"After prowling around and hitting myself and knocking myself I stood still again and wondered what to do! I wanted to scream and cry, but that wouldn't have done any good and I should have felt more alone than ever afterward. Nobody could come there to hurt me, that was certain, and I could stamp the rats away, and there were apples and potatoes and turnips to eat? But suppose it had to last all night! I was too frightened to waste any tears, and too weak to stand up, by this time, so I found a seat on the stairs and huddled myself together to keep warm, and prayed as hard as I ever did in my life.
"I thought about Peter in prison; I thought about everything I could think of. I could hear the clock strike and that would help me bear it, I should know when night came and when morning came. The cows would suffer, too, unless father had thrown down hay enough for them; and the fires would go out, and what would father and mother think when they came home to-morrow? Would I frighten them by screaming and pounding? Would I add to my cold, and have quinsy sore throat again? Would I faint away and never 'come to'? When I wrote 'adventure' upstairs by the master's fire I did not mean a dreadful thing like this! Staying alone all night was nothing compared to this. I had never been through anything compared to this. I tried to comfort myself by thinking that I might be lost or locked up in a worse place; it was not so damp or cold as it might have been, and there was really nothing to be afraid of. I had nothing to do and I was in the dark. I began to think of all the stories I knew about people who had been imprisoned and what they had done. I couldn't write a Pilgrim's Progress, I couldn't even make a few rhymes, it was too lonesome; I couldn't sing, my voice stopped in my throat. I thought about somebody who was in a dark, solitary prison, and he had one pin that he used to throw about and lose and then crawl around and find it in the dark and then lose it again and crawl around again and find it. I had prowled around enough for the steps; that amusement had lost its attraction for me. And then the clock struck. I counted eleven, but had I missed one stroke? Or counted too many? It was not nine when I lighted that candle. Well, that gave me something to reason about, and something new to look forward to. How many things could I do in an hour? How many could I count? How many Bible verses could I repeat? Suppose I began with A and repeated all I could think of, and then went on to B. 'Ask, and ye shall receive.' How I did ask God to let me out in some way, to bring somebody to help me? To send somebody. Would not Captain Rheid come back again? Would not Morris change his mind and come home to dinner? or at night? And would Mr. Holmes certainly go to hear that lecture? Wasn't there anybody to come? I thought about you and how sorry you would be, and, I must confess it, I did think that I would have something to write to you and Hollis about. (Please let him see this letter; I don't want to write all this over again.)
"So I shivered and huddled myself up in a heap and tried to comfort myself and amuse myself as best I could. I said all the Bible verses I could think, and then I went back to my apples and brought the basket with me to the stairs. I would not eat one potato or turnip until the apples had given out. You think I can laugh now; so could you, after you had got out. But the clock didn't strike, and nobody came, and I was sure it must be nearly morning I was so faint with hunger and so dizzy from want of sleep. And then it occurred to me to stumble up the stairs and try to burst the door open! That lock was loose, it turned very easily! In an instant I was up the stairs and trying the door. And, lo, and behold, it opened easily, it was not locked at all! I had only imagined I heard the click of the lock. And I was free, and the sun was shining, and I was neither hungry nor dizzy.
"I don't know whether I laughed or cried or mingled both in a state of ecstasy. But I was too much shaken to go on with my letter, I had to find a story book and a piece of apple pie to quiet my nerves. The fires were not out and the clock had only struck ten. But when you ask me how long I stayed in that cellar I shall tell you one hundred years! Now, isn't that adventure enough for the first volume?
