finery, and you want to convert everything you possess into cash to
help her. All the teachers are doing without fires in their rooms this
winter, and it is rather chillsome to go to bed cold and wake up next
morning in the same condition. When I get home to a furnace-heated
house and have cream in my coffee, I shall feel too dissipated to be
respectable!

We have not been able to get a new cook since our old one died, and
the fact must have gotten abroad, for all the floating brethren and
sisters in Japan have been to see us! Y.M.C.A.'s, W.C.T.U.'s,
A.W.B.M.'s and X.Y.Z.'s have sifted in, and we have to sit up and be
Marthas and Marys all at the same time!

Sometimes I want to get my hat and run and run until I get to another
planet. But I am not made of the stuff that runs, and I have the
satisfaction of knowing that I have stuck to my post. If sacrificing
self, and knocking longings in the head, and smashing heart-aches
right and left, do not pass me through the Golden Gate, then I'll sue
Peter for damages.

It's snowing to-day, but the old Earth is making about as poor a bluff
at being Christmasy as I am. The leaves are all on the trees, many
flowers are in bloom, and the scarlet geraniums are warm enough to
melt the snow flakes.

My big box has arrived and I am keeping it until to-morrow. I go out
and sit on it every little while to keep cheered up. This is my third
Christmas from home, one more and then--!

There has been too much sickness to make much of the holiday, but I