She therefore paid a visit to her neighbor, and after a respectable amount of small talk broached her subject. “Rye bread! laws yes—when my family was large we had it, because it don’t cost more than half as much as wheat flour does, and it’s as easy to make as mush. You just make a thick batter of one third white flour, two thirds rye; stir into each quart two tea-spoonfuls of baking-powder—and bake.” This was a new recipe to Molly, and she meant to try it some day; but for the Gibbs family, she was satisfied that a properly yeast-leavened bread would be more wholesome, and she therefore resolved to see what she could do. She had quite a library of cook-books, but rye bread for general use did not seem to be in them. On thinking it over she couldn’t see why rye bread should not be made in the same way as white. Finally she went to work to make it exactly as white bread, making a sponge with a pint of white flour and half a cake of yeast, dissolved in a pint of warm water, a table-spoonful of sugar and two tea-spoonfuls of salt. When this was as full of holes as honeycomb, she put to it two pints of rye flour and used as much warm water as would make all into a _soft_ dough. She kneaded it, but began to understand why it was usually stirred, for it stuck to her hands like bird-lime, and to use flour enough to free them would, she knew, spoil her bread. She worked on, regardless of stickiness, and when it was mixed divided the dough in three, put it in tins to rise, and when each was double the first size, they were baked in a very moderate oven one hour. When they were done Molly saw she had attained the secret of her friend’s bread, for it was sweet, spongy, and with a tender crust. She kept one loaf for her own use and sent the rest to Mrs. Gibbs, with the remains of the liver made into savory collops, as follows: It was chopped fine, and an equal quantity of bread crumbs added, a quarter tea-spoonful of powdered marjoram, half one of thyme and pepper and salt; to these were put a few scraps of cold fried bacon and a little cold ham left from Wednesday morning’s breakfast, both chopped fine. The mince was just moistened with broth (from boiling down lamb bones with an onion), and a table-spoonful of flour stirred with it. Molly then made it into three good-sized balls, put them into a small, deep pan, poured in the rest of the broth, and put them to bake in the hot oven for half an hour.