in her
bosom. As this gradually subsided, she applied herself with patient
assiduity to her task, which was not finished before twelve o'clock
that night, when she laid herself down with little Emma in her arms,
and soon lost all care and trouble in profound sleep.

Hasty pudding and molasses composed the morning meal for all. After
breakfast, Mrs. Gaston took the two jackets, which had been out now
five days to the shop.

"Why, bless me, Mrs. Gaston, I thought you had run off with them
jackets!" was Michael's coarse salutation as she came in. The poor,
heart-oppressed seamstress could not trust herself to reply, but
laid her work upon the counter in silence. Berlaps, seeing her, came
forward.

"These kind of doings will never answer, madam!" he said angrily. "I
could have sold both jackets ten times over, if they'd been here
three days ago, as by rights they ought to have been. I can't give
you work, if you are not, more punctual. You needn't think to get
along at our tack, unless you plug it in a little faster than all
this comes to."

"I'll try and do better after this," said Mrs. Gaston, faintly.

"You'll have to, let me tell you, or we'll cry 'quits.' All my women
must have nimble fingers."

"These jackets are not much to brag of," broke in Michael, as he
tossed them aside. "I think we had better not trust her with any
more cloth roundabouts. She has botched the button-holes awfully;
and the jackets are not more than half pressed. Just look how she
has held on the back seam of this one, and drawn the edges of the
lappels until they set seven ways for Sunday! They're murdered
outright, and ought to be hung, with a basin under them to catch the
blood."

"What was she to have for them?" asked Berlaps.

"Thirty cents a-piece, I believe," replied the salesman.

"Don't give her but a quarter, then. I'm not going to pay full price
to have my work botched up after that style!" And, so saying,
Berlaps turned away and walked back to his desk.

Lizzy Glenn, as she had called herself, entered at the moments and
heard the remark of the tailor. She glided noiselessly by Mrs.
Gaston, and stood further down the store, with both her body and
face turned partly from her, where she waited patiently for the
interview between her and Michael to terminate.

The poor, heart-crushed creature did not offer the slightest
remonstrance to this act of cruel oppression, but took the half
dollar thrown her by Michael for the two