Marion Harland's Complete Cook Book: A Practical and Exhaustive Manual of Cookery and Housekeeping

of butter has been melted. Spread the omelet evenly and cook over a slow fire to set the eggs. Then put in the oven until done. Spread one-half of the omelet with marmalade, fold and serve on hot platter. Queen Mab omelets Beat four eggs, the yolks as smooth as cream, the whites to a standing froth. Into the yolks whip three tablespoonfuls of powdered sugar. Mix all together, add a tablespoonful of thick cream, whip lightly and pour into buttered “nappies,” filling each half-way to the top. Set in a pan of boiling water in a quick oven and bake five minutes, covered. Turn out upon a hot platter, sift powdered sugar over them and serve at once. FAMILIAR TALK A commonsensible talk with the nominal mistress of the house There is not that household in the land where servants are employed which is not measurably dependent upon them for peace of mind as well as for comfort of body. Every housewife who reads this will recall the sinking of heart, the damp depression of spirit, which has suddenly overtaken a cheerful mood when the kitchen barometer beckoned “storm” or “change.” Such an overtaking is not an affliction, but it sometimes comes dangerously near to sorrow. The independent maid of all work has it in her power to alter the family plans with a word, when that word is “going.” Should she elect to stay, her lowering brows and sharp or sullen speech abash a mistress who quails at little else. In wealthier households a domestic “strike” involves panic, disorder and suffering. I know of a wet-nurse whose abandonment of her infant charge, without a word of warning, at ten o’clock one Saturday night, caused a long and terrible illness, resulting in infantile paralysis. A cook who had lived in one family for three years resented the arrival of unexpected guests, packed her trunk and left her mistress to get dinner. The lady was in delicate health and all unused to such work. She became overheated and exhausted, took a heavy cold, which ripened into pneumonia, and died three