Ingredients.—One pint of double cream, the whites of two fresh eggs, four ounces of castor sugar, a quarter of a pound of pistachios (chopped and blanched), one ounce of leaf gelatine, two tablespoonfuls of water, a half-pint packet of lemon jelly.
Method.—Take a plain round cake-mould that will hold a quart, and line the sides of it with lemon jelly. Sprinkle the bottom over with chopped pistachio, using a little melted jelly to set it. Whip a pint of double cream to a stiff froth, and mix it lightly with the stiffly beaten whites of two fresh eggs and the castor sugar (sifted). Pound the pistachios in a mortar, and add the sweetened cream to this. Have ready the gelatine, and when it is lukewarm stir it quickly into the cream. Pour at once into the prepared mould.
Before the wedding-day, Jane, Ada, and Marion had a little tea-party at “The Rowans,” at which it must be confessed they talked a great deal and ate very little.
“Well, we have had a very happy year at all events,” said Ada, “and if circumstances had not upset our previous arrangements, I should have been quite content to go on in the same way for a long time.”
“As circumstances, named Tom Scott and Jack Redfern, intervened, our housekeeping is at an end,” said Jane decisively. “I think I am the one to whom all apologies should be made. Of course, with you two gone, I could not bear starting the same sort of thing again with anyone else, but it has certainly been a most successful experiment. Has your dress come home yet, Marion?”
“Yes; and fits very well.”
“It is the prettiest dress you can imagine,” said Jane to Ada. “A grey Sicilienne skirt, with a grey glacé silk bodice, and cherry-coloured velvet at the throat and waist. A dear little cherry-coloured toque to wear with it, and a smart grey velvet cape with a delicate design in steel on it. I can’t help talking like a fashion plate when I think of it! Our dresses are sent back at last, and there is nothing that needs alteration.”
Jane and Ada were to wear their new winter dresses of green cashmere and brown velvet; big brown “picture” hats with rowans under the brim. Marion’s wedding-day dawned bright and sunny. The wedding was to be at two o’clock.
Jane had arranged to go over to Norfolk Square early to superintend the laying of the breakfast before the party went to church. The table was decorated with white flowers in specimen vases. Azaleas, chrysanthemums, and orange-blossoms, and sprigs of rowan-berries were laid on the pretty white satin table-centre which Ada had worked for her friend.
And now they are off to church.