“The old room, quiet, grave, book-lined, stored with records of old struggles, lent itself with fitness to the papers nowadays. The Greenwood Carys sat about the wood fire, Judith in an old armchair, Unity on an old embroidered stool, Molly in the corner of a great old sofa. Miss Lucy pushed her chair into the ring of the lamplight and read aloud in her quick, low, vibrant voice. The army at Fredericksburg--that was what they thought of now, day and night. She read first of the army at Fredericksburg--of Lee on the southern side of the Rappahannock, and Burnside on the northern, and the cannon all planted, and of the women and children beginning to leave. She read all the official statements, all the rumours, all the guesses, all the prophecies of victory and the record of suffering. Then she read the news of elsewhere in the vast, beleaguered fortress--of the fighting on the Mississippi, in Louisiana, in Arkansas, in the Carolinas; echoes from Cumberland Gap, echoes from Corinth. She read all the Richmond news--hot criticism, hot defence of the President, of the Secretary of War, of the Secretary of State; echoes from the House, from the Senate; determined optimism as to foreign intervention; disdain, as determined, of Burnside's "On to Richmond"; passionate devotion to the grey armies in the field--all the loud war song of the South, clear and defiant! She read everything in the paper. She read the market prices. Coffee $4 per lb. Tea $20 per lb. Wheat $5 per bushel. Corn $15 per barrel. Bacon $2 per lb. Sugar $50 per loaf. Chickens $10. Turkeys $50.”
A cook of roughly the same moment, setting down the same dish.
* * * * * GOOD STRONG USEFUL CONGOU, 2s. 6d., 2s. 8d., 2s. 10d., 3s., and 3s. 4d. PURE COFFEES, 1s., 1s. 2d., 1s. 4d., 1s. 6d. _A PRICE-CURRENT FREE._ Pure Preserving and other Sugars at Market Prices. * * * * * ALL GOODS SENT CARRIAGE FREE WITHIN EIGHT MILES OF LONDON. Teas and Coffees _Carriage Free_ to all England, if to value of 40s. * * * * * PHILLIPS AND COMPANY, TEA MERCHANTS, KING WILLIAM STREET, CITY, LONDON, E.C.
Sources: The passage is from Mary Johnston, The Long Roll, free to read in full at Project Gutenberg. The recipe is from Francatelli, A Plain Cookery Book for the Working Classes of 1852, also free in full. Both are in the public domain in the United States. The binding above is ours — navy cloth, boar stamp.