Asparagus with White Sauce

Pick the loose leaves from the heads, and scrape the stalks clean; wash them in a pan of cold water; tie them up in bundles of about twenty in each, keeping all the heads turned the same way; cut the stalks even, leaving them about eight inches long; put the asparagus in hot water with a small handful of salt to boil for about twenty minutes, and when done, drain them carefully upon a napkin to avoid breaking oif the heads; dish them up on a square thick piece of toasted bread dipped in the water they have been boiled in, and send to table with some white sauce separately in a sauce-boat.