an hour more; stir in the beaten yolks of three eggs and a wine glass
full of sherry. Remove from the fire.

The final point of your breakfast is the coffee, and in Cuban eyes the
affair will be a success or a failure according to the quality of this
supreme nectar. The berry should be the best obtainable; freshly
roasted, or at least the flavor refreshened by heating the grain in the
oven a few minutes before using. Grind and percolate at the last moment.
Serve black and _very strong_, in very small cups.

CHAPTER IV.

SPRING AND AUTUMN BREAKFASTS.

The centerpiece is of moss and ferns with arbutus blossoms peeping out,
with a border of green and white fairy lamps mushroom form. Miniature
flower beds, marked off with tiny white shells are in each of the four
corners of the table. In one lilies of the valley stand upright,
narcissii are in another, white tulips in a third and white lilacs wired
on a tiny bush make the fourth. The name cards have tiny photographs of
a farm with the name of the guests in gilt script. At each place is a
tiny May basket of moss filled with arbutus, spring beauties, and wild
violets, for a souvenir. The ice cream in flower forms is brought in in
a spun sugar nest resting on twigs of pussy willows. The menu is a very
simple one and includes grape fruit, the center cut out and filled with
a lump of sugar soaked in rum, cream of clams, shredded whitefish in
shells with horseradish and cucumbers, filet of beef with mushrooms, new
potatoes, new asparagus, mint ice, squab on toast with shoestring
potatoes, current jelly; salad of cucumbers, pecan nuts and lettuce with
French dressing; ice cream, white cake, and black cake, coffee and cream
de menthe.

APRIL BREAKFAST.

April's lady wears the pussywillow for her flower, and this makes a
delightful springlike motif for decoration. For the breakfast have
round tables or one long table with twig baskets of pussywillows tied
with bows of soft grasses, raffia dyed a silvery grey. The table is set
with the old-fashioned willow pattern china, quaint Sheffield silver and
is unmarked by any of the small dishes of sweets that fill breakfast
tables. The name cards are decorated with sprays of pussywillows in the
upper left corner and miniatures of famous women writers of this and the
past decade taken from magazines: George Eliot, Miss Austen, Miss
Mulock, Jean Ingelow, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Felicia Hemans, Louisa
M. Alcott, Mrs. Humph