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Chapter Eighteen

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Thursday, 12 August, 1869

Of the high temperatures endured during the past few weeks, today seemed to be the hottest yet. Ellen, bored and slightly nauseous, lay on her cot. Her skin, a mass of red marks from her rough shift and continual itching, caused her intense discomfort.

Harriet, on the other bed, lay curled toward the window. A couple of the small panes in each window of the asylum could be opened but by only a few inches. As an unfortunate consequence, the cramped dormitories and rooms were stifling and smellier than rotting fish at Billingsgate.

Hardly any staff had shown up this morning, so straw plaiting had been cancelled for the day. Mrs. Craven, cranky to the extreme, had told them to stay in their room.

Their door was open in the vain hope of some circulating air, but the stench from the crowded halls far from any windows, almost overpowered the instinctive impulse to draw breath. Ellen stared at the ceiling. For what must have been the hundredth t
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