small torrent of triumph, what a tremendous fellow of a skimped
delaine it was,--how cheap, and how _dear_ it was,--what remarkable
powers of endurance it had displayed, and with what force and
versatility of character it had adapted itself to every new
alteration or trimming,--and how she was so used to its ways, and
it to hers, that she was almost ready to believe it could "get on
her by itself,"--and how she felt sure it was expressly
manufactured to do good in the world,--until she had so glorified
the lowly skimped delaine, that Madeline began to feel in it like a
queen, whose benignant star has forever exalted her above the vulgar
sensation of having Nothing to Wear.

Now Madeline was quite ready to depart on her pilgrimage of penitence.
But almost at the parting hour a circumstance occurred which
grievously alarmed Miss Wimple, and so roused the devil whereof
Madeline had been but just now possessed, that it stirred within her.

CHAPTER V.

The "nest" looked out upon the street by two front windows, that were
immediately over the sign of the Hendrik Athenaeum and Circulating
Library. There was also a small side-window, affording a view of a
bit of yard, quite private, and pleasant in its season, with an oval
patch of grass, some hollyhocks, a grape-vine trained over a pretty
structure of lattice to form a sort of summer-house, and a martin-box,
in a decidedly original church-pattern, mounted on a tall, white pole.
Of course the scene was cheerless and unsightly now; lumpy brown
patches of earth showed through the unequally melting snow, where the
grass-plot should have been; a few naked and ugly sticks were all
the promise of the hollyhocks' yellow glory; the bare grape-vine
showed on the dingy lattice like a tangled mesh of weather-stained
ropes; and "there were no birds in last year's nest" to make the
martin-box look social.

This little window was Madeline's chosen seat; and hither she brought,
sometimes a book, but more frequently a portion of Miss Wimple's
work from the millinery department, and wholesomely employed her mind,
skilfully her fingers. Here she could look out upon the earth and sky,
and enjoy, unspied, the sympathy of their desolation,--never daring
to think of all the maddening memories that lay under the front
windows: those she had never once approached, never even turned her
eyes towards; Miss Wimple had observed that.

But on the day of the installation of the basque and the floun