"It appeared in the _Tribune_, but I didn't see it," said Puddy, "but I can give you some little bits, here and there, that I jotted down as George Daly read them. Now listen." "Order," said the president. "'First catch your fish,'" Puddy read impressively, looking around for approval. "First go a-fishing, I should say," said Hilda. "'Don't hang up your fish on a hook in the housekeeper's department and think your work is done.'" "That's Hugh Millett," murmured the president. "I don't think he's been home since he returned from his wedding trip." "'Start with a clear fire, not too hot. Don't pile on all the wood and coal at once, for if the fire burns down before your fish is done it will be quite spoiled.'" "Well, Mrs. Munsey is a spoiled fish, then," said Hilda. "Don't you remember, Prue, how Will Munsey heaped on the lovering at first? It was four inches deep--lovey this and dovey that till it fairly cloyed one. But the fire went out long ago. There's no spark or sparking on that hearth now." "'Don't think, after the cooking is well under way, that you can leave it to take care of itself.' I had something more," said Puddy, fumbling in her reticule for another bit of paper. "Oh, here it is: 'Don't stuff your fish with dried crusts composed of the way your mother used to do this.' And here's another: 'Some husbands, after making it so hot in private that their poor wives are nearly reduced to a cinder, serve them up in public with a cold shoulder. Others toss them carelessly into a kettle to simmer from morning till night over the nursery fire.'" "I'm going," said Nannie abruptly, and without further ceremony she departed, just as Evelyn Rogers came in again. "Nannie Branscome is a perfect----" Hilda began. "Sh-h!" said the president. "Well, I trust she'll settle in a heavily wooded country, for the cooking she'll require before she's palatable would break a millionaire if fuel was dear." "Oh! she'll do well enough when she has her growth," said Prudence in her dry way. Nannie's growth was a subject of jest among her mates. At sixteen she suddenly thrust her foot forward into womanhood with saucy bravado, as it seemed. At seventeen she snatched it back--pettishly, some said, but there were those who looked deeper, and they discerned a certain vague terror in the movement--a dread of the unknown. Since that time--almost a year now--Nannie had been hovering on the border line, something like a ghost that has ceased to be an inhabitant of this world and yet refuses to be well laid. "Now listen to this, girls," said Puddy, who was intent on reading her excerpts to the bitter end. "'If a wife is allowed to boil at all, _she always boils over_.'" "It would require a high temperature to boil you, Hilda," said Prudence with a laugh, for Hilda's good-nature had passed into proverb. The girl looked down from her five feet nine inches of height with her easy, comfortable smile. "Why? Because of my altitude?" she asked.