“You will have to take them, then, I suppose,” Mary replied, in a disappointed and desponding tone.

“Very well, Miss, I will give you what I said.”  And Mrs.—­took the capes, and handed Mary Graham four dollars in payment.

“If we should conclude to work any more, may we calculate on getting the same money for them?”

“I can’t say positively, Miss; but I think that you may calculate on that price for as many as you will bring.”

Mary took the money, and turned away.  It was only half an hour after, that Mrs.—­sold one of them, as “French,” for twelve dollars!

Sadly, indeed, were the sisters disappointed at this result.  But nothing better offering that they could do, they devoted themselves, late and early, to their needles, the proceeds of which rarely went over five dollars per week; for two years they continued to labour thus.

At the end of that period, Anna sunk under her self-imposed task, and lay ill for many weeks.  Especially forbidden by the physician, on her recovery, to enter again upon sedentary employments, Anna cast earnestly about her for some other means whereby to earn something for the common stock.  Necessity, during the past two years, had driven her frequently into business parts of the city for the purchase of materials such as they used.  Her changed lot gave her new eyes, and her observations were necessarily made upon a new class of facts.  She had seen shop-girls often enough before, but she had never felt any sympathy with them, nor thought of gaining any information about them.  They might receive one dollar a week, or twenty, or work for nothing—­it was all the same to her.  Even if any one had given her correct information on the subject, she would have forgotten it in ten minutes.  But now, it was a matter of interest to know how much they could make—­and she had obtained a knowledge of the fact, that they earned from three to six and seven dollars a week, according to their capacities or the responsibility of their stations.

When, therefore, her shattered health precluded her from longer plying her needle, much as she shrank from the publicity and exposure of the position, she resolutely set about endeavouring to obtain a situation as saleswoman in some retail dry-goods store.  One of the girls in Mrs.—­’s store, who knew all about her family, and deeply commiserated her condition, interested herself for her, and succeeded in getting her a situation, at four dollars a week, in Second-street.  To enter upon the employment that now awaited her, was indeed a severe trial; but she went resolutely forward, in the way that duty called.

The sudden change from a sedentary life to one of activity, where she had to be on her feet all day, tried her feeble strength severely.  It was with difficulty that she could sometimes keep up at all, and she went home frequently at night in a burning fever.  But she gradually acquired a kind of power of endurance, that kept her up.  She did not seem to suffer less, but had more strength, as it were, to bear up, and hold on with unflinching resolution.