only strings. Now put on the soup to boil again, and as soon as it boils
throw in the peas; as soon as these are tender--about twenty minutes--the
soup is finished and can be sent to table. If the soup is thin, a little
white roux can be added to thicken it; if of a bad colour, or if you could
not get any spinach, add some spinach extract (vegetable colouring, sold by
all grocers), only take care not to add too much, and make the soup look
like green paint.

POTATO SOUP.--Potato soup is a very good method of using up the remains of
cold boiled potatoes. Slice up a large onion and fry it, without letting
it turn colour, with a little butter. Add a little water or stock to the
frying-pan, and let the onion boil till it is tender. Boil a quart or more
of milk separately with a couple of bay-leaves; rub the onion with the cold
potatoes through a wire sieve and add it to the milk. You can moisten the
potatoes in the sieve with the milk. When you have rubbed enough to make
the soup thick enough, let it boil up and add to every quart a saltspoonful
of thyme and a brimming teaspoonful of chopped blanched parsley. This soup
should be rather thicker than most thick soups.

When new potatoes first come into season, and especially when you have new
potatoes from your own garden, it will often be found that mixed with the
ordinary ones there are many potatoes no bigger than a toy marble, and
which are too small to be boiled and sent to table as an ordinary dish of
new potatoes. Reserve all these little dwarf potatoes, wash them, and
throw them for five or ten minutes into boiling water, drain them off and
throw them into the potato soup whole. Of course they must boil in the
soup till they are tender. A little cream is a great improvement to the
soup, and dried mint can be served with it, but is not absolutely
necessary.