Then put your small saucepan inside a larger one half filled with boiling water, just to keep the chocolate fluid until all the dates are filled. Take up a little of the mixture in a teaspoon, press open the date, and pour it neatly in. There must be no smears or threads of chocolate if your confectionary is to look dainty. When about a dozen are filled, gently press the sides together, and the chocolate should just show a shiny brown ridge in the middle of the date. Place on a board in a cool place to harden; they may be packed up next day. Almost as nice as chocolate dates are nougat dates. The foundation for the nougat is the same as for American candies: the white of one egg and an equal quantity of cold water to half a pound of sifted icing sugar, all mixed perfectly smoothly together. Then chop equal quantities of blanched walnuts, almonds, Brazils, and hazel nuts together, mix with the sugar in the proportion of two thirds of nut to one of the sugar mixture, and leave until next day in the cellar. By that time the nougat will be firm enough to form into kernels by gently rolling between the hands; if it sticks, your hands are too warm. It is best to do this part of the work in the cellar. Having stoned and first wiped your dates, put in the nougat kernels, gently pressing the sides together; they will harden in a short time, and very pretty they look packed alternately with the chocolate dates in fancy boxes. Tunis dates do not keep good much longer than two months, the grocer tells me; we have never been able to keep them half that time to try! Of course, you can use the commoner dates, which are very good to eat, but hardly so nice to look at as the others, because on account of their more sugary consistency it is impossible to fill them so neatly as the moister Tunis dates. Tafilat dates are somehow too dry and solid to combine well either with nuts or chocolate. HOW WE MANAGED WITHOUT SERVANTS. BY MRS. FRANK W. W. TOPHAM, Author of “The Alibi,” “The Fateful Number,” etc. CHAPTER III. The hot July days brought us such good news from Cannes that our hearts were all light with the hope of soon welcoming our parents back, and Cecilly was especially happy at being promised several more pupils after the summer holidays were over. Mrs. Moore, the old lady to whom I read, had hinted that she might require more of my time in the autumn, so we had every reason to be light-hearted and to forget the hardness of our work with so much to be thankful for. Only poor old Jack looked graver as the days went by, and my heart ached for him with his secret trouble. It was nearly the end of July that one morning Cynthia came tapping at the kitchen door, where I was surrounded with materials for dinner. “Where is Cecilly?” she asked, and on my telling her Cecilly was out, giving music lessons, she told me she had tickets for a concert that afternoon, and she knew how much she would like to go.