We never regret the loss of youth and strength so much, or are so near being envious, as when we see young people studying how ingeniously they can arrange a small cottage, and give it the air of beauty and elegance their natures so much crave. They will not find half the pleasure in enjoying it, all perfected, as they would have had in planning and executing; and yet how many throw aside such enjoyment, and turn this pleasant labor into drudgery, not willingly cultivating all the talents God has bestowed upon them, but repining because they cannot afford to employ an upholsterer to furnish what their own skill might have executed perhaps far more satisfactorily. We will follow these suggestions no further, but hope some of our young housekeepers may be led to improve the hints, in a manner that shall make them converts to the ideas advanced. LIII. COOKING BY STEAM. MUCH has been said of the superiority of steamed food over that which is boiled or baked; and year after year the papers or magazines devoted to domestic economy and the improvement and simplification of household labor have advocated this mode of cooking meats, vegetables, and many other articles of food, every few months recommending some new invention. We have tried one experiment after another, finding, to be sure, some imperfection in all; but enough that was practicable to convince us there was much which was desirable in the idea; and, if able to do the work with our own hands, confident we could reap great advantage from it. When the mistress of a family has not strength to do her cooking herself, or that part of it which requires more than ordinary judgment and skill, she is not situated so that new modes of work can be tried with much prospect of success. Most servants, particularly the cooks, when accustomed to one mode of work, are very reluctant to change; and, therefore, if the mistress is not able to make all experiments herself, she will soon find, unless fully prepared to have the autocrat of the kitchen abdicate without “giving notice,” that it is safest, and wisest often, to allow a tolerably good girl to move on in the “even tenor of her ways,” without attempting any changes, except those which she can bring about quietly and imperceptibly. This is no very easy lesson for an old housekeeper to learn; but repeated defeats must teach her that patience, as well as discretion, is a “better part of valor.”