First be sure your coffee-pot is shining clean; look in the spout and in all the cracks, and wipe them out carefully, for you cannot make good coffee except in a perfectly clean pot. Then get three heaped tablespoonfuls of ground coffee, and mix in one tablespoonful of cold water. Pour in one quart of boiling water, and let it boil up once. Then stir down the grounds which come to the top, put in two tablespoonfuls of cold water, and let it stand for a minute on the back of the stove, and then strain it into the silver pot for the table. This pot must be made very hot, by filling it with boiling water and letting it stand on the kitchen table while the coffee is boiling. If this recipe makes the coffee stronger than the family like it, take less coffee, and if it is not strong enough, take more coffee. FRENCH COFFEE Get one of the pots which are made so that the coffee will drip through; put three tablespoonfuls of very finely powdered coffee in this, and pour in a quart of boiling water. When it has all dripped through, it is ready to put in the hot silver pot. PART II _LUNCHEON OR SUPPER DISHES_ So many things in this part of Margaret’s book called for white sauce, or cream sauce, that the recipe for that came first of all. WHITE OR CREAM SAUCE 1 tablespoonful of butter. 1 tablespoonful of flour. 1 cup hot milk or cream. ⅓ teaspoonful of salt. Melt the butter, and when it bubbles put in the flour, shaking the saucepan as you do so, and rub till smooth. Put in the hot milk, a little at a time, and stir and cook without boiling till all is smooth and free from lumps. Add the salt, and, if you choose, a little pepper. Cream sauce is made exactly as is white sauce, but cream is used in place of milk. What is called thick white sauce is made by taking two tablespoonfuls of butter and two of flour, and only one cup of milk. CREAMED OYSTERS 1 pint of oysters. 1 large cup of cream sauce. Make the sauce of cream if you have it, and if not use a very heaping tablespoonful of butter in the white sauce. Keep this hot. Drain off the oyster juice and wash the oysters by holding them under the cold-water tap. Strain the juice and put the oysters back in it, and put them on the fire and let them just simmer till the edges of the oysters curl; then drain them from the juice again and drop them in the sauce, and add a little more salt (celery-salt is nice to use if you have it), and just a tiny bit of cayenne pepper. You can serve the oysters on squares of buttered toast, or put them in a large dish, with sifted bread-crumbs over the top and tiny bits of butter, and brown in the oven. Or you can put them in small dishes as they are, and put a sprig of parsley in each dish. PANNED OYSTERS