chief positive idea they have of its characteristics is that which
they gather from the odour of a French or Italian crowd of peasants
at a railway station. The effect of garlic, eaten in lumps as an
accompaniment to bread and cheese, is naturally awful, but garlic
used as it should be used is the soul, the divine essence, of
cookery. The palate delights in it without being able to identify
it, and the surest proof of its charm is manifested by the flatness
and insipidity which will infallibly characterise any dish usually
flavoured with it, if by chance this dish should be prepared
without it. The cook who can employ it successfully will be found
to possess the delicacy of perception, the accuracy of judgment,
and the dexterity of hand, which go to the formation of a great
artist. It is a primary maxim, and one which cannot be repeated
too often, that garlic must never be cut up and used as part of the
material of any dish. One small incision should be made in the
clove, which should be put into the dish during the process of
cooking, and allowed to remain there until the cook's palate gives
warning that flavour enough has been extracted. Then it must be
taken out at once. This rule does not apply in equal degree to the
use of the onion, the large mild varieties of which may be cooked
and eaten in many excellent bourgeois dishes; but in all fine
cooking, where the onion flavour is wanted, the same treatment
which I have prescribed for garlic must be followed."

The Marchesa gave the Colonel and Lady Considine a holiday that
afternoon, and requested Mrs. Gradinger and Van der Roet to attend
in the kitchen to help with the dinner. In the first few days of
the session the main portion of the work naturally fell upon the
Marchesa and Angelina, and in spite of the inroads made upon their
time by the necessary directions to the neophytes, and of the