"Never one so small stop." The attic had the same story, and the white-faced, hollow-eyed woman who tried to smile as she spoke turned also from the waiting pile of jackets and drew one or two back to the sheet spread for them on the floor to which they had slipped. A table and two chairs, a small stove in which burned bare handful of coals, the two machines, at one of which a girl of twenty still sewed on, and in the corner a bed, on which lay another girl of the same age, but with the crimson spot on her cheeks and the shining eyes of advanced consumption. It had been one of the faces so often seen behind the counters of the great stores, delicate in features and coloring, with soft dark eyes and fair masses of hair loose on the pillow. "I try to keep her tidy," the mother said, "but she can't bear her hair up a minute, it's so heavy on her head, an' I've no time to 'tend to it but the minute I take in the morning. It's jackets now that I'm on. I thought maybe there'd be less risk in them than cloaks. Cloaks seem to give 'em so much chance to cheat. I wouldn't work at all at home, I'd be out doing by the day, for I had a good run of work, but there's Maggie, and I can't leave her, though God knows she gets little good of me but the knowing I'm here. I'll tell you what they did to me on cloaks. I work for S---- & Co., far down on Broadway, and they give out the most expensive kind of cloaks, and nine dollars a dozen for the making; other kinds, too, but I'd been on them a good while and knew just how. The pay was regular, but before I'd had work from them a month I saw they were bound to make complaints and dock pay whether there was any fault in the work or not. One and another took their turn, and no help for it; for if they complained the foreman just said: 'You needn't take any work unless you like. There are plenty waiting to fill your place.' Poor souls! What could they do but go on?