one to pick him up at odd times, and dip in anywhere. Hear the bride, Mrs. John Rokesmith, upon our common grievance.

" She was under the constant necessity of referring for advice and support to a sage volume, entitled 'The Complete British Family Housewife" which she would sit consulting, with her elbows upon the table, and her temples in her hands, like some perplexed enchantress poring over the Black Art. This, principally because the Complete British Housewife, however sound a Briton at heart, was by no means an expert Briton at expressing herself with clearness in the British tongue, and sometimes might have issued her directions to equal purpose in the Kamtchatkan language,"

Don't interrupt me, my long-suffering sister! There is more of the same sort to come.

"There was likewise a coolness on the part of 'The Complete British Housewife' which Mrs. John Roke-smith found highly exasperating. She would say, 'Take a salamander,' as if a general should command a private to catch a Tartar. Or, she would casually issue the order, 'Throw in a handful' of something entirely unattainable. In these, the housewife's most glaring moments of unreason, Bella would shut her up and knock her on the table, apostrophizing her with the compliment - ' O you Are a stupid old donkey! Where am I to get it, do you think ?' "

When I took possession of my first real home, the prettily furnished cottage to which I came as a bride, more full of hope and courage than if I had been wiser, five good friends presented me with as many cookery-books, each complete, and all by different compilers. One day's investigation of my menage convinced me that my lately-hired servants knew no more about cookery than I did, or affected stupidity to develop my capabilities or ignorance. Too proud to let them suspect the truth, or to have it bruited abroad as a topic for pitying or contemptuous gossip, I shut myself up with my " Complete Housewives," and inclined seriously to the study of the same, comparing one with the other, and seeking to shape a theory which should grow into practice in accordance with the best authority. I don't like to remember that time! The question of disagreeing doctors, and the predicament of falling between two stools, are trivial perplexities when compared with my strife and failure.

Said the would-be studious countryman to whom a mis-chievous acquaintance lent " Webster's Unabridged Dictionary " as an entertaining volume, - " I wrastled, and I wrastled, and I wrastled with it, but I couldn't get up much of an int'rest."

My wrestling begat naught save pitiable confusion, hopeless distress, and a three-clays' sick headache, during which season I am not sure that I did not darkly contemplate suicide as the only sure escape from the meshes that girt me. At the height - or depth - of my despondency a friend, one with a great heart and steady brain, came to my rescue. Her cheerful laugh over my dilemma rings down to me now, through all these years, refreshingly as it then saluted my ears.

"Bless your innocent little heart!" she cried, in her fresh, gay voice, " Ninety-nine out of a hundred cookbooks are written by people who never kept house, and the hundredth by a good cook who yet doesn't know how to express herself to the enlightenment of others. Compile a receipt book for yourself. Make haste slowly. Learn one thing at a time, and when you have mastered it, ' make a note on it,' as Captain Cuttle says - never losing sight of the principle that you must do it in order to learn how."

Then she opened to me her own neatly-written "Manual" - the work of years, recommending, as I seized it, that I should commence my novitiate with simple dishes.

This was the beginning of the hoard of practical receipts I now offer for your inspection. For twenty years, I have steadily pursued this work, gleaning here and sifting there, and levying such remorseless contributions upon my friends, that I fear the sight of my paper and pencil has long since become a bugbear. For the kindness and courtesy which have been my invariable portion in this quest, I hereby return hearty thanks. For the encouraging words and good wishes that have ever answered the hint of my intention to collect what had proved so valuable to me into a printed volume, I declare myself to be yet more a debtor. I do not claim for my compend the proud pre-eminence of the " Complete American Housewife." It is no boastful system of " Cookery Taught in Twelve Lessons." And I should write myself down a knave or a fool, were I to assert that a raw cook or ignorant mistress can, by half-a-day's study of my collection, equal Soyer or Blot, or even approximate the art of a half-taught scullion.

We may as well start from the right point, if we hope to continue friends. You must learn the rudiments of the art for yourself. Practice, and practice alone, will teach you certain essentials. The management of the ovens, the requisite thickness of boiling custards, the right shade of brown upon bread and roasted meats - these and dozens of other details are hints which cannot be imparted by written or oral instructions- But, once learned, they are never forgotten, and henceforward your fate is in your own hands. You are mistress of yourself, though servants leave. Have faith in your own abilities. You will be a better cook for the mental training you have received at school and from books. Brains tell everywhere, to say nothing of intelligent observation, just judgment, a faithful memory, and orderly habits. Consider that you have a profession, as I said just now, and resolve to understand it in all its branches. My book is designed to help you. I believe it will, if for no other reason, because it has been a faithful guide to myself - a reference beyond value in seasons of doubt and need. I have brought every receipt to the test of common sense and experience. Those which I have not tried myself were obtained from trustworthy housewives - the best I know. I have enjoyed the task heartily, and from first to last the persuasion has never left me that I was engaged in a good cause. Throughout I have had you, my dear sister, present before me, with the little plait between your brows, the wistful look about eye and mouth that reveal to me, as words could not, your desire to "do your best."