The difference in the results of their various trials can only be attributed to the method and accuracy, or to the haste and carelessness, with which their labor is performed. Unless there was some fault in the materials, some difference in the quality, arising from change between the successive trials, or the oven and fire were not properly regulated, there can be no reason for the failure, except the fact that the receipts and rules were not always strictly followed. “But,” say they, “we used to see our mothers throw the materials together, apparently without thought, and we have often seen others set about the work of making cake, pies, or bread with such an easy, nonchalant air that, to our inexperienced eyes, it was perfectly marvelous that any good results could possibly follow; yet the article would come from the oven in all respects perfect. Time after time we have seen this done, and the work always blessed with a satisfactory termination; but if we attempt that mode of labor, the most disastrous and mortifying consequences are sure to rise up against us. Why is this?” Simply because you are attempting to walk before you have learned to creep, and naturally get some sore falls by the premature attempt. It is only when accustomed to this labor by long years of constant practice, so that it is done almost by instinct, that any one should venture to deviate from strict observance of well-established rules. But there are very few, comparatively, of the most accomplished and mature housekeepers who attempt this free-and-easy way of cooking; or if, in some emergency requiring haste, they are driven to it, they will assure you that they seldom succeed so perfectly as they would have done had they weighed and measured with their usual care and precision. Occasionally we find a few natural-born cooks, with “a law unto themselves,” just as we find persons who have a natural gift for dress-making and millinery, whose work, performed instinctively, equals any French _modiste’s_. But such cases are rare, and, we are inclined to think, undesirable, except for one’s own ease. Where there are young girls about, either in the family or among friends, who may be obliged to look to you for instruction, you would find it very difficult and embarrassing, had you that gift, to attempt to teach or put into words anything which you are able to do so entirely by intuition. Even in your own mind, you would find yourself at a loss how to frame a definite rule or receipt for doing it. Your _hands_ seem to perform it independently of your _head_. Let some of these gifted ones attempt to write out a receipt which a beginner could easily follow, and they would make much more awkward work of it than you do in your efforts to work without a definite rule. “But even when we do proceed in exact accordance with the receipts, we often fail.”