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I silently prayed that death should come to the suffering Mrs. Hays, and relieve her from further torment. But she did not die, for her time had not yet come. Neither did I die, for my time had not yet come.

After Lizzy had beaten, and pulled her hair, and kicked her, to her perfect satisfaction, she dragged her across the hall, into an empty room, and after telling her that "she shouldn't have any supper," left her entirely naked, locked up alone.

Mrs. Hays made no reply; she seemed evidently much weakened; I had no idea that she could live till morning, for I did not then know how far the endurance of human suffer-ing could be carried.

I said nothing to any one. A. heavy cloud like the gloom of a funeral in a stormy day was upon my spirit. I felt as the power of human language had left me, and I quietly glided back to my screen-room.

I saw at supper time while passing her door on my way to the dining hall, that two other very insane women had now been locked up with Mrs. Hays. Their door was only half a door, the upper part being an open iron frame like a window frame, so that one on passing, could see all within. Indeed this was just like my own door at this time, so that I had no protection, not even that of a whole door to defend me from the horrid sounds, sights and smells of this truly purgatorial abode.

"But why are these three dangerous women locked up to-gether?" was my query.

I believe it was done so that in case the black spots which the blows of Lizzy had made upon the face of her victim should not disappear in comfortable season, their infliction might be ascribed to the two fierce patients locked up there with her!

I went to my supper table sadder than I had ever felt. The terrible sights I had seen, followed my vision and de-stroyed my appetite.

I managed to steal a biscuit from the table, intending to slip it through her bars to the suffering Mrs. Hays, as I passed her door on returning to my own room; but Lizzy, who I believed suspected something of the kind, followed me closely, drove me into my room, and locked my door for the night.

My health had now become extremely enfeebled; I could not sleep except when utterly prostrate from long wakefulness; nature could hold out no longer.

It was my practice to stuff cotton into my ears to deaden the sounds of the terrible shrieks which came from all direc-tions. But the cotton had not power to solace even one brief hour, for the dreadful sounds would find avenues to my ears. I thought I must either become insane from the long pressure upon my brain, caused by these influences, or must die of brain fever, so terrible was the pain in my head.

As a last resort, in my persistent endeavors to counteract these influences, and thus protect my sanity, I used to rise in the night, from my recumbent position, and sit up with these large wads of cotton bound tightly about my ears, at the same time vigorously pressing my head and face downwards to divert the blood from the cerebral veins. I had already begun to experience symptoms of congestion of the brain.

One night while much distressed by such apprehensions, an unusual lassitude crept over me, and ere I was aware, was actually lost in the sweet unconsciousness of slumber.

I was not in heaven, though, in this enviable hour of rest, I dreamed I was there, but in the midst of my rapture over the thought that such a lingering death as I had been suffer-ing, was now indeed "swallowed up in victory," lo! a fierce and rapid succession of far other sounds than "the songs of the redeemed," convinced my reluctantly waking eyes that I was not yet, as I had hoped, "on the other side of Jordan!"

"Oh God! Oh God! let my tormentors be swallowed up forever in the lake of fire and brimstone!"

Shouted with terrific loudness, a young sufferer of about twenty years of age. Her room was but a few feet from my own. She continued with vociferations of this character, as long as she had breath.

Before this song was ended, it had awakened and excited another patient opposite, who, angry to have her temporary sleep thus disturbed, screamed out:

"Yes, I mean to send McFarland's soul to hell! There it shall be roasted and burned for thousands, millions, millions, trillions, trillion years!"

This, too, was many times repeated, as she emphasized and prolonged the first syllable, "M-i-1-l-ions -- M-i-l-l-ions!"

Thus this aged woman and the young girl, the fiercest in the hall, tortured my brain, and in the same way almost every night of my stay in this ward; till in my iron determination not to become myself insane, I actually discovered a method of effectually fighting against Dr. McFarland's seeming decree that my sanity should become annihilated!

I relate it for the benefit of any readers who may possibly be placed in similar circumstances.

Finding that sleep was out of the question, with such a jar-gon about my head, I resolved to neutralize the effect of such sounds by reversing the current of their ideas; by calling to my aid with a violent effort of will, opposite ideas. Sitting up, erect in my bed, with as loud a voice as I could possibly com-mand, to help to drown these opposite voices, I repeated passages of the most beautiful and attractive poetry I had ever learned in former years.