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                   _"If a wife is allowed to boil at
                   all she will always boil over."_


                            The Gentle Art
                                 _of_
                             Cooking Wives


                    By ELIZABETH STRONG WORTHINGTON

                          Author _of_ "How to
                         Cook Husbands," etc.


                Published at 150 Fifth Avenue, New York
                    by the Dodge Publishing Company


                   [The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives]

                         COPYRIGHT IN THE YEAR
                          NINETEEN HUNDRED BY
                          DODGE PUBLISHING CO.


                      [Illustration: "CONSTANCE"]




                                   I


"Girls, come to order!" shouted Hilda Bretherton in a somewhat
disorderly tone.

"How can we come to order without a president?" queried a
rosy-cheeked, roly-poly damsel answering to the name of Puddy Kennett.

"I elect Prue Shaftsbury!" screamed Hilda above the merry din of
voices.

"You can't elect--you simply nominate," said Prue.

"I second the motion," said Nannie Branscome, and her remark was
instantly followed by a storm of "ayes" before they were called for,
and the president was declared elected and proceeded to take her seat.

"Young ladies," said she, "we are met to consider a scandalous----"

"Scurrilous," suggested Hilda.

"----alarming article," continued the president, "entitled 'How to
Cook Wives.'"

"Here! here!" interrupted Hilda again, "we can't do anything until
we've elected officers and appointed committees."

"Out of a club of four members?" queried Prudence.

"Certainly. Mother said that yesterday at her club, out of eight women
they elected twelve officers and appointed seven committees of three
each. Why, you know two men can't meet on a street corner without
immediately forming a secret society, electing president,
vice-president, secretary, and treasurer, and appointing a committee
of five to get up a banquet."

"But to return to the subject," persisted the president--a long-faced
girl with a solemn countenance, but a suspicious gleam in her eye.
"'How to Cook Wives'--that is the question before the house."

"'How to Cook Wives!' Well, if that isn't rich! It makes me think of
the old English nursery song--'Come, ducky, come and be killed.' Now
it will be, 'Come, ducky, come and be cooked.' I move that Congress be
urged to enact a law adopting that phrase as the only legal form of
proposal. Then if any little goose accepts she knows what to expect,
and is not caught up and fried without foreknowledge."

"Young ladies," said the president.

"Don't mow me down in my prime," urged Hilda in an injured tone. "I'm
making my maiden speech in the house."

"Oh, girls, look, quick!" cried Puddy. "See Miss Leigh. Isn't that a
fetching gown she has on?"

The entire club rushed to the window.

"Who's she with?" asked Hilda. "He's rather fetching, too."

"I believe his name is Chance," said Puddy Kennett. "He's not a
society fellow."

"Oh, he's the chum of that lovely man," said Hilda.

"Which lovely man?" asked Prue. "There are so many of them."

"Why--oh, you know his name. I can't think of it--Loveland--Steve
Loveland. We met him at Constance Leigh's one evening."

Here Nannie Branscome, but no one noticed her.

"Young ladies, come to order," said the president.

"Or order will come to you," said Hilda. "Prue has raised her
parasol--gavel, I mean."

"There goes Amy Frisbe," remarked Puddy from her post by the window.
"Do you know her engagement's off?"

"Well, I'll be jig----" Hilda began.

"Sh-h!" said the president.

"The president objects to slang, but I'll still be jiggered, as Lord
Fauntleroy's friend remarked."

"Sh-h!" said the president.

"Girls, that reminds me," said Puddy. "I met a publisher from New York
at the opera last night who objected to the slightest slang."

"Oh, me!" exclaimed Hilda. "Why, where has Mother Nature been keeping
the dear man all these years?"

"On Mr. Sheldon's editorial staff," suggested Nannie Branscome.

"Oh, that's too bad, Nannie," exclaimed Prudence. "My father--and he's
not a religious man--said the Topeka _Capital_ was a wonderful paper
Sheldon's week."

"I'm not denying that," said Nannie. "I believe it was wonderful. I
believe and tremble."

"With other little----"

"Sh-h!" said the president, and Hilda subsided.

"Was Amy Frisbe at the opera last night?" asked Puddy rather
irrelevantly.

"No," said Hilda, "but Arthur Driscol was. He sat in a box with the
Gorman party and was devoted to Mamie Moore all the evening. If I'd
been Mrs. Gorman I'd dropped him over the railing."

"You don't mean that Amy Frisbe has been jilted?" exclaimed the
president.

"I do, and it's her third serious heart wound. Really, that girl is
entitled to draw a pension."

"Well, I'll be jig----" began Nannie.

"Sh-h!" said the president, and then she added: "Young ladies, it is
for you to decide how you'll be served up in future."

"_Is_ it for us to decide?" asked Nannie Branscome.

She had a peculiar way of saying things of this sort. She would lower
her head and look out from under her head frizzles in a non-committal
fashion, but with a suggestion of something that made her piquant,
bewitching face irresistible.

"Certainly," said the president. "The style of cooking depends on the
cook."

"Well, let us first see what choice we have in the matter. What
variety of dishes are named? Where's the article and where did it come
from?" asked Hilda.

"George Daly had it last night and he read bits of it between the
acts."

"So that's what I missed by declining Mrs. Warren's box party
invitation!" exclaimed Hilda. "Well, let's have the article."

"I haven't got it," said Puddy. "George wouldn't give it to me. He
said it belonged to Mr. Porter, but I copied some of it."

"Oh, there's Evelyn Rogers. Let's call her in. Evelyn! Evelyn!"

Hilda was at the window gesticulating and calling.

"Young ladies," said the president, "I'm surprised. Come to order.
Good-morning, Evelyn. We are met to consider an important matter--'How
to Cook Wives.'"

Evelyn laughed.

"Is that all you called me in for? I heard enough of that last night.
It was George Daly's theme all the evening."

"Were you at the box party?" asked Hilda.

"Yes, I was so silly as to go. Oh, these society people just wear me
out. I'm more tired this morning than I should be if I'd worked at a
churn all day yesterday. They're so stupid. They talk all night about
nothing."

"You ought to commend them for intellectual economy; they make a
little go such a long way," said Prudence.

"Seriously, though, are you met to consider that piece?" asked Evelyn.

"No," said Puddy. "We just happened to meet, and that came up for
discussion."

"Well, as I don't care----" began Evelyn, laughing.

"Sh-h!" said the president.

"The publisher from New York says slang is not used in the best
circles," said Hilda.

She recited this in a loud, stereotyped tone, giving the last word a
strong upward inflection, suggestive of a final call to the
dining-room.

"Yes, I know," said Evelyn. "I met him at the box party last night,
and he told me so."

"What did you say?" inquired Puddy.

"I said it must be awful to be deaf from birth."

"Did he hear that?" laughed Hilda.

"I presume he did, for he gave me one look and straightway became dumb
as well as deaf."

"Girls, I must be going!" exclaimed Hilda suddenly. "Really, if any
po