The half-hour before dinner has always been considered as the great ordeal through which the mistress, in giving a dinner-party, will either pass with flying colours, or lose many of her laurels.

Dining is the privilege of civilization. . . . The nation which knows how to dine has learnt the leading lesson of progress.

Spring is the usual period for house-cleaning and removing the dust and dirt which, notwithstanding all precautions, will accumulate during the winter months from dust, smoke, gas, etc.

It is to be regretted that domestication has seriously deteriorated the moral character of the duck. In a wild state, he is a faithful husband.....but no sooner is he domesticated than he becomes polygamous, and makes nothing of owning ten or a dozen wives at a time.

Dine we must and we may as well dine elegantly as well as wholesomely.

What moved me, in the first instance, to attempt a work like this, was the discomfort and suffering which I had seen brought upon men and women by household mismanagement. I have always thought that there is no more fruitful source of family discontent than a housewife's badly-cooked dinners and untidy ways.

The kitchen is the great laboratory of the household, and much of the 'weal and woe' as far as regards bodily health, depends on the nature of the preparations concocted within its walls.