With no food in the house, or money to buy medicine for her sick child, she was compelled to seek me to-night, and to humble her spirit, which is an independent one, so low as to ask bread for her little ones, and the loan of a pittance with which to get what the doctor has ordered for her feeble sufferer at home.' "'Oh, what a shame!' fell from the lips of her in whom my heart felt more than a passing interest; and she looked at me earnestly as she spoke.
"'She fully expected,' said the mother, 'to get a trifle that was due her from a young man who boards with Mrs.Corwin; and she went to see him this evening.

But he put her off with some excuse.

How strange that any one should be so thoughtless as to withhold from the poor their hard-earned pittance! It is but a small sum, at best, that the toiling seamstress or washerwoman can gain by her wearying labor.

That, at least, should be promptly paid.

To withhold it an hour is to do, in many cases, a great wrong.' "For some minutes after this was said, there ensued a dead silence.
I felt that the thoughts of all were turned upon me as the one who had withheld from poor Mrs.Blake the trifling sum due her for washing.