The certainty of employment, even at moderate wages, relieved my mind of many domestic cares, while the employment itself was a further relief. It was, moreover, infinitely more agreeable than working for the slop-shops, or even for the most fashionable tailors. Our duties were defined and simple, and there was no unreasonable hurry, and no night-work: we had our evenings to ourselves. As usual with sewing-women, the pay was invariably small. The old formula had been adhered to,--that because the cost of a sewing-woman's board was but trifling, therefore her wages should be graduated to a figure just above it. She was not permitted, as men are, to earn too much. My sister and I were sometimes able to earn eight dollars a week between us, sometimes only six. But this little income was the stay of the family. And it was well enough, so long as we had no sickness to interrupt our work and lessen the moderate sum. They paid off the girls by gas-light on Saturday evening. As we had a long walk to reach home, the streets through which we passed presented, on that evening, an animated appearance. A vast concourse of work-women, laborers, mechanics, clerks, and others, who had also received their weekly wages, thronged the streets. There were crowds of girls from the binderies, mostly well dressed, and sewing-women carrying great bundles to the tailors, many of them, without doubt uncertain as to whether their work would be accepted, just as we had been in former days. As the evening advanced, the shops of all descriptions for the supply of family-stores were crowded by the wives of workmen thus paid off, and the sewing-girls or their mothers, all purchasing necessaries for the coming week, thus immediately disbursing the vast aggregate paid out on Saturday for wages.