This dinner I shall always fondly remember. I cannot call to mind any other dinner that at all rivals it. We are so hungry, and cold, and wet, and it is so pleasant to "_sit down to dinner_" once more. And then this dinner is so nice, and neat, and plentiful, showing, for a soldier's cooking, a good housewife's _care_! If that bewatered goose could see it, he would feel ashamed of himself, and request leave to be cooked over again. I was about to begin with the tablecloth, and enumerate all that was on it; but it occurs to me that what is a feast to us is an every-day affair to you, and that you will shrug your shoulders, and say, "Not much of a dinner after all." And I must confess that Mrs. Clokes' apologies called my attention to certain wants, which show that our blockade has been effective in disturbing the serenity of Southern housewives. "I have nothing but rye coffee to offer you, gentlemen: it is impossible for us to get coffee now." "What does coffee cost down here, Mrs. Clokes?" "The last we bought was a dollar a pound, but now we cannot get it at any price. Everything is dreadfully scarce. I'm sorry we have no fresh meat, but the soldiers [rebels, she means] have taken a great many of our pigs, and we lost some which we killed, for want of good salt." Salt, I find, was fourteen dollars a sack when last heard from, and, like coffee, has gone entirely out of the market. In the corner is a colored girl carding cotton by hand. I look at the operation with some interest, and Mrs. Clokes goes on with the story of her wants: "There is no calico to be had, and we have to spin and weave by hand. Do you know, sir, whether trade will be opened soon with the North: our hand-cards are nearly worn out, and I do not know where to look for others? A neighbor of ours paid ten dollars for a pair the other day, and I don't suppose I could buy them at any price now." But there is a heavier grief in poor Mrs. Clokes' breast. She talks of her son: "He is so ill and so young, he will die if kept a prisoner at the North, and he did not enlist till they threatened the drafting. Oh! why did we ever go to war, we were so prosperous and happy! Gentlemen, can't you do anything for my son?" And poor Mrs. Clokes' voice fails her, and she bursts into tears. But, dinner done, we must resume our journey. It is nine miles now to Paris. We have seen no rebel pickets; but our friends, the contrabands, tell us, that they have gone along a little while ago, and it will be dangerous meeting in the dark.