allow yourself to say, "It is of no consequence how I dress, or what we have for dinner to-day, for we are not likely to see any one," all my exhortations will have been thrown away. In the first place, in order always to keep up a good table at a small expense, take care never to be without plenty of _Stock for soup_. The best way of preparing this is to have two or three pounds of lean beef cut into pieces, and put into a stewpan with five quarts of water, a bunch of sweet herbs, two onions sliced, and a little pepper and salt. Let it stew very gradually for two or three hours, without being suffered to boil. When all the goodness is drawn from the meat, the gravy should be strained off clear and kept in an earthen jar for use. When a stock like this has been provided, it is easy to make any kind of soup from it that may be required. For instance, if hare soup be wanted, it is only necessary to cut a hare in pieces, and to let it stew gradually in this gravy till it becomes tender. If a vegetable soup be desired, it is simply adding onions, carrots, and turnips cut into dice, with perhaps a little celery and a few cabbage lettuces cut small: or these vegetables may be cut in slices and fried in butter, and then stewed till tender in the soup, which should have been previously thickened with a little butter worked up with flour. On other occasions, the soup may be varied by adding macaroni, rice, or vermicelli, or, in fact, any thing else usually put into soups; or partridges or giblets may be stewed in it, according to circumstances. The receipt for this excellent stock is taken from Dr. Hunter's _Receipts in Modern Cookery_; and the following is another from the same work, of much richer quality, but which I have also tried and found excellent:--Take beef, mutton, and veal, of each equal parts. Cut the meat into small pieces, and put it into a deep saucepan with a close cover; the beef at the bottom, then the mutton, with a piece of lean bacon, some whole pepper, black and white, a large onion in slices, and a bundle of sweet herbs. Over this put the veal. Cover up close, and put the pan over a slow fire for ten minutes, shaking it now and then. After this pour on as much boiling water as will a little more than cover the meat. Stew gently for the space of eight hours, then put in two anchovies chopped, and season with salt to the taste. Strain off and preserve for use. If properly made, this gravy will become a rich jelly, which will keep good a long time, and a piece of which may be cut out occasionally, when a made dish or a rich soup is wanted in haste.