"Vol. II. Evening. I waited and waited downstairs for somebody to come, but nobody came except Josie Grey's brother, to say that her mother was taken ill suddenly and Josie could not come. I suppose Mr. Holmes expected her to come and so he has gone to Middlefield, and Morris thought so, too; and so I am left out in the cold, or rather in by the fire. Mr. Holmes' chamber is the snuggest room in the house, so full of books that you can't be lonely in it, and then the fire on the hearth is company. It began to snow before sun down and now the wind howls and the snow seems to rush about as if it were in a fury. You ask what I have read this winter. Books that you will not like: Thomson's 'Seasons,' Cowper's 'Task,' Pollok's 'Course of Time,' Milton's 'Paradise Regained,' Strickland's 'Queens of England,' 'Nelson on Infidelity,' 'Lady Huntington and her Friends,' 'Lady of the Lake,' several of the 'Bridgewater Treatises,' Paley's 'Natural Theology,' 'Trench on Miracles,' several dozens of the best story books I could find to make sandwiches with the others, somebody's 'Travels in Iceland,' and somebody's 'Winter in Russia,' and 'Rasselas,' and 'Boswell's Johnson,' and I cannot remember others at this moment. Morris says I do not think anything dry, but go right through everything. Because I have the master to help me, and I did give 'Paradise Lost' up in despair. Mother says I shall never make three quilts for you if I read so much, but I do get on with the patch work and she already has one quilt joined, and Mrs. Rheid is coming to help her quilt it next week. There is a pile of blocks on the master's desk now and I intend to sit here in his arm chair and sew until I am sleepy. I wonder if you will do as much for me when my Prince comes. Mine is to be as handsome as Hollis, as good as Morris, as learned as the master, and as devoted as your splendid Will. And if I cannot find all these in one I will—make patch work for other brides and live alone with Miss Prudence. And I'll begin now to make the patch work. Oh, dear, I wish you and Miss Prudence were here. Hark! there's somebody pounding on the outside kitchen door! Shall I go down or let them pound? I don't believe it is Robin Hood or any of his merry men, do you? I'll screw my courage up and go.
"Vol. III. Next Day. I won't keep you in suspense, you dear, sympathetic Linnet. I went down with some inward quaking but much outward boldness as the pounding increased, and did not even ask 'Who's there?' before I opened the door. But I was relieved to find Morris, covered with snow, looking like a storm king. He said he had heard through Frank Grey that Josie couldn't come and he would not let me stay alone in a storm. I was so glad, if I had been you I should have danced around him, but as it was I and not you I only said how glad I was, and made him a cup of steaming coffee and gave him a piece of mince pie for being so good. To-day it snows harder than ever, so that we do not expect father and mother; and Mr. Holmes has not come out in the storm, because Morris saw him and told him that he was on the way home. Not a sleigh has passed, we have not seen a single human being to-day. I could not have got out to the stable, and I don't know what the cows and hens would have done without Morris. He has thrown down more hay for the cows, and put corn where the hens may find it for to-morrow, in case he cannot get out to them. The storm has not lessened in any degree; I never knew anything like it, but I am not the 'oldest inhabitant.' Wouldn't I have been dreary here alone?
"This does seem to be a kind of adventure, but nothing happens. Father is not strong enough to face any kind of a storm, and I am sure they will not attempt to start. Morris says we are playing at housekeeping and he helps me do everything, and when I sit down to sew on your patch work he reads to me. I let him read this letter to you, forgetting what I had said about my Prince, but he only laughed and said he was glad that he was good enough for me, even if he were not handsome enough, or learned enough, or devoted enough, and said he would become devoted forthwith, but he could not ever expect to attain to the rest. He teases me and says that I meant that the others were not good enough. He has had a letter from Will promising to take him before the mast next voyage and he is hilarious over it. His mother tries to be satisfied, but she is afraid of the water. When so many that we know have lost father or brother or husband on the sea it does seem strange that we can so fearlessly send another out. Mrs. Rheid told me about a sea captain that she met when she was on a voyage with Captain Rheid. He had been given up for lost when he was young and when he came back he found his wife married to another man, but she gave up the second husband and went back to the first. She was dead when Mrs. Rheid met him; she said he was a very sad man. His ship was wrecked on some coast, I've forgotten where, and he was made to work in a mine until he was rescued. I think I would have remained dead to her if she had forgotten me like that. But isn't this a long letter? Morris has made me promise to write regularly to him; I told him he had never given me a Holland plate two hundred years old, but he says he will go to Holland and buy me one and that is better.
"I am glad Hollis wrote such a long letter to his mother if he could not come home. I wish he would write to her oftener; I do not think she is quite satisfied to have him write to me instead. I will write to him to-morrow, but I haven't anything to say, I have told you everything. O, Linnet, how happy I shall be when your school days are over. Miss Prudence shall have the next letter; I have something to ask her, as usual.
"The end of my story in three volumes isn't very startling. But this snow-storm is. If we hadn't everything under cover we would have to do without some things.
"Yours,