“Now, Molly, as it is impossible to tell how strong or weak dried herbs are, and mock-turtle is a highly flavored soup, I am going to adopt the plan of making essence of the herbs and use just enough.” So saying, she put into a little saucepan two tea-spoonfuls of chopped parsley, three quarters of one of marjoram, three quarters of one of savory and the same of lemon thyme, and a bay leaf and a half. “Now I’ll put these to boil, closely covered, in half a pint of water for twenty minutes, then squeeze out as much of the goodness as I can, and add this herb juice to the soup, little by little, till we get the right flavor.” As the soup was more than sufficient to serve for two dinners, it was decided to flavor it all, then divide it, and have one half thick mock-turtle, the other clear. The thick was for Sunday’s dinner, as Mr. Welles, who was coming to dinner, was particularly fond of it. While the soup was boiling down Mrs. Welles prepared egg balls to serve with it, Molly made some rough puff paste (see Chapter VI.) for pigeon pie, and when that was done Marta was ready to make noodles. The egg balls were made as follows: Two eggs boiled hard, the yolks pounded with a half tea-spoonful of finely chopped parsley, half a salt-spoonful of salt, a scant quarter one of _white_ pepper, made into stiff paste with raw yolk of egg, and moulded into balls, size of marbles. Each ball was rolled in white of egg beaten a little; when well coated they were dipped in flour and dropped into boiling water for two minutes. These were part to be served in the thick soup next day, the rest left for the clear mock-turtle. Marta used one egg for the noodles, a pinch of salt, and flour enough to make part of it into a smooth paste about as large as a small egg; this she worked smooth and laid aside; to the rest she added more flour, and did _not work into a smooth paste_, but into a rough, crumbly sort of ball; this, she explained, was for the quickest made and most generally used noodles, in the part of Germany she came from. She took a coarse grater and grated the rough ball into coarse crumbs that looked like yellow tapioca; these could be dried carefully in a very cool oven, and used whenever wanted. Then she took the smooth ball she had made, and asked Molly whether she would like her to make the ribbon noodles as before (see recipe, Chapter XXV.), or another sort. “Oh, another, by all means!” She then grated on the smooth ball of paste just a suspicion of nutmeg, put the least bit of butter on her hand,—a bit as large as a small hazel nut,—and rolled the ball and worked it over till the nutmeg and butter were in it; then she cut the paste into pieces as large as a hazel nut, made each into olive shapes, and they were finished. “Thank you, Marta, we will have those in our soup to-night. I think I remember eating them in Germany.”