memory of many weary fathers of families the primeval "sac was considered sufficient envelope for the sweeties of the season; but all this is changed, the bonbonnière has developed into a thing of beauty, and is often solid enough to prove a joy for ever. Crystal and enamel now decorate the boxes of "goodies" which fly about at Christmas and the New Year, and the vehicle of a pound of sweetstuff may easily cost a tenpound note. Boxes there are of silk and velvet, cunningly gilded, pinched, carved, and puffed, filled above with sweetmeats and below with sweet sounds. Conspicuous among the more curious articles are the spoils of the animal kingdom, the magnificent plumage of a peacock being often employed as a screen for lollipops. Another curious feature of the present season is the profuse introduction of animals carefully modelled and covered with satin. Old-fashioned dogs and elephants, covered with the woolly substance dear to our youth, are put to shame by their sleek successors, who reflect the light prettily from their highly-polished sides. Here is an elephant, with a coat of satin, which most assuredly has been dyed expressly, so admirably is elephant-colour copied. Gorgeously attired in scarlet housings, and bearing a castellated howdah, the wise and mighty monster is a literal rendering of "out of the strong came forth sweetness." A quaint device, also, is that of the woman who lived in a tree; and those who like quantity as well as quality in sugar-plums would rejoice over a faggot of sticks, life size, garnished internally not with vipers but with sugarcoated almonds, rocky pralines, and cunning boluses, which, when crunched by the faithful, reward them with a suspicion of delicious liqueur. Grouped around these are bunches of early carrots, crisp cabbages, and curling lettuces, rich with hidden sweetness. Albums of victorious German leaders also abound, and are eagerly bought up, although a bon-bon box is an odd place for a picture of that grim and uncomfortable statesman, Prince Bismarck. Kaiser William and Count von Moltke, also, look out of place among the sugar-plums, which we may rest assured were never made by French hands. Switzerland is responsible for this cross-reading of "sweets to the sweet," and also for another violation of the maxim, a place for everything and everything in its place." Even as nauseous powders are wrapped by crafty and inhuman mothers

of

in folds of jam, so is scientific teaching obtruded in the guise of sweetstuff, by the hard-headed Switzer. This enormity is perpetrated with a cold-blooded, remorseless premeditation, frightful to think upon. In a glittering box are ranged layers of small squares of chocolate, each of which is wrapped in a piece of paper forming a section of a map. Arranged in proper order, the little squares compose perfect maps Switzerland, France, Germany, and Italy -tinted with all the colours of the rainbow. With fiendish ingenuity each square is made to do double duty-so that two complete maps must be mastered before consumption sets in. It would have been perhaps an extenuating circumstance, had the puzzle been so arranged that after learning the names on each section the chocolate could have been promptly devoured, but diabolical malignity has imposed a double dose of knowledge to a single mouthful of chocolate. As if to exhibit the full depth of depravity which may be reached by an alliance of science and sugar, yet another instrument of torture is displayed. This consists of a map of Switzerland, rolled round a particularly massive staff, containing an interior shaft filled with sweeties. The use of this dreadful instrument is only too obvious. The map is to be unrolled, and the victim brought close to it to be examined in the geography of that very important country, Helvetia. Success is to be rewarded by part of the inside of the roller, failure with a sharp application of the outside. Imagine the feelings of an unhappy child, who having once tasted the sweets, becomes so excited at their neighbourhood as to break down in its task, on being compelled to undergo castigation with an implement which maketh the knuckles to smart, while the ears tingle yet more acutely at the rattle of unattainable sugarplums!

Very noticeable among the "goodies" of the season is the increasing employment of chocolate, either as a sweet in itself, or as a mask for other toothsome morsels. Time -honoured forms of sugar-coated almonds are now as ever "to the fore," and dates deftly stuffed with delicious paste try to put plums similarly treated out of countenance, dainty "pruneaux fleuris," a recent introduction, and the sweetly acid "pistolles," compete sharply with the good old plum of Orleans, but to all kinds of preserved fruit, richly flavoured creams, and ethereal jellies,

chocolate, in its purest form, is now frequently applied as a jacket-light, agreeable, and nourishing withal.

as

At holiday time, Fortnum and Mason's is a vast pantomime to which the public are admitted free of charge, but from which it is difficult to get away, without investing in something useful, amusing, or sweet. In Piccadilly we are "in front of the theatre, may see and enjoy the show, but, if we want to step behind the scenes, view the property room, and see the scene painters at work, we must visit the pretty Theatre Duclos, where goodies are not only sold, but made. None but a heavy-handed Briton, engrossed with business, could pass the window in Oxfordstreet, hard by the Princess's Theatre, without looking upon the wonderful stuffed fox-erect, cocked-hatted as a vigilant gendarme should be-who leads, a prisoner, an unhappy, tearful-eyed rabbit, who has just been caught in flagrante delicto, and carries the fatal cabbage, the evidence of guilt, on his furry brown back. M. Duclos is justly proud of his "salon," gay with the prettiest and quaintest of French conceits. In a plain birdcage, a humming bird-marvel of marvels-pipes a merry tune, and many bonbonnières owe their originality and beauty to the birds' heads and plumage lavished upon them. Several mountebanks are constructed with true artistic taste. These singular creatures, with the head and feet of the kingfisher, attached to bodies dressed in the true costume of the Saltimbanque, are beating the big drum, balancing the sword, and performing all kinds of juggling tricks-to the envy and confusion of a rival band of rabbits and squirrels.

