Not the care-lines that tell of work and worry. These are not the "wrinkles" that one woman wishes to receive from another. But there are, to use another expressive bit of contemporary slang, "tips" - fragments of practical knowledge accumulated by every woman who looks well to the ways of her household-which are of distinct value to all housekeepers. Sometimes they have been discovered almost by accident, at other times they have come as the working out of pet theories. Still again they may have been hardly acquired after many failures have taught the experimenter how not to do it.

Some of the wrinkles thus gathered may be old and familiar to many housekeepers. To others they may be entirely fresh and helpful.

How many women who like a dainty table know, for instance, that the flavor of a broiled fish is rendered richer and finer if the fish is laid in salad oil for an hour before it is cooked ? The fish should be placed on a flat plate, two or three tablespoonfuls of the oil poured upon it, and when this has soaked in thoroughly the fish may be turned over and the other side treated in the same fashion.

This same expedient of steeping in salad oil adds a delicious flavor to the cold chicken or turkey that is to be warmed up in a cream sauce. If the sauce is flavored with a suspicion of onion-juice and celery salt, the result is an appetizing rechauffe which has been aptly compared to hot chicken salad.

The superiority of onion-juice over the chopped onion so often used in seasoning is manifest to all who have tried the former. The juice may be procured most readily, perhaps, by tearing the onion upon a vegetable grater. The juice quickly trickles from the bottom of the grater. Or the onion may be cut in half and pressed in a lemon-squeezer. For seasoning minces, hashes, Hamburg steaks, and in all chafing-dish concoctions, the onion-juice is invaluable.

Welcome to those who enjoy soft-shell crabs, but object to the odor of the frying fat that usually accompanies their cookery, should be the "tip" that the crabs may be broiled, instead of fried, and that the flavor is the same whichever of the two ways they are cooked. The crab should be cleaned, dipped in olive oil, laid on the gridiron over a bed of broiling-coals, and cooked until the outside is red-brown, the meat white and tender.

Another "wrinkle" worth knowing is that vinegar added to the water in which fish is boiled will make the fish firmer and improve its flavor, while when it is put into the water in which meat or poultry is stewing it will make the flesh more tender. The proportion varies a little. A tablespoonful is enough for the fish, while twice that quantity may safely be used for the meat. It expedites the boiling of tough poultry.

Of great help to the woman who wishes to broil steak or chops, when she is baking bread or cake, is the knowledge that she can do this without cooling her ovens by uncovering the top of the stove. With proper care meats may be broiled - not fried - in a frying-pan so that they will be quite as juicy and nutritious as though they had been grilled over the coals. The mode of cooking is simple. The frying-pan should be put on the stove until it is hissing hot. If the meat has very little fat on it, the pan may be rubbed lightly with a bit of butter no larger than a hickory nut. This is to keep the meat from sticking when it first goes in. The pan should be so hot that the albumen on the surface of the meat will coagulate the moment it touches the pan. By this the juices are sealed in the meat, and this may be turned and cooked in the pan as it would be on the gridiron until it is done to suit the taste of the eaters. Fish may be broiled in the oven, if this is very hot, nearly as well as over the fire. Both with fish and meat the after-treatment should be the same - a transfer to a hot platter and plentiful basting with butter. An added savoriness may be given by rubbing the platter with onion or with garlic, and working minced parsley into the butter used in basting.

Garlic, so much dreaded by those who have used it too much or not at all, is a valuable article when employed in moderation. It cannot be handled as carelessly as onion, but if it is rubbed on the inside of a salad-bowl, or of the dish in which the salad dressing is mixed, its flavor will be found both delicate and delicious.

The problem of how to whip cream without changing it into butter is one that has troubled many housekeepers who like this simple and popular sauce for puddings and fruit. The secret of success is to have the cream-churn (which may be a glass egg-beater) and the cream ice cold. One excellent cook always fills her cream-churn with ice, and puts it in the refrigerator for half an hour or more before using, while the cream too is kept on the ice. Given sweet, rich cream, the whipping under these circumstances cannot fail to be successful. In the same coldness of utensils and ingredients lies the secret of a quickly mixed mayonnaise.

In cooking cream or milk the danger of curdling is much reduced if a pinch of soda the size of a pea is added. There is also risk of curdling milk if it is salted when put over the fire. The salt should go in the last thing.

When greasing pans for cakes or muffins, or a griddle for frying cakes, it is a common mistake to use too much fat. The greasy crust that means an attack of indigestion for the person who eats it may be avoided if a flat paint-brush is dipped into melted fat, and the pan lightly brushed with this. It has the added merit of reaching the cracks and corners that sometimes escape the touch of the time-honored greased paper or cloth, which coats the cook's fingers more effectually than the pan to which it is applied.

There are many other "wrinkles" of more or less value. As, for instance, the fact that vinegar will restore the color of hands white and sodden from dish-washing, that the fumes from a freshly lighted sulphur match will take the stains of berries from the finger-tips and nails if used before they have been washed with soap, that boiling in buttermilk will sometimes take out mildew when everything else fails, that chlorinated soda will remove ink-spots from white cotton or linen goods without injuring the fabric, that Benares brass should be cleansed with a soft cloth dipped in lemon-juice and brightened with chamois-skin, that the tarnish is most easily removed from silver if the flannel used in cleaning is moistened with alcohol before being dipped into the silicon and rubbed on the silver, that silver keeps bright for a long time if each piece is wrapped in fine white tissue-paper. One might go on indefinitely were it not that space and a reader's patience have limits.