_Short-Cake._—One quart of flour, one teaspoonful of salt and two of baking powder sifted with the flour, one cup of butter, or half lard and half butter, one large cup of hot milk. Rub the butter into the flour; add the milk and roll out the dough, cutting in small square cakes and baking to a light brown. For a strawberry or peach short-cake have three tin pie-plates buttered; roll the dough to fit them, and bake quickly. Fill either, when done, with a cup of sugar, or with peaches cut fine and sugared, and served hot. PIES—APPLE, PEACH, AND BERRY.—In the first place, don’t make them except very semi-occasionally. Pastry, even when good, is so indigestible that children should never have it, and their elders but seldom. A nice short-cake, filled with stewed fruit, or with fresh berries, mashed and sweetened, is quite as agreeable to eat and far more wholesome. But, as people will both make and eat pie-crust, the best rules known are given. Butter, being more wholesome than lard, should always be used if it can be afforded. A mixture of lard and butter is next best. For a plain pie-crust, take: One quart of flour, one even teacup of lard and one of butter, one teacup of ice water or very cold water, and a teaspoonful of salt. Rub the lard and salt into the flour till it is dry and crumbly, add the ice water and work to a smooth dough. Wash the butter and have it cold and firm as possible, divide it in three parts. Roll out the paste and dot it all over with bits from one part of the butter, sprinkle with flour and roll up. Roll out and repeat until the butter is gone. If the crust can now stand on the ice for half an hour it will be nicer and more flaky. This amount will make three good-sized pies. Enough for the bottom crusts can be taken off after one rolling in of butter, thus making the top crust richer. Lard alone will make a tender, but not a flaky, paste.