he seats at the grate
get filled up, I come back to the radiator. Perhaps it is warm enough to
afford to have the window open a few moments, to let the impure air
escape--just a little of it; then I sit close by it, calling it my
kitchen fire-place. I am regulating the comfort of this ward in a
measure, but they don't know it.

February.--My dear Lewis has been to see me today. We chat together as
usual; how can he think me crazy? Dr. Steeves tells him I am, I suppose,
and so he thinks it must be so. He is so happy to see me looking better;
he is more loving than ever; he holds my hand in his and tells me he
will take me out for a drive when the weather is fine. And I said, "Oh
Lewis, my dear boy, I am well enough to go home with you to your hotel
now." I so long for some of Mrs. Burns' good dinners; her meals are all
nice, and here we have such horrid stuff. Dark-colored, sour bakers'
bread, with miserable butter, constitutes our breakfast and tea; there
is oatmeal porridge and cheap molasses at breakfast, but I could not eat
that, it would be salts and senna for me. At noon we have plenty of meat
and vegetables, indifferently cooked, but we don't require food suitable
for men working out of doors. We need something to tempt the appetite a
little.

No matter what I say, how earnestly I plead, he believes Dr. Steeves in
preference to me. If I should die here, he will still believe Dr.
Steeves, who looks so well they cannot think he would do so great a
wrong. When I first began to realize that I must stay here all winter, I
begged the Doctor to take me to his table, or change his baker; "I
cannot live on such fare as you give us here." His reply was, "I don't
keep a boarding house." Who does keep this boarding house? Is there any
justice on earth or under heaven? Will this thing always be allowed to
go on? Sometimes I almost sink in despair. One consolation is left
me--some day death will unlock those prison doors, and my freed spirit
will go forth rejoicing in its liberty.

There is a dear girl here whose presence has helped to pass the time
more pleasantly, and yet I am more anxious on her account. How can her
mother leave her so long in such care as this? Ah, they cannot know how
she is faring; she often says, "I used to have nice cake at home, and
could make it, too." She has been teaching school, has over-worked, had
a fever, lost her reason, and came here last June. She is well enough
to go home. I fear if the