Charming as are these receptacles for sweets, it is impossible to do them proper justice, for now or never is the time to see the skilful confectioners, the light-handed artists in sugar and chocolate, at their work. Passing through the office of courteous M. Duclos, I observe that the walls are well lined with the works of the immortal Carême, and that Gouffé and other masters of the sublime art of confectionery-the true school for a chef" of the highest rank-are here in force. Near the works of these great "professionals” is the bulky "Grand Dictionnaire de Cuisine," the last production of an illustrious amateur who took more pride in his salads and his "poulet à la ficelle than in the creation of Athos, Porthos,

66

and Aramis. Descending to the lower regions I find work going merrily on.

Sundry old women are busy in preparing chestnuts for their great destinies as "marrons glacés," &c. The chestnuts used here are not the ordinary produce of our English parks, but the famous marrons de Turin, whence they are imported into this country; chestnuts, like truflles, thriving best under a warmer sky than that of Albion. These precious nuts, after being boiled and carefully trimmed, are immersed in a bath of hot syrup, where they remain for many hours in company with sundry pods of costly vanilla. Near these interesting cauldrons are lively blackeyed Frenchmen preparing the dainty caramels-a confection of sugar, boiled till it attains a certain degree of tenacity, and puts on a brilliant lustre. These showy and agreeable sweetmeats, like all confectionery of the very best kind, must be eaten fresh to be thoroughly enjoyed, and their manufacture, therefore, goes on unceasingly. The saccharine fabric may be flavoured with pine-apple, apricot, vanilla, tea, orange, cherry, lemon, or pistachio, but caramels, combined with chocolate cream, are more highly esteemed than others, and are interesting as showing how the fruit of Theobroma cacao is making its way. Curious activity is displayed in making the bon-bons which form the heart or core of the dark brown sweetmeats which, viewed superficially, are merely rough lumps of chocolate. One youth is hard at work at a bowl of crême-which, in French cookery, does not always signify cream-of strawberries. The contents of the spouted bowl he is carefully stirring or "working" are of a beautiful pink colour, and of about the consistency of thick paint. When the mixture is perfectly smooth the artist turns to his moulds, made of the finest and driest starch, indented with cavities just large enough to contain the half-mouthful required for a bon-bon: Seizing now upon a knife, and pouring from the spout with the other hand into the first cavity, he cuts off the viscid sugary stream at the exact moment when the cavity is filled, and proceeds thus to fill row after row of indentations. The box of starch, now neatly spotted with pink, is removed to make way for more, and the tiny bon-bons are, when dry and cool, lifted from the starch mould and are ready to receive their chocolate husk.

Large cakes of chocolate of the finest kind, made at M. Duclos's factory, are now

Unlike the sweets to which chocolate merely acts as a disguise, there are many others made of the same material mixed with more sugar, to give it greater consistency, and then cast in moulds. This is considered as one of the most elegant forms of chocolate, inasmuch as the success of the sweetmeat depends entirely upon the quality of the chocolate and graceful shape of the mould, without any adventitious aid from lurking creams.

The application of chocolate to pastry, an interesting process, is also going on, as well as the confection of all sorts of cakes and knick-knacks, very "pretty to see," but conducted in a tepid atmosphere which suggests a speedy retreat to the upper air. Having now disposed of "fancy" chocolate, the fruit of the cacao in its loftiest and most delicate expression, let us stroll to the Euston-road, hard by the Regent's Park, to Epps's cocoa manufactory, where may be studied the making of cocoa on a stupendous scale, giving a just idea of the value of these articles, not as luxuries, but as actual food.

For long ages before the Spaniard set foot in the empire of the Aztecs, the natives of that, till then, favoured region, had employed the nut of the great shrub, known scientifically as Theobroma cacao, in the production of liquid food. Their conquerors learned the art of making chocolate from them, as the rough Romans of early days acquired learning and eloquence from the children of Hellas. The name of the laurellike cacao tree, has proved the source of much confusion in these Britannic isles, where, until lately, might be seen depicted on the cart of a cocoa manufacturer a faithful image of the cocoa palm-which bears the cocoa nut-with its feathery crown and smooth trunk, at the foot of which a boy was occupied in collecting cacao beans. These actually grow upon a far lowlier but very handsome tree, of

