er attack just as well without thee as with
thee. I particularly wish that thee would go. How is thee to have the
fair unless thee has the candy pull? The time is passing, too. It will
soon be school and lessons again."

So, at grandmamma's urging, I went for Miss Muffet. The little woman
came without much delay, and took hold, as she expressed it, looking
after both our invalids; and in the meantime telling me how to broil a
steak for my grandmamma's and our own dinner, and how to fry potatoes so
that they should not be soaked with grease.

A girl I know gained a set of Dickens' works by broiling a steak so as
to please her father, who was a fastidious gentleman, and said he
wanted it neither overdone nor underdone, but just right.

For broiling you need a thick steak, a clear fire, and a clean gridiron.
Never try to broil meat over a blaze. You must have a bed of coals, with
a steady heat. The steak must not be salted until you have turned each
side to the fire; and it must be turned a good many times and cooked
evenly. It will take from five to seven minutes to broil it properly,
and it will then have all the juices in, and be fit for a king.

I don't know that kings have any better food than other gentlemen, but
one always supposes that they will have the very best.

A steak may be cooked very appetizingly in the frying pan; but the pan
must be very hot, and have no grease in it. Enough of that will ooze
from the fat of the steak to keep it from sticking fast. A good steak
cooked in a cold frying-pan and simmering in grease is an abomination.
So declares Miss Muffet, and all epicures with her.

To fry potatoes or croquettes or any other thing well, one must have
plenty of lard or butter or beef drippings, as she prefers, and let it
boil. It should bubble up in the saucepan, and there should be enough of
it to cover the wire basket in which the delicately sliced potatoes are
laid--a few at time--to cook. They will not absorb fat, because the
heat, when the first touch of it is given, will form a tight skin over
them, and the grease cannot pierce this. They will be daintily brown,
firm and dry.

But this isn't telling of our candy pull.

We had set our hearts on having fun and doing good--killing two birds
with one stone, as Al Fay said. But I do not approve of that proverb,
for certainly no _girl_ ever wishes to kill a bird; no more does a
decent boy think of such a thing.

We resolved to have a fair and to