Womans Trials | Page 9

you good; and I feel as if it would revive
and strengthen me."
Mary looked at Ellen with a tender, pitying expression, while her large
bright eyes shone glassy in the dim rays sent forth by a poor lamp; but

she did not reply. She had a gnawing in her stomach, that made her feel
faint, and a most earnest craving for nourishing and even stimulating
food, the consequence of long abstinence as well as from the
peculiarity of her disease. But she did not breathe a word of this to
Ellen, who would, she knew, expend for her every cent of the money
she was about to receive, if she was aware of the morbid appetite from
which she was suffering.
"I will be back soon," added Ellen, as she retired from the room.
Mary sighed deeply when alone. She raised her eyes upwards for a few
moments, then closing them and clasping her hands tightly together,
she lay with her white face turned towards the light, more the image of
death than of life.
"Here it is past eight o'clock, and that vest is not yet in," said Mr.
Lawson, in a fretful tone. "I had my doubts about the girl when I gave it
to her. But she looked so poor, and seemed so earnest about work, that
I was weak enough to intrust her with the garment. But I will take care,
another time, how I let my feeling get the better of my judgment."
Before the individual had time to reply, Ellen came in with the vest,
and laid it on the counter, at which the tailor was standing. She said
nothing, neither did the tailor make any remark; but the latter unfolded
the vest in the way that plainly showed him not to be in a very placid
frame of mind.
"Goodness!" he ejaculated, after glancing hurriedly at the garment.
The girl shrunk back from the counter, and looked frightened.
"Well, this is a pretty job for one to bring in!" said the tailor, in an
excited tone of voice. "A pretty job, indeed! It looks as if it had been
dragged through a duck puddle. And such work!"
He tossed the garment from him in angry contempt, and walked away
to the back part of the shop, leaving Ellen standing almost as still as a
statue.
"That vest was to have been home to-night," he said, as he threw
himself into a chair. "Of course, the customer will be disappointed and
angry, and I shall lose him. But I don't care half so much for that, as I
do for not being able to keep my word with him. It is too much!"
Ellen would have instantly retired, but the thought of her sick sister
forced her to remain. She felt that she could not go until she had
received the price of making the vest, for their money was all gone, and

they had no food in the house. She had lingered for a little while, when
the tailor called out to her, and said--
"You needn't stand there, Miss! thinking that I am going to pay you for
ruining the job. It's bad enough to lose my material, and customer into
the bargain. In justice you should be made to pay for the vest. But there
is no hope for that. So take yourself away as quickly as possible, and
never let me set eyes on you again."
Ellen did not reply, but turned away slowly, and, with her eyes upon
the floor and her form drooping, retired from the shop. After she had
gone, Mr. Lawson returned to the front part of the store, and taking up
the vest, brought it back to where an elderly man was sitting, and
holding it towards him, said, by way of apology for the part he had
taken in the little scene:
"That's a beautiful article for a gentleman to wear--isn't it?"
The man made no reply, and the tailor, after a pause, added--
"I refused to pay her, as a matter of principle. She knew she couldn't
make the garment when she took it away. She will be more careful how
she tries again to impose herself upon customer tailors as a good vest
maker."
"Perhaps," said the old gentleman, in a mild way, "necessity drove her
to you for work, and tempted her to undertake a job that required
greater skill than she possessed. She certainly looked very poor."
"It was because she appeared so poor and miserable that I was weak
enough to place the vest in her hands," replied Mr. Lawson, in a less
severe tone of voice. "But it was an imposition in her to ask for work
that she did not know how to make."
"Brother Lawson," said the