Molly intended asking her friend, Mrs. Welles, to come and stay a week with her soon, and as that would entail a little extra expense, she meant to economize somewhat for a week or two; therefore she omitted some little items from her bill of fare, and substituted others that would be cheaper. This interfered very slightly with her plan of letting Marta do alone nearly all that she herself had done the last week. The girl would be able to make croquettes with one meat as easily as another, and although for the sake of practice she meant to repeat the dishes, she did not care to have them in the same order. The bisque of oysters she would have in place of clams for the sake of variety and of showing Marta that the principle was the same in both, and that another time she might substitute lobster instead of either, and yet the process would not change. Another thing she had in mind was that as the breast of lamb she had for Thursday would be a rather slim dinner, the oyster patties, of which Harry was extravagantly fond, would make up. Soon after one o’clock Marta came to say that the rolls had risen, been worked down, and were now light enough, she thought, to _push_ down. When she went into the kitchen she found the dough just about as light as bread should be. “No, Marta, this is not light enough. Rolls should rise a great deal lighter than bread. They will need to rise another half hour—but as I see the oysters are here, I will use some of them for patties for to-morrow’s dinner.” Molly took a third of the pint of oysters, and then half a gill of the liquid, and scalded both for a minute; then, taking out the oysters, added an equal quantity of milk to the liquor, and in another small saucepan put two tea-spoonfuls of butter, the same of flour; and, stirring them together till they bubbled, she poured milk and oyster liquid to them, stirring till they were quite smooth. She seasoned this sauce and then dropped the oysters, each one cut in four, into it. She did not mean to use them to-day, but the oysters kept raw would not be good; cooked in this way they would be as good as when fresh. The rolls being now light Molly stuck her fingers two or three times downward into the light mass, and it sank under them. “This is what you are to do, Marta, when I tell you to ‘push the rolls down;’ do this twice or three times after they have been _twice_ thoroughly worked over—take notice, only lightly stick your fingers in, to let out air; don’t knead them at all, nor try to make them smooth; leave them just so; they come up again very rapidly after the first time, and this is the secret of having rolls of a close, exceedingly light texture, that will have no doughy inside.”