She made the sauce first, because the oysters must not wait. She put a good table-spoonful of butter into a little saucepan and watched it till it got golden brown, but did not burn; then she put it aside to cool a little, and heated a tea-spoonful of vinegar in a cup, Marta meantime draining the oysters. They were put in a stewpan with pepper and salt, covered tightly and set over the fire and tossed round once or twice, the heated (but not boiled) vinegar was put to the brown butter, they were made very hot together, and when the oysters were plumped in their own steam, they were drained off and turned into a hot dish, with the brown butter over them, and served at once. They were such a success that this became a favorite oyster dish with the Bishop family.
CHAPTER XXXII.
VEAL AND HAM PIE—BEEFSTEAK PUDDING—TRIFLE.
Molly’s expense-book at the end of the first week of her second month (October) stood as follows:
| 3 lbs. butter | $0.75 |
| Eggs | .50 |
| Milk | .60 |
| Tea | .40 |
| Fuel | .50 |
| Suet | .08 |
| Soup meat | .20 |
| Beef (flank), 3 lbs | .36 |
| Beets | .05 |
| Bacon | .15 |
| Cream | .10 |
| Flounder | .15 |
| Beans | .04 |
| Fowl | .45 |
| Oysters | .40 |
| Mutton (leg) | .75 |
| Bananas | .25 |
| Codfish | .24 |
| Sweetbread | .25 |
| Corn starch | .02 |
| $6.34 |
In addition to the usual week’s supplies, she had bought extra:
| Eggs | $0.25 |
| Ice | .10 |
| Milk, 3 pints | .12 |
| $1.47 |
The groceries for the month came to $10.02, against $11.22 for last month. The week’s proportion was therefore $2.56, making a total of $9.32.
Molly had not been specially economizing this last week, and had had some little extra expenses. She was rejoiced to see that, even so, she had a margin. Of course, towards the end of October would come an increase in the price of butter and eggs. This she proposed to avoid to some extent by ordering at once a pail of fine October butter at twenty-five cents, which would last for cooking through the winter, even if it should not continue sweet enough for such fastidious butter-eaters as herself and Harry to use at table. Of eggs, too, she had ordered a gross from a farmer at twenty-five cents. This would give one dozen a week for cooking through the twelve weeks when they were dearest, and within this dozen for cooking she meant to keep; as soon as they should be dearer, she would make fewer things that required eggs, and avoid their use whenever she could do without them. And, so far as she could, she would supply herself with everything that would keep during winter and grow dearer as the months passed; but as the margin she now had reassured her against any little accidental expenses, she might safely reckon it would not grow less, unless she knowingly increased her expenditure for any purpose, and she would have always a little reserve to meet contingencies without touching anything outside the ten dollars a week.