This is very nice served with a teaspoonful of currant or raspberry jelly to each helping, and if cream is added it makes a beautiful dessert.  This ought to be made the day before it is needed.  I made mine before noon and it was quite ready, but you see it tired me to have it on my mind, and it might have been a failure.

Cup-Cake.—­Three teacups of sifted sugar and one cup and a half of butter beaten to a cream, three eggs well beaten (white and yolks separately), three teacupfuls of sifted flour.  Flavor with essence of lemon or rose water.  A half teaspoonful is enough.  Dissolve a teaspoonful of cream of tartar and a half teaspoonful of baking soda in a very little milk.  When they foam, stir them quickly into the cake.  Beat well until the mixture is perfectly smooth, and has tiny bubbles here and there on the surface.  Bake in a very quick oven.

Cookies.—­These were in the house.  We always keep a good supply.  One cup of butter, one of sugar, one of sour milk, half a nutmeg grated, one teaspoonful of saleratus dissolved in a little boiling water, flour enough to roll out the cookies.  Cut into small round cakes and bake.  Keep these in a close tin.  They will last a long time unless the house is supplied with hungry school-boys.

Cocoa.—­Two ounces of cocoa and one quart of boiling water.  Boil together for a half hour on the back of the stove, then add a quart of milk and two tablespoonfuls of sugar.  Boil for ten minutes and serve.

Everything on the table was enjoyed, and we girls had a very merry time.  After tea and before the brothers came, we arranged a plan for learning to make bread.  I forgot to speak of the strawberries, but good strawberries and rich cream need no directions.  A pretty way of serving them for breakfast, or for people who prefer them without cream, is simply to arrange the beautiful fruit unhulled on a cut glass dish, and dip each berry by its dainty stem into a little sparkling mound of powdered sugar.

As for our games, our talk, our royally good time, girls will understand this without my describing it.  As Veva said, you can’t put the soul of a good time down on the club’s record book, and I find I can’t put it down here in black and white.  But when we said good-night, each girl felt perfectly satisfied with the day, and the brothers pleaded for many more such evenings.

CHAPTER III.

A FAIR WHITE LOAF.

“It’s very well,” said Miss Clem Downing, Marjorie’s sister, “for you little housekeepers to make cakes and creams; anybody can do that; but you’ll never be housekeepers in earnest, little or big, my dears, till you can make good eatable bread.”

“Bread,” said Mr. Pierce to Amy, “is the crowning test of housewifery.  A lady is a loaf-giver, don’t you know?”

“When Jeanie shall present me with a perfect loaf of bread, I’ll present her with a five-dollar gold piece,” said Jeanie’s father.