Mr. Epps converts cocoa beans into prepared cocoa, cacaoine, and chocolate. In making all these more or less easily cooked articles the initial processes are identical. Conducting me through a warehouse filled with long rows and tiers of sacks, Mr. Epps explains that these contain the simple cocoa bean of commerce. Like another excellent friend of man, the coffee bean, cocoa must undergo a fiery ordeal before its lurking aroma consents to be developed, and to this end it is consigned in quantities of about a hundredweight and a half to the interior of huge iron cylinders revolving over a strong, but steady fire. An hour's subjection to the torture produces no apparent effect on the bean; but, in reality, two great changes have taken place in its constitution. The cocoa butter, as the fatty principle, of which one-half of the bean is composed, is generally called, has developed that peculiar volatile oil, which gives flavour, and the thin husk, or shell, has, together with the kernel, become brittle enough to be crushed easily between the fingers. After being allowed to cool, the beans are next consigned to the "nibbing mill," which makes short work of them, breaking the kernels into small pieces and winnowing away the light dry husks. Through many winnowings, siftings, and dustings the crushed beans now pass, until, thoroughly freed from husk and dust, they become the cocoa nibs familiar to the public as the source of a possibly wholesome, but, unless carefully prepared, exceedingly disagreeable, beverage. It is well to observe that the husks were not always, and sometimes now are not, removed with the care described. In making "flaked cocoa" of the common kind, the husks are ground with the beans, a method responsible for much of the indigestibility frequently ascribed to cocoa. The larger pieces caught by the sieves are now carefully picked over, the good kernels separated from draff and husks, sticks and stones, and the nibs are passed through a mill not only propelled, but well heated by

is farina added, and it is therefore necessary, whatever printed rules are supplied, to boil all chocolate, cacaotine, and kindred preparations in either milk or water.

Mr. Epps makes not only cocoa, but those curious lozenge-shaped transparencies called jujubes. I have read of the jujube tree, but can conscientiously hold that much-maligned growth innocent of any share in the sweet stickiness of to-day. Jujubes, which may be flavoured with anything, are a mixture of the best gum arabic, glycerine, and sugar. This mixture is spread in shallow pans and is carefully dried in a species of kiln, till it acquires the necessary toughness to recommend it to its admirers. So far as cocoa is concerned, I am equal to tasting it in almost every stage, but must confess that the jujube possesses a toughness which overcomes one not regularly trained to it.

Few more interesting spectacles can be witnessed even in London, than a great cocoa factory. The work goes on untiringly and smoothly through the winter's morning, until the magic hour of dinner lulls the great grinding mills to rest, and I am at leisure to stroll through the silent workshops, full of cocoa dust, and up and down the stairs, slippery with cocoa butter. Above, below, and around, I gaze upon, smell, taste, and feel nothing but cocoa, and wonder, as I take my departure, whether those who make it, eat or drink it at their humble breakfast; or whether, like the emancipated pastry-cook's 'prentice who fainted at the sight of a jam tart, they abjure cocoa when "out of business."

WHAT HAPPENED IN MY STUDIO. A PAINTER'S GHOST STORY.

IN TWO CHAPTERS. CHAPTER I.

I HAD occupied my studio, which was situated in one of those old squares which fashion has long since passed by, for about two years.

The locality was essentially an artistic one, and the whole of the house in which I was domiciled was let out in studios. The ground floor was occupied by my particular friend Duncan, who went in heavily for stained glass and tiles. I occupied the first floor front, with another friend, Middleton, on the same floor at the back. Overhead were a landscape painter and a lady artist, who, from the fact of their spending a great deal of time in the country, occupied their studios in the square only for a day or two now and then, and frequently

at long intervals. The lower premises consisted of a wilderness of kitchens, sculleries, pantries, areas, and cellars, which I had never had the courage thoroughly to explore, and which I believe were a terra incognita even to the old couple who, until within a week or two of the events I am about to narrate, lived in one of the kitchens, and undertook the small amount of attendance which was required by the occupants of the studios.

Duncan, Middleton, and I all lived at some little distance from the square, and were only there by day. The landscape painter, Howarth, slept in a room adjoining his studio whenever he came up to town, and Miss Rehden also had rooms on the second floor, in addition to her studio.

His

We were, all of us, somewhat matter-offact people, quiet, methodical, and industrious. Our lives were as plodding and free from romance as can well be imagined. To my friend Duncan, who was not, however, the chief actor in the strange event I am about to narrate, I would give the palm for imagination. imagination did not, however, run away with him, for he immediately reduced its wildest flights to a practical form on paper, thence transferred them to glass and tiles, and burnt them into immortality in his adjacent kiln. That he lived in a world of dragons and ghouls, angels and cherubs, saints and devils, I will not deny, and in one form or another they were scattered pretty freely about the house; but they had no possible bearing on my tale, and I mention them merely to give my readers a fair idea of the house and its inmates.

Previous to my taking possession of it, my studio had been occupied by an artist who had died there, very suddenly, of heart disease. He was seized with the attack which carried him off, while at work, had staggered back, and expired upon a sofa which was just behind him. He had been a man of undoubted ability. His later works were even much sought after, and realised a considerable sum in the market. He possessed, however, singularly retiring habits, and one of his peculiarities was, that he never would allow even his most intimate friends to be admitted when he was at work, and would never allow a picture to be seen until it was completed. I had not been personally acquainted with him, but had gathered these particulars from Duncan, who knew him well, and was the last person who had seen him alive.