popped the mixture into our mouths
before it should have a chance to freeze _en route_, and went promptly
to bed. I draw a veil over that night. I drew everything else I could
find over me in the course of it. A sadder and a wiser and a chillier
woman I rose the morrow morn. Another member of the staff, who had
slept in an adjoining house, froze his toe in bed.

When we reached home, and I left the komatik at the hospital door, I
made out 'Senath dancing in an agitatedly aimless fashion on our
platform. She was also waving her arms about. For a moment it crossed
my mind that she had lost her modicum of wits, but as she was
immediately joined by Tryphena, I gave up the theory as untenable, and
continued to hasten up the hill to the Home. Our boiler had sprung,
not one but many leaks, and the precious hot water destined for the
cleansing of forty was flooding the already spotless kitchen floor. As
it is the middle of the week I had not suspected this calamity, Sunday
being the invariable day selected for all burst pipes, special rat
banquets, broken noses, toothaches, skinned shins, and such
misadventures. The problem now presenting itself for prompt solution
is: 20 deg. below zero, a gale blowing from the northwest, twoscore small,
unwashed orphans, and a burst boiler!

[Illustration: HE FROZE HIS TOE IN BED]

_January 21_

The oldest inhabitants, and all the others as well, claim that this is
the most remarkable winter in thirty years. Not that one is deceived.
I suspect them rather of making excuses for the consistently
disconcerting climate of Britain's oldest colony.

All the same, literally the worst storm I ever experienced has been in
progress for the last two days. It began in the morning by the falling
of a few innocent flakes. Then the north wind decided to take a hand.
All night and all day and all night again it shrieked around the
house, driving incredible quantities of snow before it. Half an hour
after it began, you could not see two yards in front of your face. The
man who attends to the hospital heating-plant had to crawl on his
hands and knees in order to reach his destination, taking exactly one
hour to make the distance of two hundred yards.

At this institution it is the time-honoured custom to rise at
five-thirty each morning, which custom, although doubtless good for
our immortal souls, is distinctly trying to our too painfully mortal
flesh. Added to which, in spite of all our ef