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“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.”