at I have seen in Colorado compares
with Estes Park; and now that the weather is magnificent, and the
mountain tops above the pine woods are pure white, there is nothing of
beauty or grandeur for which the heart can wish that is not here; and
it is health giving, with pure air, pure water, and absolute dryness.
But there is something very solemn, at times almost overwhelming, in
the winter solitude. I have never experienced anything like it even
when I lived on the slopes of Hualalai. When the men are out hunting I
know not where, or at night, when storms sweep down from Long's Peak,
and the air is full of stinging, tempest-driven snow, and there is
barely a probability of any one coming, or of my communication with the
world at all, then the stupendous mountain ranges which lie between us
and the Plains grow in height till they become impassable barriers, and
the bridgeless rivers grow in depth, and I wonder if all my life is to
be spent here in washing and sweeping and baking.

To-day has been one of manual labor. We did not breakfast till 9:30,
then the men went out, and I never sat down till two. I cleaned the
living room and the kitchen, swept a path through the rubbish in the
passage room, washed up, made and baked a batch of rolls and four
pounds of sweet biscuits, cleaned some tins and pans, washed some
clothes, and gave things generally a "redding up." There is a little
thick buttermilk, fully six weeks old, at the bottom of a churn, which
I use for raising the rolls; but Mr. Kavan, who makes "lovely" bread,
puts some flour and water to turn sour near the stove, and this
succeeds admirably.

I also made a most unsatisfactory investigation into the state of my
apparel. I came to Colorado now nearly three months ago, with a small
carpet-bag containing clothes, none of them new; and these, by
legitimate wear, the depredations of calves, and the necessity of
tearing some of them up for dish-cloths, are reduced to a single
change! I have a solitary pocket handkerchief and one pair of
stockings, such a mass of darns that hardly a trace of the original
wool remains. Owing to my inability to get money in Denver I am almost
without shoes, have nothing but a pair of slippers and some "arctics."
For outer garments--well, I have a trained black silk dress, with a
black silk polonaise! and nothing else but my old flannel riding suit,
which is quite threadbare, and requires such frequent mending that I am
sometimes