As soon as Ellen could regain sufficient composure of mind, she went forth in search of work at other shops.  To one of her peculiar, timid, and shrinking disposition this was a severe trial.  But there was no passing it by.  Three days elapsed, during which every effort to get work proved unsuccessful.  Even the clothing stores had nothing to give out to extra hands.

Reduced to their last penny, Ellen was almost in despair, when she called upon Mr. Lawson.  The garment he gave her to make seemed to her like help sent from heaven.  Cheerfully did she work upon it until a late hour at night, and she was ready to resume her labour with the rising sun.  But, as Mary had feared, the work did not progress altogether to her satisfaction.  She had never made over one or two white Marseilles vests, and found that she was not so well skilled in the art of neat and accurate stitching as was required to give the garment a beautiful and workmanlike appearance.  The stitches did not impress themselves along the edges with the accuracy that her eye told her was required, and she was troubled to find that, be as careful as she would, the pure white fabric grew soiled beneath her fingers.  Mary, to whom she frequently submitted the work, tried to encourage her; but her eyes were not deceived.

It was after dark when Ellen finished the garment.  She was weary and faint; for she had taken no food since morning, and had been bending over her work, with very little intermission, the whole day; and she had no hope of receiving any thing more to do, for Mr. Lawson, she was sure, would not be pleased with the way the vest was made.  But, want of every thing, and particularly food for herself and sister, made the sum of seventy-five cents, to be received for the garment, a little treasure in her eyes; and she hurried off with the vest the moment it was finished.

“I will bring home a little tea, sister,” she said, as she was about leaving; “I am sure a cup of tea will do you good; and I feel as if it would revive and strengthen me.”

Mary looked at Ellen with a tender, pitying expression, while her large bright eyes shone glassy in the dim rays sent forth by a poor lamp; but she did not reply.  She had a gnawing in her stomach, that made her feel faint, and a most earnest craving for nourishing and even stimulating food, the consequence of long abstinence as well as from the peculiarity of her disease.  But she did not breathe a word of this to Ellen, who would, she knew, expend for her every cent of the money she was about to receive, if she was aware of the morbid appetite from which she was suffering.

“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.