“But we must pay the penalty, Amy,” said the other.  “There is a price set upon every sin; and mine is so vast, so enormous—­”

She paused a moment, as if overwhelmed by the contemplation of it; then, in the same tone, she continued:  “You, Amy, can not even conceive how dreadful it is.  You know what it is, but not how bad it is.”

She was silent again, and her soul appeared to wrap itself in denser gloom.  The air of the room seemed to Amy stifling.  The next moment she felt as if she were pierced with sharp spears of ice.  She sprang up: 

“I shall smother!” said she; and opened the window.

“Aunt Martha, I begin to feel that this is really wicked!  If you only knew Lawrence Newt—­”

The older woman raised one thin finger, without lifting the hand from her lap.  Implacable darkness seemed to Amy to be settling upon her too.

“At least, aunt, let me have you moved to some less horrid place.”

“Foulness and filth are too sweet and fair for me,” said the dark woman; “and I have been too long idle already.”

She lifted the work and began to sew.  Amy’s heart ached as she looked at her, with sympathy for her suffering and a sense of inability to help her.

There came a violent knock at the door.

“Who’s there?” asked Aunt Martha, calmly.

“Come, come; open this door, and let’s see what’s going on!” cried a loud, coarse voice.

“Who is it?”

“Who is it?  Why, it’s me—­Joseph!” replied the voice.

Aunt Martha rose and unlocked the door.  A man whose face was like his voice bustled noisily into the room, with a cigar in his mouth and his hat on.

“Come, come; where’s that work?  Time’s up!  Quick, quick!  No time, no pay!”

“It is not quite done, Mr. Joseph.”

The man stared at Aunt Martha for a moment; then laughed in a jeering way.

“Old lady Black, when you undertake to do a piece of work what d’ye mean by not having it done?  Damn it, there’s a little too much of the lady about you!  Show me that work!” and he seated himself.

The woman brought the basket to him, in the bottom of which were several pieces completed and carefully folded.  The man turned them over rapidly.

“And why, in the devil’s name, haven’t you done the rest?  Give ’em here!”

He took the whole, finished and unfinished, and, bundling them up, made for the door.  “No time, no pay, old lady; that’s the rule.  That’s the only way to work such infernally jimmy old bodies as you!”

The sewing woman remained perfectly passive as Mr. Joseph was passing out; but Amy sprang forward from the window: 

“Stop, Sir!” said she, firmly.  The man involuntarily turned, and such was his overwhelming surprise at seeing a lady suddenly standing before him, and a lady who spoke with perfect authority, that, with the instinct of obsequiousness instinctive in every man who depends upon the favor of customers, he took off his hat.