st
have my dinner. Bless you! a man can't live without his dinner. What is
he to do? It is the sort of thing you can look forward to, whatever
happens. If it's a wet day, or anything of that sort, there's always
dinner; and after it's over, if there's music or a rubber, why that's
all very well; or if a man feels a bit sleepy, it doesn't matter. Why,
dinner's your stand-by, wherever you are. I'd as soon do without my
head, for my part."

Ursula hastened to tell her father this with dismay in her looks.

"I've always heard that late dinners were so expensive; you require
twice as many dishes. At two, one has only what is necessary; but at
seven, you require to have fish, and soup, and _entrees_, and all sorts
of things, besides the joint. It was disgraceful of him to say it!"
cried Ursula; "and I think he ought to be made to follow our plan,
whatever it is, and not do everything he likes here."

"That is all very true," said Mr. May; "but he is right about the
dinner; it is a great deal more agreeable."

"And expensive, papa."

"Well, perhaps it is a great deal to expect at your age; but if you read
your cookery-book, as I have often said, when you were reading those
novels, and learned how to toss up little dishes out of nothing, and
make _entrees_, and so forth, at next to no expense--"

The tears came into Ursula's eyes at this unjust assault.

"Papa," she said, "you ought to know better at your age. One forgives
the boys for saying such silly things. How can I toss up little dishes
out of nothing? If you only knew the price of butter, not to talk of
anything else. Made dishes are the most expensive things! A leg of
mutton, for instance; there it is, and when one weighs it, one knows
what it costs; but there is not one of those _entrees_ but costs
_shillings_ for herbs and truffles and gravy and forcemeat, and a glass
of white wine here, and a half pint of claret there. It is all very well
to talk of dishes made out of nothing. The meat may not be very
much--and men never think of the other things, I suppose."

"It is management that is wanted," said Mr. May, "to throw nothing away,
to make use of everything, to employ all your scraps. If you once have a
good sauce--which is as easy as daylight when you take the trouble--you
can make all sorts of things out of a cold joint; but women never will
take the trouble, and that is the secret of poor dinners. Not one in
fifty will do it. If you wanted really to help