“You’ve made a mistake with the soup, Marta; but everything else looks very nice. That meat is done as well as I could do it. Now, in the first place, you were in too great a hurry. The milk and tomato were only to go together the last thing, but that hasn’t caused the milk to curdle. You cannot have read your recipe over as you made it, and have forgotten the soda?” “No, I put the soda in.” Molly felt she could not be speaking the truth, but when she tasted the soup, found she was. “Well, I don’t understand this. Tell me exactly how you did it.” Marta rehearsed her movements and then it turned out she had put the soda in _last_, _after_ the tomato, and of course it had curdled before that. She explained this, told her to strain the soup, and then went to prepare the table quickly, for Harry would be home in a minute. On the whole, although the soup was a failure, Molly was satisfied with Marta’s first unaided efforts. The lemon pie, in spite of her own admonition to handle the paste very little, she had pressed with her thumb round the edge, to make it _smooth_, no doubt. The consequence was, the paste was nice and short, but bore no resemblance to puff paste, either in appearance or in eating, but Molly had not expected anything better, and reserved comments until the next time, when she would again show her how to use pastry. CHAPTER XIII. PREPARING TO SAVE WORK—BROWN THICKENING—WHITE THICKENING—CARAMEL. MOLLY had resolved to take the first opportunity to prepare two or three articles for her storeroom which would simplify work for Marta, and indeed she herself had felt the lack already of these very articles. Brown thickening saves a great deal of standing over the fire and stirring of butter and flour together, when it is ready, and if thickening of soup or stew is intrusted to inexperienced hands, it often results in something very different from what it should be, while with ready-prepared thickening (_roux_, the French call it) a blunder is less possible. The ironing being out of the way then on Wednesday, she resolved to make that and several other things, or rather to superintend while Marta carried out her orders. “Marta, put half a pound of butter in a small saucepan or bowl to melt, and while it is doing so, weigh and sift half a pound of flour. Skim the butter; now pour it off carefully from the milk that has settled at the bottom into another small thick saucepan, and stir it into the flour. Keep on stirring till it is bright brown. Watch carefully that it doesn’t burn; that is almost dark enough. In saying ‘bright brown’ I mean a rich, pale golden brown, not dark like coffee. Now put it into this little marmalade jar, and when it is cold lay a piece of paper on the top and put it away for use. It will keep for months, and when I tell you to thicken any brown gravy, use this for the purpose instead of fresh butter and flour. The flavor is richer than any hastily made thickening.