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 man,” but there are those here who would lock me in, and never let me set my foot outside of these walls, if they knew I was writing this with the hope of laying it before the Province.

Yesterday was bathing-day—­a cold, damp April day.  No steam on; I tried the radiators, but there was no hot air to come.  The young teacher—­in whom I was so much interested, and whose name I will not give here, as she always begged me not to mention her name—­she stood with me at the radiator trying to find some heat.  The Doctor came in and I say, “Doctor, can’t you send up some coal, there is only a few red coals in the grate, no steam on, and we are nearly frozen?” He said, “The hard coal is all gone.”  “Well, send us some soft coal, wood, anything to keep us warm.”  He left us; no coal came till after dinner.  I met one of the nurses in the next ward; I told her our wants, and she sent it by a young man who was always attentive and respectful, but we could not always find a messenger who would take the trouble to find him.

The Doctor has been in again:  Mary and I were together as usual.  He looked at us very pleasantly, and I said, “You will be able to send us home now soon, surely.”  He drew me away from her, saying, “I don’t wish her to hear this.  Don’t you know, Mr. Ring went to Annapolis and hung himself?” “They did not watch him well,” said I, and he left, thinking, I suppose, that he had silenced me effectually.  I went to Mrs. Mills, and enquired about Mr. Ring, and learned that he had never been here, and was quite an old man.  What had that to do with us?  We have no wish to harm ourselves or any one else.  I see now that is the influence he uses to induce people to leave their friends here.  My son told me one day he had kept the Asylum so well the public were perfectly satisfied with him; no wonder he conducts it so well when there are so few lunatics here.  I suppose he has left me here waiting for me to get satisfied too; well, I am, but as soon as I am out I shall write to Mary’s mother to come for her, for I can hardly go and leave her here.  I have taken her in my heart as my own; she is so good a girl, wasting her precious life here for the amusement of others—­I don’t see anything else in it.