This can be made very good, if not spoiled by the use of too much lemon or too much starch.

5 cups water - a quart and a cup.

11/2 cups sugar - 12 ounces.

1 small lemon.

3 heaping tablespoons starch - 3 ounces.

Boil 4 cups water with the sugar in it, and juice of the lemon and half the rind cut in small shreds. Mix the starch with the other cup, and stir it into the boiling syrup. Let simmer about 15 minutes to become transparent and almost clear. Pour it into custard cups, or any kind of moulds. Serve in saucers with a spoonful of sweetened cream whipped to froth. Can be colored with burnt sugar or with iced fruit-juice. Cost: 1 1/2 qts 12, cream 5; 17 cents for eighteen portions.

They said they would come again and they are coming. Telegram for Mr. Farewell at 3 o'clock this afternoon asking him to prepare a wedding breakfast for them for to-morrow at II: they to be married in the parlor of the hill cottage at 10. "Simple and informal; no fuss," the Colonel added at the bottom of his dispatch; they generally say that, but are wofully disappointed it they don't find a fuss being made about their momentous proceedings. This is no way to do; they ought to have given us time to send to the city for the ready-made decorations for the wedding-cake; for floral designs; paper cases for confections; there is no time for anything. Well, this means that somebody in this house will have to work all night, or nearly all, and the bride's cake will not be worth a cent to cut up, so fresh, scarcely cold unless made at once and set in the refrigerator. Wish I knew which is the winner in that match, the colonel or the banker's daughter - suppose a novelist could tell plain enough, but then it is none of our business, Anything for a change; however, I'm glad they chose this place for their breakfast. From the 11 o'clock train this morning Mr. Farewell brought over their Mary Jane, the one that cooks for them in their city house. He said that as but two weeks of the time now remains of the eight weeks for which I am engaged he should like his home cook to stay in the kitchen and try to catch on - I mean take items, and pick up ideas about cooking for the future benefit of his family and himself, if I was willing as of course I am. Said she is sadly deficient in the styles of putting food on the dishes, does not know how to make a good dish look good, much less how to make a common one look better than it is, and much more. I know what he means, but he could not explain, neither can I - it is the trimming and shaping, flattening and squaring, the clean draining of the fries, the crispness, the gloss, the color, the garnishing. Now I shall tell her that looking on is all very well, but it is not equal to taking hold, and instead of sitting at the door she may take upon herself to pick up something to make supper for the guests whilst I make the weddingcake.