CHAPTER II.
HOW A NEEDLEWOMAN LIVES.
IT was about ten o'clock on the next morning, when Mrs.Gaston appeared at the shop of Berlaps, the tailor.
"Here is the other pair," she said, as she came up to the counter, behind which stood Michael, the salesman.
That person took the pair of trowsers, glanced at them a moment, and then, tossing them aside, asked Mrs.Gaston if she could make some cloth roundabouts.
"At what price ?" was inquired.
"The usual price--thirty cents." "Thirty cents for cloth jackets! Indeed, Michael, that is too little.

You used to give thirty-seven and a half." "Can't afford to do it now, then.

Thirty cents is enough.

There are plenty of women glad to get them even at that price." "But it will take me a full day and a half to make a cloth jacket, Michael." "You work slow, that's the reason; a good sewer can easily make one in a day; and that's doing pretty well these times." "I don't know what you mean by pretty well, Michael," answered the seamstress.

"How do you think you could manage to support yourself and three children on less than thirty cents a day ?" "Haven't you put that oldest boy of yours out yet ?" asked Michael, instead of replying to the question of Mrs.Gaston.
"No, I have not." "Well, you do very wrong, let me tell you, to slave yourself and pinch your other children for him, when he might be earning his living just as well as not.