essly on Sally's neck.

A little while Miss Wimple, still and thoughtful, held her so, that
her soul's bitterness might pour itself out in wholesome tears; then
she gently stroked the tangled brown hair, and said,--"Sit close
beside me now, and lean upon my bosom, and tell me all,--where you
have been, and how you have fared, and what you would have me do."

With a brave effort, Madeline controlled herself, and replied, firmly,
though with averted face,

"You remember, dear Miss Wimple, our last interview. I insulted you
then."

Miss Wimple made no sign. Madeline blushed,--brow, neck, and bosom,
--crimson.

"And then I told you that I believed in you as I believed in little
else, in this world or the next; and I said, that, if in my hour of
shame and outcasting, I could implore the help of any human being, I
would come to you before all others. I have come. You thought me
raving then, and pitied me, because you did not understand.
Presently you will understand, and you will still pity me,--but with
a difference.

"I fled away that very night, you recollect,--fled from my
self-contempt, from the sickening scorn I felt for them,--for
_him_."

There was agony in the effort with which she uttered that last word.
She named no names, but, with a sort of desperation, raised her head
and looked Miss Wimple in the face; in the quick, sensitive glances
they interchanged at that moment the omission was supplied.

"Though my flight was premeditated, I took with me no clothes save
those I wore; but I had concealed on my person every jewel and
trinket I possessed. With these,--for I readily converted them into
money,--I purchased a safe asylum in an obscure but decent family,
whose poverty did not afford them the indulgence of a scrupulous
fastidiousness or impertinent curiosity; it was enough for their
straitened conscience that I had the manners and the purse of a lady,
--they asked no questions which might cost them a profitable boarder,
the only one they could accommodate in their poor way. I had no fear
that any hue-and-cry would be raised for me; I had left behind me
two who would prevent that,--in that, my worst foes were my best
friends. If I had any relatives who cared for me enough to pursue me,
I rejoiced in at least one sister on whose cunning, if not good sense,
I could rely, to convince them of the futility of such efforts,--one
_friend_ whose fears would be ingenious and busy to put the
best-laid chase at f