naval officer,--Lieutenant Swift of Geneva,--who had made a profound
study of all the authorities from Archestratus, a poet in Syracuse, the
most famous cook among the Greeks, down to our own Miss Leslie.
Accordingly she was elected manager of the occasion, and to each one was
assigned the specialty in which she claimed to excel. Those who had no
specialty were assistants to those who had. In this humble
office--"assistant at large"--I labored throughout.

Cooking is a high art. A wise Egyptian said, long ago: "The degree of
taste and skill manifested by a nation in the preparation of food may be
regarded as to a very considerable extent proportioned to its culture
and refinement." In early times men, only, were deemed capable of
handling fire, whether at the altar or the hearthstone. We read in the
Scriptures that Abraham prepared cakes of fine meal and a calf tender
and good, which, with butter and milk, he set before the three angels in
the plains of Mamre. We are told, too, of the chief butler and chief
baker as officers in the household of King Pharaoh. I would like to call
the attention of my readers to the dignity of this profession, which
some young women affect to despise. The fact that angels eat, shows that
we may be called upon in the next sphere to cook even for cherubim and
seraphim. How important, then, to cultivate one's gifts in that
direction!

With such facts before us, we stirred and pounded, whipped and ground,
coaxed the delicate meats from crabs and lobsters and the succulent peas
from the pods, and grated corn and cocoanut with the same cheerfulness
and devotion that we played Mendelssohn's "Songs Without Words" on the
piano, the Spanish Fandango on our guitars, or danced the minuet, polka,
lancers, or Virginia reel.