t was with us, Mammy made jelly and marmalade from the
same quinces. They were well washed, peeled, quartered and the cores
removed, then the quarters boiled until soft in water to half-cover
them, skimmed out, mashed smooth with their own weight of sugar, and
spices to taste, then cooked very slowly until the spoon stood upright
in the mass, after which it went into glass jars, and had a brandy
paper laid duly on top.

Cores and paring were boiled to rags in water to fully cover them, then
strained out, the water strained again, and added to that in which the
fruit had boiled. Sugar was added--a pound to the pint of juice. But
first the juice was brought to a boil, and skimmed very clean. The
sugar, heated without scorching, went in, and cooking continued until
the drop on the tip of the spoon jellied as it fell. Mammy hated jelly
that ran--it must cut like butter to reach her standard. Occasionally
she flavored it with ginger--boiling the bruised root with the
cores--but only occasionally, as ginger would make the jelly darker.
Occasionally also she cooked apples, usually fall pippins, with the
quinces, thus increasing the bulk of both jelly and marmalade, with
hardly a sensible diminution of flavor.

All here written applies equally to every sort of fruit jelly--apple,
peach, currant, the whole family of berries. Mammy never knew it, but I
myself have found the oven at half-heat a very present help in
jelly-making. Fruit well prepared, and put into a stone or agate vessel,
covered and baked gently for a time proportionate to its bulk, yields
all its juice, and it seems to me clearer juice, than when stewed in the
time-honored brass kettle. Hot sugar helps to jellying quickly--and the
more haste there, the lighter and brighter the result. Gelatin in fruit
jellies I never use--it increases the product sensibly, but that is more
than offset by the decrease in quality.

[Illustration: _Upon Occasions_]

It was no trouble at all to make occasions. Indeed, the greatest of
them, weddings, really made themselves. A wedding made imperative an
infare--that is to say, if the high contracting parties had parental
approval. Maybe I had better explain that infare meant the bride's going
home--to her new house, or at least her new family. This
etymologically--the root is the Saxon _faran_, to go, whence come
wayfaring, faring forth and so on. All this I am setting forth not in
pedantry, but because so many folk had star