ation well; it told her that
she had been disappointed in the expectation of receiving the money for
her work.

Deep silence followed. Mary clasped her hands together and raised her
eyes upward, while Ellen lay motionless with her face hidden where she
had first concealed it. There was a knock at the door, but no voice
bade the applicant for admission enter. It was repeated; but, if heard,
it met no response. Then the latch was lifted, the door swung open, and
the tailor stepped into the room. The sound of his feet aroused the
passive sisters. The white face of Mary was to him, at first, a
startling image of death; but her large bright eyes opened and turned
upon him with an assurance that life still lingered in its earthly
tenement.

"Ellen, Ellen," said the sick girl, faintly.

Ellen, too, had heard the sound of footsteps on the floor, and she now
raised up slowly, and presented to Lawson her sad, tearful countenance.

"I was wrong to speak to you as I did," said the tailor without
preface, advancing towards the bed and holding out to Ellen the money
she had earned. "There is the price of the vest; it is better made than
I at first thought it was. To-morrow I will send you more work. Try and
cheer up. Are you so very poor?"

The last two sentences were uttered in a voice of encouragement and
sympathy. Ellen looked her thankfulness, but did not venture a reply.
Her heart was too full to trust her lips with utterance.

Feeling that his presence, under all circumstances, could not but be
embarrassing, Mr. Lawson, after taking two or three dollars from his
pocket and placing them on the table with the remark--"Take this in
advance for work," retired and left the poor sisters in a different
frame of mind from what they were in when he entered. Shortly after
they received a basket, in which was a supply of nourishing food.
Though no one's name was sent with it, they were not in doubt as to
whence it came.

Mr. Lawson was not an unfeeling man, but, like too many others in the
world, he did not always "think."

TAKING BOARDERS.

CHAPTER I.

A LADY, past the prime of life, sat thoughtful, as twilight fell
duskily around her, in a room furnished with great elegance. That her
thoughts were far from being pleasant, the sober, even sad expression
of her countenance too clearly testified. She was dressed in deep
mourning. A faint sigh parted her lips as she looked up, on hearing the
door of the apartment in wh