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432 MRS. L. N. MONMOUTH. admiration. Her wardrobe, at the time of her loss of fortune, contained but one suit in really good condition, and but one outer garment of any kind, a waterproof cloak much worn and defaced. But she possessed a palm-figured dressing-gown lined with purple flannel, the outside of which was soiled and torn, while the lining was still quite good. This she ripped to pieces, and, after washing and ironing the flannel, made a new gown from it which she trimmed with the palm-leaf figures cut from the sound parts of the other material, and placed in three bands round the skirt and sleeves. She then raveled out an old red undersleeve and edged each band with a narrow fluting made from the worsted thus obtained. " I took genuine comfort," she tells us, " in planning and piecing it out, day after day, with half-mittens on my cold hands, sitting close to a cold fire. I was more than a week about it, for owing to shortness of firewood my days were very short, and my lame hand was decrepit and painful. I recollected that when I had made this wrapper out of an abundance of nice new materials I had been quite impatient at having to sew on it for two days, and called in help to finish it off. People who saw it after it was remodeled said it was handsomer than when it was new, and it is certain I thought a good deal more of it." Even a Yankee woman might well be proud of such a triumph ; but it was by no means the greatest which this undaunted lady achieved. She had now two dresses, but an outside garment was necessary, since the waterproof was quite unpresentable. In an outer room of the house hung an old, rusty overcoat of her father. It had been there undisturbed for fifteen years, in company with a pair of big boots, partly through an affectionate liking of hers to see it around, partly as a wholesome suggestion