Madeline had become quite another Madeline,--say a Magdalen, rather, --under the gentle discipline of her admirable angel. Her wonted distraction had subsided into a pensive sadness, which manifested itself in many a grateful, graceful tenderness toward that glorifier of the skimped delaine. She had observed the Hoop at once, and greeted it with a solitary smile, accepting it for a happy sign and a token; for she had recognized Simon Blount when she turned into the shop, that night, out of the darkness and the cold, and, with the alert intelligence of a woman, even so self-absorbed as she was then, had construed his gallant "good-night." She thought she understood Miss Wimple's Hoop, because she had not discovered the poetry in Miss Wimple's quilted petticoat. They had not spoken of those things again. Delicacy was the law for those two; and to do their best, and thankfully, bravely, accept the first deliverance Heaven might send them, was their religion. Like two Micawbers of Faith, Hope, and Charity, they waited for something to "turn up." Miss Wimple invested a daily three-cent piece in a New York paper, and diligently conned the "Wants" before the Marriages and Deaths, --extraordinary woman! An "opening" had but to show itself, and Miss Wimple was ready to fling her character into the breach for the benefit of her Magdalen. Strong-minded woman! At last it came. A gentleman who had recently lost his wife wanted a house-keeper and governess for his two little girls,--the offices to be united in the person of "a lady by birth, education, and associations"; to such a liberal salary would be given; and in case she should be in straitened circumstances, a reasonable advance would be made, "to enable the lady to assume at once the position of a respected member of his family." The very place! Now what did that dashing Miss Wimple-Quixote--of such is the Kingdom of Heaven!--but sit down and pour her enormous little heart out in a letter to a person she had never seen or heard of,--telling him everything but names and localities, and appealing, with an inspiration, to his divine spark. There is no doubt that, "for that occasion only," Providence sent an advertiser to the "Tribune" to justify the large faith of Pity in skimped delaine; for the word of Hope and Love that Miss Wimple let fall, unstudied, from the heart, fell upon a genial mind, and lo!-- "It raised a sister from the dust, It saved a soul from death!"