t my
poor young friend was dying! Some one, at the very hour when I was in
the shop of the unfeeling tailor, excusing the delinquency of his sick
sewing-girl, had incautiously gone up into her chamber with the morning
paper, and, in the absence of her mother, had read to the unfortunate
girl the terrible proclamation of her shame. The effect was immediate
and violent. The fever on her brain came back with renewed intensity,
and absolute madness supervened. All day she raved with agonizing
incoherency, no medical skill availing to mitigate the violence of the
attack. As evening came on, it brought exhaustion of strength, with
indications of speedy dissolution. When I reached the bedside, the poor
body lay calm and still; but the yet unconquered mind was breaking forth
in occasional flashes of consciousness. Suddenly starting up and looking
round the group at her bedside, she exclaimed,--

"A thief, mother! I am not a thief!"

Oh, this death-bed--the first that I had ever seen--was awful! But my
nervous organization enabled me to witness it without trepidation or
alarm. Love, sympathy, regret, and indignation were the only emotions
that took possession of my heart. I even held in my own the now almost
pulseless hand of this poor victim of a brutal persecution, and felt the
lessening current of her innocent life become weaker and weaker. For
three long hours--long indeed to me, but far longer to her--we watched
and prayed. Suddenly the restlessness of immediate dissolution came over
her. Turning to her mother, she again exclaimed, as if perfectly
conscious,--

"Dear mother, tell them I was not a thief!"

Oh, it was grievous unto heart-breaking to see and hear all this! But it
was the last effort, the last word, the closing scene. I felt the
pulsation stop short; I looked into her face; I saw that respiration had
ceased; I saw the lustre of the living eye suddenly disappear: her
gentle spirit had burst the shackles which detained it here, and winged
its flight, we humbly trusted, to a mansion of eternal rest.

Not until then did a single tear come to relieve me. We sat by the poor
girl's bedside in weeping silence. No heavier heart went to its pillow
that night than mine.

I have related this incident as an illustration of the hazards to which
needle-women are exposed when dealing with the more unprincipled
employers. I will not say that tragedies of this character are of
frequent occurrence,--or that the provocation