It will be said, perhaps, that our notions with regard to female education and employment are too antiquated—that in these matters, as in everything else, a new era has dawned, and the solid course of instruction now given in colleges for ladies will be triumphantly appealed to. Ladies, however, who possess these solid acquirements—who, like Lady Jane Grey, prefer Plato to a picnic—will be least likely to neglect the economy of the kitchen. They will thoroughly understand the dignity of the employment, and call to mind all the poetry of cooking. To say nothing of the dinner which Milton describes Eve as preparing when "on hospitable thoughts intent," there are the Homeric banquets at which kings literally "killed their own meat," and at which queens and princesses turned the spit for the roasting, or drew the water and chopped wood for the boiling. Cooking is classical, and no lady will disdain to take part in it who has read of these feasts in the original Greek. Let it be observed that it is the middle and working classes on whom we wish to urge the importance of the study. A gentleman's daughter can afford to be so ignorant of common things as not to be able to recognize chickens in a poultry-yard, because they do not run about with a liver under one wing and a gizzard under the other, though our modern poultry shows, it must be confessed, will tend much to dissipate this error. A knowledge, however, of the art of cooking is of more importance to the wives of the laboring population than to those of the middle classes, because it is the art, when properly cultivated, of making a little go a great way.—_Mark-lane Express._ A LACE BASQUE. _Furnished from Madame Demorest's Emporium of Fashions, 375 Broadway, New York._ THIS novel and graceful design is adapted for black lace or any other thin material that fancy may dictate, as will be seen by reference to the engraving. It is gathered in a graceful fulness to a band of insertion across the back, and also to a similar band fitting closely to the form at the waist, and falls in a rich double flounce over the person. The corsage is made high in the neck, gathered into a band same as the back. The style of sleeve (which is so clearly illustrated by the artist as not to need any further description) harmonizes most beautifully with the general design. [Illustration: VOIGT _Del_] TRUTH. BY D. HARDY, JR. AS stands the old oak when the tempest is raging, While others less firm are upturned by the blast, So Truth, though with Error a warfare is waging, Is firm and unyielding, triumphant at last. She stands as unmoved as the bold promontory, Tow'ring so proud by the waves of the sea; Her heart-gushing song and her soul-cheering story Should bless and make glad every land that may be