Sitting down to write you after one of the hardest day’s work one might ever hope to find, you will not wonder if I am not dazzlingly brilliant. I should not select so inauspicious a moment but that I find your letter has been waiting so long without getting to me, and that I cannot rest until I have at least commenced a reply, even if I am not able to finish it to-night. It had been stayed by my own orders. My letters in France for a time went wrongly and some were lost, both for and from me, for which the postal authorities are now busy searching, and as the losing of letters is one of the things I cannot endure, I ordered mine to be held at all points where they would arrive, until I could arrange some safe place of reception. They have come to me at Belfort, and I find yours which has waited a month. I should have written upon leaving Paris in July if I had not thought every day that I might get a line from either you or Mr. Moran, telling me of the delivery or receipt of my large package of accounts, from which I might draw some inference if my manner of doing things were an acceptable one. After this, I grew so busy that I think I forgot all but my work, or rather did not realize the length of time, as it passed so quickly. You ask for my views. They have been so many and so varied that it would be impossible to tell them at one sitting, but I may say that my sympathy and judgment have pointed, and my efforts been directed, to three classes of sufferers, with two of which I have nearly finished, and the third I am at this moment among with heart and hand. 1. These were, the families of the prisoners of Versailles, and the ships of the Manche. 2. The families of Alsace and Lorraine, who, refusing to become German, are passing over the lines into France by hundreds, even thousands. 3. And thirdly, the region of Belfort. The first-named of these are no longer confined to Paris, but are scattered now, for some distance around, poor, suffering, frightened, and trebly desolate. First, they have often lost the family support in the person of the prisoner; next, they wait in suspense worse than actual death for the result of the impending trial, and fearing often to reveal to those about them who they are, and why they are so destitute; and lastly, poor as they are, they know that the Government allows but fifty centimes a day for the use of each prisoner, and provides nothing else, not even a bed, only straw, and whatever more he has (and many are very ill) must be provided by the friends from outside. You will see how the hungry mouths and wretched homes would be robbed by pity and anxiety to supply this necessity. I have made it a portion of my care to find and supply some of these families; it can only be _some_, for there cannot be less than twenty thousand of them. There are forty thousand prisoners.