"MY DEAR MADGE,--I shall be only too pleased if I can help you, but you must not overrate my powers, as I think you are inclined to do. To begin with, I have had opportunities of learning housekeeping such as few have. You see, we all have to help at home, and mother is such a good manager; it would be odd if I had not picked up some of her household knowledge. You ask if I am afraid of my servant. If you could see her, I think your own question would amuse you. She is only fourteen, and she knew absolutely nothing when she came to us; by dint of great exertions, I am gradually teaching her to dish up our dinners and to wait at table. She can also turn out a room (with assistance) and wash up, but as she has learnt this under me, it would be odd if I felt afraid of her. If I had a real cook and housemaid like you, I might perhaps tremble in my shoes, but really I think there is no need. I am glad you find the stewing jar useful. If your cook cannot even roast a small joint of meat without spoiling it, she has nothing to be very conceited about. "The rule you quote from your cookery book is quite correct for large joints, but it does not do for small ones. If you put a big joint into a hot oven, it crisps the outside nicely, but a small joint put into the same temperature will soon become hard right through. Put small joints in a gentle oven and cook them slowly, basting often. Shortly before you serve it, let the oven get hot or else finish it before the fire, so that it may brown. Of course, the oven must not be too slow or the meat will not cook at all. This point you will gradually learn, and so will your new cook if she is intelligent. I am glad you allude to her as a 'girl.' A young person is, as a rule, more teachable, although an older person will probably know more. As Dr. Johnson remarked of Scotchmen, 'Much may be done with them if you catch them young.' When you engage your new cook, just say that you are in the habit of cooking occasionally--mention it as a matter of course. Do not start by being afraid of her. It is really most absurd. "With regard to the pastry. You do not seem to have made it quite rightly, as it should not stick to the board. You made it too wet, and your oven cannot have been hot enough if the dripping ran out. Pastry should go into a hot oven, then the starch grains in the flour burst and enclose the particles of dripping; but if the oven is not hot enough, the reverse happens; that is to say, the dripping melts and encloses the starch grains so that they cannot burst. Try again.