The asparagus should be served as a course by itself. When the tin is sufficiently hot, which it will be a few minutes after the water has boiled, take it out and open it, pour off the liquid, and serve the asparagus on a piece of toast. A little butter sauce should be handed round with it. Butter sauce is best made by simply thickening, say, half a pint of water (not milk) with a little butter and flour mixed together. When the water is sufficiently thick, add some more butter to the hot, thickened water till it becomes rich and oily. As soon as you have handed round the butter sauce with the asparagus, take the tureen down-stairs, and let the cook put back the butter sauce in the saucepan for a minute, and add a tablespoonful of moist sugar, a tablespoonful of rum, and two tablespoonfuls of brandy. By this means we avoid waste, and make the same sauce do twice. If you don’t approve of spirits being used in the kitchen (I don’t approve of it myself), add a little sherry, and rub a few lumps of sugar on the outside of a lemon, and also two drops of essence of almonds. (You can, indeed, leave out the sherry, and still have a good sauce.) The plum pudding will be hot through after the water has boiled for over half an hour. Open the tin, take out the pudding, and serve with a little sauce poured over it, and the rest in a tureen. The jelly should be served in glasses, for the simple reason that there is no time to melt the jelly. Open the bottle, and rake out sufficient jelly with a bent skewer to fill the glasses. The pineapple, whole, in addition to the usual stock of almonds and raisins, figs, biscuits, &c., makes a first-class dessert. It is perhaps needless to add that as a rule all these dishes are not necessary for one dinner; but I wish to show what can be done in order to avoid giving your friends the “cold shoulder.” (_To be continued._) THE SHEPHERD’S FAIRY. A PASTORALE. BY DARLEY DALE, Author of “Fair Katherine,” etc. CHAPTER XI. THE WHITE RAM.