imagined that what I said in October about not _needlessly
indulging_ was held by you to forbid your having a fire in your
bedroom on the ground floor in the depth of such a winter as we
have had!

You ought to have a fire lighted at such a season at 8 o'clock so
as to warm and dry the room, and all in it, nearly every
evening--and whenever the room seems damp, have a fire just
lighted to go out when it will. It's not wholesome to sleep in
heated rooms, but they must be dry. A _bed_ slept in every night
keeps so, if the room is not damp; but the room must not be damp,
and when it is unoccupied for two or three days it is sure to get
so.

_Be sure_ that there is a good fire in it all day, and all your
bed things, _mattress and all_, kept well before it for at _least_
a _whole day before you go back from Uncle Henry's_.

How was it your bed-maker had not your room well warmed and dried,
mattress dry, etc., before you went up this time? She ought to
have had, and should be spoken to about it--_i.e._ unless you told
her not to! in which case it would be very like having no
breakfast!

It has been a horrid interruption in the beginning of term--and
you'll have difficulty with the loss of time. Besides which I
have no doubt you have been very uncomfortable.

But I don't understand why you should have "nothing to write
about" because you have been in bed. Surely you must have