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Show WATCHING FROM HER WINDOW. She was the shabbiest little female I ever saw. Iler brown and gray gown, shaded almost perfectly to bide dirt, bad seemingly lost its faculty and called attention the louder to its accumulated soil. I truly believe that the little midget had rolled ovr and over on the ground, scratching up whole handsfuU ejf. dust and casting it over herself iu mere wantonness wan-tonness of shabhiness. Maybe, it was Lent when I saw her, it was a Hitting on of sackcloth and ashes, a penance pen-ance foi her misdeeds, only she was a female. fe-male. 1 know that she was very dirty, dirty with that expressive drab dirtiness which, in seeing, see-ing, suggests that there is more thau appears ap-pears on file surface. Did I say she was a midget? Well, she is, and a matron, too ; and the queerest little midget and the quaintest little matron in the world. Of course, she's queer, you know; her ancestors came from England. Everybody knows her as a gossipy, o'er talkative little dame, who is on the street from early morn 'til dewy eve, chattering perpetually, until night throws its cloak upon the earth. She is quarrelsome, too. She is a belligerent little midget, but no oue ever questions her courage. In the neighborhood where she lives she reigns supreme. She has ecoldedaud fought away all her former neighbors, driven them' far away Into other climos. Everybody misses her former neighbors, too. Ttrny were a sweet, confiding little set of folk, attending at-tending to their own business and unconsciously uncon-sciously gladdening many a heavy heart with songs so sweet ami simple that they seemed the very voice of nature. But this drab and gray little midget with her querulous voice, her tierce eyes, her pertinacious proclivities, has drivein them all away into the misty realms where we look iu vain for our lost treasures, our half forgotten deeds, wiiere wo stretch out our hands so piteously to the dead hopes of youth. Yes, the former neighbors of the little brown midget are mere memories of things that have vanished, that come to us with a pleasing sort of cadence as we watch the tyrannical little usurper performing the functions of its predecessors with none, of their graces, nor none of their sweetness. Boisterous March had spent nineteen days of its roaring, useless protest against the lapse of winter. The wiud was soughing around the eves of the house, mourning as if its heart were breaking, and carrying a feeling of desolation aud misery to all In. bound. The dry leaves drifted hither and thither, lifted by the mad March wind with a dead e, aekling soundto bade move on and join the dead winter, aud, under protect, muke room for spring. The dreary clouds hung high and obscured the pretty sunlight; the air was humid jialniost to mistiness; a pall seemed to hang over everything, and March roared out its dirges for winter's death. From the verandah outside the parlor window I heard the voice of the queralous little usurper and her mate. I peered out. There they stood upon the rail. Erect, quivering with fierce emotion, little mouths wide open, a torrent of violent joint abuse set in a high key pouring from their Tittle throats. "Ah, midgets, midgets," I said, "is this the welcome you give to spring V Your predecessors pre-decessors were wont to split their throats with pretty soinr." "Chir rup," cried the mate as he flew to the ground, where his tierce brown eye had spied a crumb. "Chirp! Chirp!" he cried, but Midget with the soiled brown coat was not to be appeased. The winter was over, living was easy, for down where the March win4 had lifted tho dead leaves bidding them speed to nowhere she could see the first tiny shoots of gra s just I fting their wee heads, and this meant bug-galore bug-galore for the mere picking, and a whole crop of good things handily in store. She had, alas! already forgotten that her lord, tlie mighty midget with the white throat, had tided her through a hard season. Spring was at hand, and gratitude had flown with winter. But the midget down below knew his mate. He strode over to where a strong but dainty w isp of i.'iass root lay entangled in a weed. He picked it loose. Then with a tongue that had lost its querulousness, he spoke in a tone subdued aud sweet, I think of Hope. From out her coat of sober brown the midget shook the dust and lightly landed at her lordly master's feet. He watched her gently band her head and take the wisp of grass between her bill. Up to the first, limb of the tall tree iu the yard she tlew and added this little "olive i branch ' lo a summer home already begun. The sun broke through tLt clouds and shed its warmth and light upon everything around. The wind cca-ed to roar. From out the concave depths of the newly made nest the dowdy little midget put forth her cunning head, and in the softest notes of her voice piped down to her mate. The family i jar was at. an end, the discord was over, and Spring had come. He warbled a guttural long for half a moment, pruned his feathers 'til they shone, atid flew straight to where one liny nest held close two beating hearts. RSOIIABD VVei.i.s. |