be used when there is company, and I should recommend you to have another service for ordinary use for if the best have to bear the brunt of every day's dinner, it will very soon become chipped at the edges, with here and there a cracked dish and a broken handle. You may easily select a very neat plain service, of which the expence will not be such as to render any breakage very vexatious. The kitchen, too, should be provided with its service of plain white-ware; comprehending, besides a sufficiency of plates, basins, cups, and jugs, a good store of dishes of different sizes, to give the cook the power of removing hot joints of meat, which are brought from the table, from the dish upon which they have been served, before the fat of the gravy has had time to cool and to adhere to the meat. No tidy cook will suffer meat to remain on the dish on which it was served. The kitchen-ware should, also, include some pudding-cups, or moulds of different sizes; pie-dishes, and covered jars for the currants, rice, and sugar, which the cook may, occasionally, receive from the stores. She will require two or three pans for salting meat, tongues, and hams; and a large covered earthen pan or a wicker basket to keep her bread in. The pan is, perhaps, the best, as I believe an insect is apt to breed in the wicker of the basket; which is, also, more likely to allow the bread to become too dry. There are covered jars to be bought which hold about twelve pounds of any commodity. These may be obtained with the names of various articles printed on them, such as rice, sugar, sago, &c.

MRS. L. Do you know any good method of cleaning glass when it looks dull, or when it is discoloured by having had wine in it for some time? I have a great desire to have the glass look as brilliant and clear as possible. There is, in this respect, a great difference in various houses, which, I suppose, must arise from a little negligence in the master or the mistress, and a great deal on the part of the

servants.

MRS. B. Decanters, in which the wine has stood some time, may be cleaned by putting a few drops of muriatic acid into them, and afterwards washing them well with cold water. Muriatic acid, put into the water in which the glass is washed, removes any discolouration from wine, and certainly improves the polish of the glass. Egg-shells pounded small, and put with some water into decanters, will have the same effect. Much of the brilliancy of glass depends on drying it with great care, immediately after it is washed; and rubbing it for some time after it is dry. You must remember in purchasing glass-cloths to buy them tolerably fine, because, from fine linen, there is but little lint; when these cloths give much lint to the glass, it occasions great trouble to the servant to remove it entirely. A brush is necessary for polishing cutglass after it has been wiped dry. There are brushes made soft, on purpose for glass. Glass, you know, is washed in cold water, and china in as hot as can be used. Some people think it better to wash glass in water just warmed, but I do not think it looks so clear afterwards as it does when washed in cold water; besides, servants are some

times hasty in their proceedings, and I have seen them plunge glass into hot instead of warm water, by the effect of which there has been an instant loss of one or more articles. In frosty weather, glasses are very liable to crack, if hot water be put suddenly into them. This circumstance is owing to the sudden expansion of the inside of the glass, while the outside remains contracted; for as glass is a very bad conductor of heat, the heat does not permeate the side of the vessel sufficiently quick to expand it equally throughout. Glass lamps and lustres should be washed in cold water with soap, put on with a sponge or a piece of flannel.

MRS. L. Is it of much use to cement glass and china when broken?

MRS. B. I do not think glass can be cemented well. The broken parts may sometimes be rivetted together by very small brass tacks, but they spoil the appearance of the thing they repair. China not being transparent, may be cemented better than glass, though I do not think it is ever very serviceable after it has undergone the process. It may be rivetted as well as glass; but neither cementing nor rivetting will render any article thus repaired, capable of again holding a liquid with safety. For old china which is kept merely for ornament, cementing answers very well. I have made a very good cement by mixing together equal parts of glue, white of egg, and white lead. The juice of the garlic is another strong cement, and leaves no mark where it has been used. A very good cement is made by boiling the curd of skim-milk with lime.

There is also another excellent cement (but it is

rather troublesome to prepare), which is made by steeping two ounces of glue for some hours in distilled vinegar, and afterwards boiling them together. Then pound to a soft pulp a clove of garlic, and half an ounce of ox-gall, the juice of which must be strained through a linen cloth, and added to the vinegar and glue; then a drachm of gum sandarach, powdered; a drachm of turpentine, half a drachm of sarcocol, and of mastic powder, with an ounce of highly rectified spirits of wine, must be put together in a bottle, which must be stopped, and put into a place in which the enclosed mixture can be gently heated. Here it must remain for three hours, and during that time must be frequently shaken. This mixture must be poured upon the solution of glue while hot, and both must be stirred together with a stick. Part of the moisture must be evaporated by the fire, when it will be fit for use. This cement must be wet with vinegar, and melted over the fire before it is used. When glass is to be cemented, some powdered glass should be mixed with it.

I am afraid, you have found our conversation tedious, from the many details it has embraced. Let us endeavour to shake off some of its effects by a walk, before the sun takes its departure.

234

CONVERSATION V.

SUPPLY OF PROVISIONS. MARKETING, PERSON

ALLY, - BY SERVANTS.

WITH TRADESMEN.

BOOKS TO BE KEPT PROVISIONS WHICH ARE

NOT OF A PERISHABLE NATURE ARE MOST ADVANTAGEOUSLY PURCHASED IN LARGE QUANTITIES.-STORES,-DISTRIBUTION,- PERSONALLY,

OR UNDER A HOUSEKEEPER.

CONFECTIONARY.

COMPARATIVE AD

VANTAGE OF MAKING THESE AT HOME

PRESERVES.

PURCHASING THEM.

WINE-CELLAR.

AND

FRUIT

MRS. L. To supply a family advantageously with provisions is another important point of good management, upon which I request your advice.

MRS. B. The first law, in this branch of economy, is to purchase every article at the best market, and of the best quality. Although the cost of inferior things may tempt you to buy them, you will find, as they are consumed, so much waste, in consequence of their inferiority, that the price is soon equalised with articles of a superior kind. However economically it may be expedient for any family to live, it will still be found that the best provisions are the cheapest; and this is particularly the case with butchers' meat, the coarse joints being,