Art and Science 



her in one of the Fathers, I forget which, to 

 the effect that when a child she was asked 

 which she liked best cakes or flowers ? She 

 could not yet speak plainly and lisped out, 

 " Oh fowses, pretty fowses " ; she added, how- 

 ever, with a sigh and as a kind of wistful 

 corollary, " but cakes are very nice." She is 

 not to have any cakes just now, but as soon 

 as she has done thanking the lady for her 

 beautiful nosegay, she is to have a couple of 

 nice new-laid eggs, that are being brought her 

 by another lady. Valsesian women immedi- 

 ately after their confinement always have eggs 

 beaten up with wine and sugar, and one can 

 tell a Valsesian Birth of the Virgin from a 

 Venetian or a Florentine by the presence of 

 the eggs. I learned this from an eminent 

 Valsesian professor of medicine, who told me 

 that, though not according to received rules, 

 the eggs never seemed to do any harm. Here 

 they are evidently to be beaten up, for there 

 is neither spoon nor egg-cup, and we cannot 

 suppose that they were hard-boiled. On the 

 other hand, in the Middle Ages Italians never 

 used egg-cups and spoons for boiled eggs. 



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