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 old gentleman, who was a fellow member of
the church, "we should not blame, with too much severity, the person
who, in extreme want, undertakes to perform work for which he does not
possess the requisite skill. The fact that a young girl, like the one
who was just here, is willing, in her extreme poverty, to labour,
instead of sinking into vice and idleness, shows her to possess both
virtue and integrity of character, and these we should be willing to
encourage, even at some sacrifice. Work is slack now, as you are aware,
and there is but little doubt that she had been to many places seeking
employment before she came to you. It may be--and this is a very
probable suggestion--that she did not come to you for work until she,
and those who may be dependent upon the meagre returns of her labour,
were reduced to the utmost extremity. And, it may be, that even their
next meal was dependent upon the receipt of the money that was expected
to be paid for making the vest you hold in your hand. The expression of
her face as she turned away, and her slow, lingering step and drooping
form, as she left the shop, had in them a language which told me of all
this, and even more."

A great change came over the tailor's countenance.

"I didn't think of that," fell in a low tone from his lips.

"I didn't suppose you did, brother Lawson," said his monitor. "We are
all more apt to think of ourselves than of others. The girl promised
you the vest this evening?"

"Yes."

"And, so far as that was concerned, performed her contract. Is the vest
made so very badly?"

Mr. Lawson took up the garment, and examined it more carefully.

"Well, I can't say that the work is so very badly done. But it is
dreadfully soiled and rumpled, and is not as neat a job as it should
be, nor at all such as I wished it. The customer for whom it is