_Tuesday, Jan. 16._—The heavy rains since my return from the North, Jan. 3, have kept me much at home. This morning, however, I started out, and soon found myself at Aunt Judy’s door, but she had gone to a neighbor’s to get warm. When she saw me, she said, “Missus I’s so glad you’se come back. I was just talkin’ about you. We folks don’t have nobody to come roun’ and see and talk to us since you’se gone.” She has been a cripple for years, but this winter is unable to work, on account of rheumatism. She has always been contented and happy, and “proud” that she could pay her rent, fifty cents a week. But to-day it made my heart ache when she said that it took all that “Wes,” a grandson ten years old, could make by picking up rags and papers to get something to eat and a little coal. The landlady had just been there for rent, but she did not know where she could get the money. After reading a few of the Saviour’s words, and commending her to the Father’s care, I gave her a little toward the rent and left her. I next found two children about two and four years old hovering around a handful of coals; talked with them a few minutes, gave them a picture paper and passed on. I then stopped at Aunt Gracie’s and knocked, but no answer; so I pushed open the door and went in, and spoke several times before I could rouse her. Then with great effort she told me that she had been in bed several days with rheumatism. Her miserable shanty is but poor protection from the rain. Every thing in the room was damp, and not a stick of wood or a mouthful of any thing to eat. I carried her a little food and sent to the wood-yard for wood. But the streets, which are not paved, were so muddy they would not deliver nor sell even an _armful_.