He tossed a vest toward my mother, who took it up, and examined it. One end of it hung down low enough for me to catch, and I also undertook the business of inspection. I scanned it closely, and was a sufficient judge of sewing to see that it was made up with a stitch as neat and regular as that of my mother. She must have thought so, too; for, on returning it to the man, she said to him,-- "The work is equal to anything of _mine_." Hearing a new voice, he then discovered, that, instead of tossing the vest to the poor widow, he had inadvertently thrown it to my mother. Then, addressing the former, he said, in the same sharp tone,-- "Can't pay but half price for this kind of work; don't want any more like it. There's your money; do you want more work?" He threw down the silver on the counter. The whole price, or even double, would have been a mere pittance, the widow's mite indeed; but here was robbery of even that. What, in such a case, was this poor creature to do? She had six young and helpless children at home,--no husband to defend her,--no friend to stand between her and the man who thus robbed her. A resort to law were futile. What had she wherewith to pay either lawyer or magistrate? and was not continued employment a necessity? All these thoughts must have flashed across her mind. But in the terrible silence which she kept for some minutes, still standing at the counter, how many others must have succeeded them! What happy images of former comfort came knocking at her heart! what an agonizing sense of present destitution! what a contrast between the brightness of the one and the gloom of the other! and then the cries of hungry children ringing importunately in her ears! I noticed her all the time, and, child that I was, did so merely because she stood still and made no reply,--utterly unconscious that emotions of any kind were racking her grief-smitten heart. I felt no such emotions myself,--how should I suppose that they had even an existence? She made no answer to the man who had thus wantonly outraged her, but, turning to my mother, looked up into her face as if for pity and advice. Were they not equally helpless victims on the altar of a like domestic necessity, and should not common trials knit them together in the bonds of a common sympathy? A new sadness came over her yet beautiful countenance; but no tear gushed gratefully to relieve her swelling heart. She took up the money,--I saw that her hand was trembling,--placed it in her purse, lifted from the counter a bundle containing a second dozen of vests, and, bidding my mother a graceful farewell, left the scene of this cruel imposition on one utterly powerless either to prevent it or to obtain redress. I have never forgotten the incident.