little salt. When nearly done, strain off the water; add three tablespoonfuls of milk, and a little (one ounce) Parmesan or other grated cheese and pepper to taste; stir until it is rather thick. Then dish it up with a little hot tomato sauce in the centre.

Semolina Soup.—Take a pint and a half of liquor from boiled meat, or stock from bones in which vegetables have been boiled. Add two ounces of semolina, and season to taste; if needed, a very small teaspoonful of Liebig extract, or a small piece of glaze can be added.

Spanish Soufflé.—Cut two sponge cakes in slices. Spread apricot or other jam on them. Pile them on a dish, squeeze the juice of a lemon over them. Whip three teaspoonfuls of cream up with the white of one egg to a froth; put it over the cakes; blanch and chop four almonds; put them in the oven to colour, then sprinkle over the whip, and serve.

A DREAM OF QUEEN'S GARDENS.[1]
A STORY FOR GIRLS.—IN TWO PARTS.

By DANIEL DORMER, Author of "Out of the Mists."

PART I.
A PRETTY QUEEN.

"Any letter for me this morning, Brightie?"

Hazel is leaning rather perilously over the banisters, trying to catch a glimpse of the old woman coming slowly up the stairs far below.

"Yes—one. Don't come for it, I'm coming up. And pray, child, don't hang over those rickety rails like that."

Miss Bright, or "Brightie," as Hazel Deane had grown affectionately to call her, is a heavy, strongly-made woman of sixty-three years. She finds the stairs in this house in Union-square, where she and Hazel lodge, rather trying; they are many and steep, so she pauses half-way to recover breath. Looking up she sees Hazel, a white, dark-eyed face, and a form so slender that even those unsafe rails could hardly give way under so slight a weight. "More than ever like one of my Cape jasmine stars," thinks old Brightie. She has always mentally compared the girl to one of those pure, white stars, which she used so specially to love, shining on their invisible stems, amidst the dark green leaf-sprays at her sister's home. Oh, how the poor, lonely old woman's heart had ached for that country home of her younger days, as she sat wearily at her business of plain sewing day after day in her attic in Union-square!

And Hazel, looking down, saw her one friend in the world. A ray of sunlight streamed in through the narrow staircase window on to Miss Bright. It makes the black cap which covers her whole head, with strings flying back over her shoulders, look very rusty. It makes her old alpaca gown, patched and repatched, and the little black silk apron that she wears, look more than ever shiny. It strikes upon the large, old-fashioned white pearl buttons down the front of her bodice, and upon the glasses of her spectacles, till she looks like some strange, black creature staring all over with big, round eyes. To Hazel's affectionate mind, however, there is nothing in the least ludicrous in the sight. She only notes the panting breath, and says, with a touch of impatience in her anxiety—

"Why will you persist in toiling up and down those horrid stairs, instead of sending me, Brightie? It is really very unkind of you."

When Brightie has delivered up Hazel's envelope, with its scrawled direction, she retires into her own room, next door, and shuts herself in. She is filled with an unwonted excitement, for she holds a second letter in her hand, and it is her own. The rarest thing it is for her to have a letter, and the post-mark is "Firdorf," the very same beautiful country place for which she had pined; there she and Janie, her only sister, had lived together, and Janie had died there. The hands, aged with work and deprivation more than with time, shake as they break the seal, the aged eyes grow dim again and again as they read.

It is fully three parts of an hour before Brightie has got through the letter—not that the words are many or hard to understand; but rather that the hindrances are many. The glasses of the large spectacles grow so misty from time to time that they require polishing. Then, too, Miss Bright's mind exhibits foolish tendencies, refusing to grasp the meaning of the words, and causing her to explain that she must be dreaming; and still further she is carried back in mind to days long since vanished, and scenes long unvisited, and these detain her long. But at last she rouses herself—has at length fairly accepted the astonishing good news her letter contains, and, with it open in her hand, hastens off to communicate the same to her young friend.

Hazel's door is locked, and Miss Bright has to wait a moment before it is unfastened. Hazel has been crying, and the tears must have been both plentiful and bitter, for unmistakable traces exist, in spite of hurried efforts to efface them. For once, though, Brightie is thoroughly self-engrossed, and fails to notice even Hazel's face.

"I have such wonderful news, my dear!" she exclaims, the moment she is admitted into the room.

Hazel expresses her interest, and, with her loving smile and tender way, ensconces her friend in the one attempt at an easy chair her room possesses, and then kneels beside her to listen.

"Well, my dear, you have heard me speak of my sister's house at Firdorf?"

"Of course! Often. Where you used to live, and the flowers were so lovely."

"Yes! and where the sweet white jasmine used to blossom, filling the air with its delicious fragrance when we sat in the summer evenings beneath the trellis work, in front of the dear old home."

As she speaks of the jasmine, old Miss Bright's hand is laid caressingly on Hazel's hair, and her eyes—happily not too keen without her glasses, or they would detect the tear marks—rest with softened look, full of tender memories, on the girl's sympathetic, upturned face.

"There were always we three there—I, and my sister and her boy. You have heard how the home was broken up, how Tom ran away, and how we lost our money, and how Janie's spirit broke down under it, till at length she gave up praying for Tom's return, and drooped and died?"

Miss Bright is making a long pause. Her large, rough face is heavy and sorrowful. She has quite forgotten her good news for the moment, has forgotten her friend kneeling beside her, has forgotten all save the memory of the sorrow which seemed to have terminated all of joy the world held for her. Hazel steals a gentle arm round the bowed neck, and kisses the worn, absent face as softly and soothingly as though it were some beautiful child's. The touch recalls the wandering thoughts, Brightie clasps the hand that she is holding in her own more tightly, and goes on:—

"Well, to be sure, and I haven't told you the news after all, dearie! It is that Tom has come back. He has made a great deal of money, and got quite reformed and come back. And he has bought back the old house, and now has just found out my address and wants me to go down and live with him; wants me to forgive him, he says, and let him be a comfort to me. I have, of course, nothing to forgive, except for Janie's sake."

"Oh, Brightie, what good, good news it is! I am so very glad. You will at last have some rest, and not be obliged to try your eyes over that fine sewing, and be taken proper care of, and have all sorts of nice things. I am so glad! How soon can you go, dear?—to-morrow? I should like you to go to-morrow."

Hazel began very bravely, went on unsteadily, and finally ended by laying her head down on Brightie's broad shoulder, fairly sobbing.

"I should like you to go to-morrow! Why, Hazel, Hazel, my tender-hearted