SOUP, nourishing but simple, should form the first course at every dinner table. In its fluid form the aliment is ready almost immediately to enter the system, and exhaustion and irritability disappear like magic after partaking of a plate of warm, nutritious soup.

This department, then, has been prepared with the end in view of simplifying and popularizing what in nearly every country, save our own, is a national dish.

Necessarily, however, this division of the book, in order to be complete, must contain many hints for elaborate soups, but the busy housewife will find far more in accord with a limited purse and overburdened hands. In many instances, too, it will be found that the name is more elaborate than the really simple nature of the soup will justify. For instance, the appellations, consomme and puree, applied so often to soups,while scarcely translatable into equivalent English terms, are as follows: - Consomme - a rich, clear soup, colored or not. Puree, a pulp of meat, or vegetables pressed through a sieve and added to a soup until it has the smooth consistency of gravy. Other soups, where the beans or vegetables are added whole, may be called " plain" for the sake of distinction.