"We're to have 'soups and broths' at the next lesson," said Mabel. "We can't wait for the next lesson!" urged Aldred. "I'll undertake the soup, and you can do the stew. I might make some bread sauce as well." "But no one ever takes bread sauce with stewed mutton!" "Why shouldn't they? It will be a novelty. I believe they have it in Germany. It will make an extra dish on the table, at any rate. We want to give Miss Drummond a good spread." Mabel and Dora demurred, but Aldred was so insistent that in the end they agreed to let her include both the soup and the bread sauce. "But you'll have to be answerable for them," maintained Dora, "because we haven't learnt to make either, and we wanted to practise what we really know to-day, not to try too many fresh experiments." "Oh, I'll take the responsibility!" declared Aldred lightly. "We shall have a splendid dinner now. We'll pick a few apples, and those big yellow plums, for dessert." "We'd better write a menu, if we've so many courses," said Mabel. "A good idea! We'll put it in French; it will just delight Mademoiselle. What a pity we didn't think of it sooner, and we'd have painted a lovely card on purpose! I suppose there wouldn't be time now, if I ran and fetched my paint-box?" "Aldred! With all this cooking still to be done! We haven't even put away the breakfast things yet!" "Well, the kettle's just singing; we'll wait till it boils. Have you a pencil, Dora, and a scrap of paper?" The list of dishes looked quite imposing and elegant, when written in a foreign language. Aldred regarded it with pride, and copied it in her best handwriting: MENU. Potage aux Herbes. Côtelettes de Mouton aux Légumes. Sauce Anglaise. Pommes de Terre au Naturel. Haricots Verts. Blancmange. Pâté de Prunes. Fromage. Dessert. Café. "But why have you called the bread sauce _Sauce Anglaise_?" asked Mabel. "I didn't know what to put. _Sauce de pain_ doesn't sound quite right, somehow; and don't you remember some old Frenchman--was it Voltaire?--said the English were a nation of forty religions, and only one sauce? It's always supposed to be bread sauce, so I think _Sauce Anglaise_ is a very good name for it." The kettle by this time had boiled over, which necessitated a careful wiping of the fender and fire-irons. After the washing-up had been successfully accomplished, and the stove stoked, and the damper turned to heat the oven, the girls sallied forth with baskets to the kitchen-garden, to pick fruit and vegetables. Aldred, who was determined to concoct what she imagined to be a really French soup, made a selection of almost every herb she could find--sage, sweet marjoram, thyme, fennel, chervil, sorrel, and parsley, as well as lettuces, leeks, and a few artichokes.