Required: One pound of potatoes. One pint of boiling water. Half a pint of milk. One Spanish onion. One ounce of butter or good dripping. Two sticks of celery or a little celery salt. Two ounces of macaroni. Salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

Wash, peel, and slice the potatoes, and put them at once into cold water. Peel and slice the onion and chop the celery. Melt the butter in a saucepan, add the vegetables, and stir them about in the butter over the fire for a few minutes, taking care that they do not colour in the least. Add the water and a little salt, and cook until the vegetables are soft. Rub them through a hair or fine wire sieve, rinse out the saucepan, pour back the soup, add enough hot milk to it to make it as thick as good cream. Let it reboil, and season it carefully to taste. While the soup is cooking, boil the macaroni until it is just tender in plenty of fast-boiling salted water, drain it well, and cut it into inch lengths. Just before serving add it to the soup.