higher calling than exhausting their energies working for bazaars, and leaving us to the care of those who care nothing for us and will not learn. Too much temper and too much indolence rule here. I go in sometimes and coax her to stop talking and lie down. I cover her up to keep her warm; she is blue with the cold. If I could keep her in a nice warm room, with kind treatment and nourishing food! She could not eat that horrible, sour bakers' bread with poor butter. Sometimes her food would set in her room a long time. I guess she only eats when she is so starved she can't help it. I eat because I am determined to live until I find some one who will help me out of this castle on the hill, that I may tell the Commissioners all about it. Sometimes I term it a college, in which I am finishing my education, and I shall graduate some day—when will it be? My impatient spirit chafes at this long delay. I sit at the grated window and think, if I were one of those little pigeons on the window sill I would be happy; content to be anything if only at liberty.

April.—The friends of Miss Short have been here and taken her home, and word returned that she is better. I am thankful to think she is with her mother, and I do not see her so improperly treated; it made me feel wretched to think of her.

Poor Katy Dugan's friends came one day. I watched my chance and told one of them to let her mother know she was getting worse and was not well treated. I had many heart-aches for that girl; I scarcely know why. They must have seen she looked worse; her dress of flannel, trimmed with satin of the same color, which looked so nice when she came, was filthy with spots of gruel and milk they had been forcing her to eat. This day, I remember, was worse than common days of trouble. I had been excited by seeing one of the most inoffensive inmates pushed and spoken to very roughly, without having done any wrong. They attempted to comb that poor girl's hair; she will not submit, begs and cries to go down there. I go to the bath-room door to beg them to be gentle with her. Mrs. Mills slammed the door in my face. She is vexed at any expression of sympathy. Again I hear that pitiful cry, and I go up the hall to see what the trouble is. They had taken her in a room to hold her on the floor, by those heavy, strong nurses sitting on her arms and feet, while they force her to eat. I return, for I can't endure the sight. I met Mrs. Mills, with a large spoon, going to stuff her as she did me. (I was not dyspeptic; I had fasted and would have eaten if they had given me milk, as I requested.) She was angry at me again; she ordered me to my room, and threatened to lock me in. What have I done to merit such treatment? How can I endure this any longer!

April 3.—Yesterday was election day of the Aldermen of the city of St. John. Dr. Steeves came in this morning and congratulated me very pleasantly that my son was elected Alderman. I thanked him and said I was not at all surprised, for he was very popular in his ward; always kind and courteous to every one, he had made many friends. He must know I am perfectly sane, but I can't persuade him to tell my son I am well enough to go home.

My dear Lewis has gone eight hundred miles beyond Winnipeg surveying. I am sorry to have him go so far. Will I ever see him again? But I feel so badly when he comes to see me, and refuses to take me home with him; and I say to myself, "I would die here alone rather than that he, my darling boy, should be shut in here and treated as I am;" for his temper, if so opposed, would make him a maniac. I have dreamed of seeing him looking wretched and crying for fresh air, for he was suffocating. All the time I had those troubled dreams, I was smothering with gas coming in my room through the small grating intended to admit heat to make us comfortable, but it did not. I was obliged to open the window to be able to breathe; my lungs required oxygen to breathe when I was lying in bed, not gas from hard coal.

There is one lady whose room is carpeted and furnished well, but she is so cold she sits flat on the carpet beside the little grate, trying to be warm. She has not enough clothing on to keep her warm. Her friends call often, but they never stay long enough to know that her room is cold. They cannot know how uncomfortable she is, or what miserable food she has, for we all fare alike.

April is nearly gone. Tom has promised to come for me on Monday; I feel so happy to think I am going to be free once more. I sat on my favorite seat in the window sill, looking at those poor men working on the grounds. There were three; they did not look like lunatics, no overseer near them; they were shoveling or spading, and three ducks followed them. Fed by the All-Father's hand, they gather food for themselves; the men never disturb them; they cannot be violent. Many a farmer would be willing to give one of those men a permanent home for his services. The knowledge that this home is here for them to return to, would ensure them kind treatment at the hand of the farmer, and I am sure they would prefer life on a farm, with good palatable food and liberty, to being shut up here as prisoners and fed as paupers, as we in the ladies' ward are, without one word or look of sympathy or respect extended to us.

One day this week, I had been watching one of the men working at the strawberry beds, thinking I would like to live on a farm now, that I might cultivate those lovely berries. The Doctor came in to make his usual morning call, in the hall, with a book and pencil in his hand; that is all he ever does for us. I thought I would make him think I thought him a gentleman, which he is not, and perhaps he would be more willing to let me go home. It has taken effect. I suppose he thinks I have forgotten all the doings of the past winter, and that I will not dare to say anything against such a mighty man as he is. I am glad I have taken it down in black and white, so as not to forget the wrongs of the Province, and the wrongs of those poor neglected women, of whom I am one. I ought not to write in this manner, but my indignation overcomes me sometimes, and I cannot help it. He is a little more social now than usual, and I suggest that if he bring blackberry bushes from the field, and set them around the fence, keeping the ground irrigated round the roots, he might have as nice fruit as the cultivated. He said yes, he would send some of his men out to his farm and get some, and he left as pleasant as he came. That was the first time he ever left me without being driven away by my making some request, and being refused.

This reminds me of the day I begged so hard for a pot of Holloway's Ointment. I had asked my boys several times to bring it to me, and I thought they always forgot it. I had used it many years, not constantly, only for a little rash on my face at times; it has annoyed me very much lately. This day I had urged him all I could, and he left me, saying he had too much on his mind today. I followed him to the door, saying, "I don't want to think so ill of you, Doctor, as that you will not grant me so small a favor—a twenty-five cent favor—and I will pay for it myself."

Saturday Morning.—I am so impatient! I hardly dare to hope. Will I be free to breathe the air of heaven again, to walk out in the warmth of His sunshine? Perhaps I am punished for questioning the exact truth of that story, so long ago, that I could not quite explain to myself or believe how it could be handed down over so many years. I have stood almost where He has stood, once before in my life. "The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head." I have been "led by the spirit into the wilderness." Pontius Pilate is not here to say, "I find no sin in this