,
that the gracefulness of her manner and the softness of her tones still
linger in my memory. Looking down to me, then less than ten years old,
and addressing my mother, she asked,--

"How many of them have you?"

"Only three, Ma'am," was the reply.

"I have six of them to struggle for," she said,--adding, after a
moment's pause, "and it is hard to be obliged to do it all."

I saw that she was dressed in newly made mourning. I knew what mourning
was,--but not then what it was to be a widow. My mother afterwards told
me she was such, and was therefore in black. Other conversation passed
between the two, during which I looked up into the widow's face with the
unreflecting intensity of childish interest. Her voice was so
remarkable, so kind, so gentle, so full of conciliation, that it won my
heart. There was a sadness in her face which struck me most forcibly and
painfully. There was an expression of care, of overwork, and great
privation. Yet, for all this, the lines of her countenance were
beautiful even in their painfulness.

While I thus stood gazing up into the widow's face, the shopkeeper came
forward from a distant window, by whose light he had been examining the
vests, threw them roughly down upon the counter in front of her, and
exclaimed in a sharp voice,--

"Can't pay for such work as this,--don't want it in the shop,--never had
the like of it,--look at that!"

He tossed a vest toward my mother, who took it up, and examined it. One
end of it hung down low enough for me to catch, and I also undertook the
business of inspection. I scanned it closely, and was a sufficient judge
of sewing to see that it was made up with a stitch as neat and regular
as that of my mother. She must have thought so, too; for, on returning
it to the man, she said to him,--

"The work is equal to anything of _mine_."

Hearing a new voice, he then discovered, that, instead of tossing the
vest to the poor widow, he had inadvertently thrown it to my mother.
Then, addressing the former, he said, in the same sharp tone,--

"Can't pay but half price for this kind of work; don't want any more
like it. There's your money; do you want more work?"

He threw down the silver on the counter. The whole price, or even
double, would have been a mere pittance, the widow's mite indeed; but
here was robbery of even that. What, in such a case, was this poor
creature to do? She had six young and helpless children at home,--no
husband to defend