My “room” costs me seventy-five cents a week, and my food from a dollar and a half to two dollars. At the end of the seventh week I shall have over fifty dollars clear. I have made up my mind to give up the place at the end of that time. Twelve dollars is the most I ever earned, but I can't stand it longer than that. I shall be clear for nearly four months, and that will surely put me safe until I have found a publisher. I would go away into the country again, only I must have books. I have nothing to write now. * * * * * --Oh the heat of this dreadful city; sometimes it takes all my strength to bear that and my drudgery, and nothing else. When the night comes I am panting, and can only shut my eyes. If I am kept here long, I tell you I shall never, as long as I live, be as strong and keen as I might have been. So long as I was working, striving for an education, preparing myself, I could bear it. But now I have done all that I can do amid these surroundings. I cry out day and night, “I have earned my freedom!” * * * * * September 6th. He had no business to send me that answer! He had no business to send it! I care not how many such requests he gets! Pain throbbed in that letter, hunger and agony were in it; and if he were a man he would have known it! He had no business to send me that answer! I shall never forgive him for it. * * * * * The last publisher said it would take a month; they had many manuscripts on hand, and could not do any better. So I have only to set my teeth together and wait. * * * * * I count the days before my escape from that hideous place down-town. The thought of it drives me wild--it gets more and more a torture. Can I stay out the week? I ask. * * * * * September 8th. All day--all day--I have but one thought in my mind--but one thought in my life! I am beset by it, I can not escape it. That horrible shame to which I am subjected! It turns all my life to gall! It beats down my enthusiasm, it jeers at my faith, it spits into the face of my unselfishness! I come home every night weak and worn and filled with despair, or else with a choking in my throat, and helpless, cruel rage in my soul. Never mind that I am going to be free--the wrong is that it should ever have been--it will stay with me all my days and turn all my life to gall! It will wreck all my visions, all my aspirations, my faith, my eagerness; the memory of it will sound like a mocking voice in my ears, a sneer!