We began at the garret, and we are now at the kitchen. So our readers may learn that we are on the home-stretch, and shall be through very soon. If we have wearied them, let them bear with us but a little longer, and then, on our faithful steed, whom they shall find at the kitchen door, they shall ride off and never be troubled with us any more.

A model kitchen is every housekeeper’s delight. In these days of tiles and modern improvement, what pretty things kitchens are!

The modern dairy, with its upright milk-pans, in which the cream is marked off by a neat little thermometer; the fire-brick floor; the exquisite range, with its polished batterie de cuisine; every brilliant brass saucepan, seeming to say, “Come and cook in me”; every porcelain-lined pan urging upon one the necessity of stewing nectarines in white sugar; every bright can suggesting the word “conserve,” which always makes the mouth water; every clatter of the skewers, saying, “Dainty dishes, dainty dishes, come and make me! Come and make me!” All this is quite fascinating to an amateur.

No pretty woman—did she but know it—is ever half so pretty as when she is playing cook. The clean, white apron, the neat, short cambric dress, the little cap, the fair bare arms—does the reader remember Ruth Pinch and the beefsteak-pie? A lady should make the desserts in summer sometimes. Such ice-cream, such glorified Charlotte Russe, such cakes, such delicate apple-pies, such creams and jellies as fall from a lady’s fingers—these are ambrosial food!

There is among certain women a great passion for the cleanly part of household work. The love of a dairy has grown to be a favorite task with many a duchess. In our country, where ladies are compelled to put a hand, perhaps once too often, to the household work, owing to the inefficiency of the servants, this is not ordinarily considered the most thoroughly amusing of Home Amusements. To cook a heavy dinner in warm weather, to wash dishes afterward—this is sober prose, and by a very dull author. But the poetry of house-work, the rose hue o’er our russet cares—this can be classed as a Home Amusement.

In the early morning we can imagine a lady going into her neat kitchen to prepare the desserts for the day, and finding it very agreeable. She will set her well-flavored custard away in the ice-chest with a serene knowledge of how good it will be at dinner, and place her compote of pears securely on a high shelf, away from that ubiquitous visitor the cat, who has in most families so remarkable and irrepressible an appetite. She can take a turn at the milk-pan, and skim off the cream herself if she pleases. It will be much thicker if she does. It is a not unpleasant duty to steal into the kitchen ten minutes before dinner, to see to it that the roast birds are garnished with watercresses, that the vegetables are properly prepared, that the silver dishes are without a smear. All this sort of attention makes good servants, and very good dinners.

It is often one of the Home Amusements for a party of girls to try their hand at clear-starching. Statira, indeed, does not like this; but they should learn to flute their own ruffles. Who knows but they may marry an army officer, and go to Nebraska?

All sorts of fine washing and ironing, all sorts of doing up of lace, of renovating old silks, etc., may be made into Home Amusements, if done cheerfully, and in the right spirit. The modern embroidery requiring pressing, the many modern accomplishments of lace-making, appliquÉ, etc., lead a young lady into the kitchen, and she can derive a vast deal of amusement from this room, if she chooses.

One of the holiest of duties is to learn how to cook for the sick. This requires a great deal of patient talent, and it is a sufficient reward if we can see the beloved convalescent tasting our arrowroot and sago, and good beef-tea and jelly, with approbation.

Among Home Amusements, how many reckon the jolly party assembled to make the wedding-cake? Susan and Sarah shall stone the raisins, Charlotte and Clara shall beat the eggs, Louisa shall slice the citron, Matilda, who has a judicial mind, shall weigh! Then all shall stir, and who shall be the one to get the ring?

The baking is momentous. Mamma had better be consulted here. And then the great question of the icing! Oh! how anxious! The mince-pies require another season of deep thought and much very stringent stirring. The excellent brandy, the dash of orange curaÇoa, must be poured out by the lady, else why is it that ever after the mince-pie seems to lack that inspiriting and hidden fire? We read that there is many a slip between the cup and the lip!

The modern elegant devices by which strawberries, violets, and orange-blossoms are candied in sugar, effect a Home Amusement for dainty-fingered girls; and since the establishment in Boston of a cooking club, at which each young lady is to contribute some article of her own cooking, we see signs of a revival in all branches of the great art of cookery which is most encouraging. It was a notable old maxim among Puritan mothers that every wife should know how to make bread, and, perhaps, it has not died out yet.

Looking at the subject broadly, every thoroughly accomplished woman should know how to do everything, from making a soup up to a cup of tea—the Alpha and the Omega of cookery.

In the matter of flavoring, the colored race have us at a great disadvantage. Any old colored cook can distance her white “Missus” here. This highly-gifted race seem to have a sixth sense on the subject of flavors. The rich tropical nature breaks out in reminiscences of orange-blossoms, pineapple, guava, cocoanut, and Mandarin orange. Never can the descendants of the poor, half-starved, frozen exiles of Plymouth Rock hope to achieve such custards and puddings as these Ethiops turn out. And as to the juicyness of their fried oysters and their inimitable terrapin, who has ever approached them? It is as if a luxurious and tasteful, beneficent power had left us, when we were given what we proudly call a “higher intelligence.” Who would not exchange all the cold mathematical supremacy in which we glory for that luscious gift of making pies and puddings À ravir?