"There are any number of good things to make these soups of, principally beans,--black, white, red, and Lima beans, all dried. You must soak them, cook them slowly in another water, season well with a slice of onion, salt, and pepper, and put them, when they are soft and pulpy, through the sieve. What is called a purée sieve is the best, because it is made in such a way that it presses the vegetables through itself. Then you must thicken the soup with a little bit of butter melted and rubbed with flour; this is not because it is not thickened with the vegetables already, but because the water will separate from the rest if no extra thickening is used. You can have the soup rather thin to make it just right after it is thickened. "Black bean soup is the best kind; this really needs a bone of some sort cooked with it, a ham bone if you have it. Then it takes lots of seasoning, a pinch of mustard, a thin slice or two of lemon, and last a little chopped hard-boiled egg on top at serving; but it pays for the slight trouble of making it because it is so good; have it often in winter. White bean soups also need a good deal of seasoning, and a bone is good in them, but not really necessary. Left-over baked beans make a good brown soup, and dried Lima beans are excellent; alternate these, and make each one by rule, for each has some little touch of seasoning which makes it have a taste of its own. Any cook-book will tell you how, because all of them are so simple to put together. Besides these there is one more thick soup, split pea purée, which you must have too. You can buy the peas in packages, but you can also get them in bulk, and that is the cheaper way. You soak and cook them exactly as you do the beans, and serve them with croutons on top; croutons are tiny squares of bread browned in the oven,--not fried in fat, as some people make them; those are very greasy. "You can also make purées of any fresh vegetable, carrots, or garden peas, or a mixture of several kinds of vegetables; cook them with onion and salt and pepper and bits of celery or parsley, and put them through the sieve and thicken them. All of them are improved by adding a little milk, but they will do as they are if you have none to spare." "Do you put a bone in purées?" "If I happen to have one I do, but not otherwise; I never buy a bone for such a soup. Remember that these thick soups go with the dinners with the light meat course, because they are so substantial. Now we will go on to the next kind.