When Paul entered the shop, there were
three customers ahead of him. One was a young woman, whose pale
face and sunken cheeks showed that she was waging an unequal
conflict with disease. She was a seamstress by occupation, and
had to work fifteen hours a day to earn the little that was
barely sufficient to keep body and soul together. Confined in
her close little room on the fourth floor, she scarcely dared to
snatch time to look out of the window into the street beneath,
lest she should not be able to complete her allotted task. A two
days' sickness had compelled her to have recourse to Eliakim
Henderson. She had under her arm a small bundle covered with an
old copy of the Sun.
"What have you got there?" asked the old man, roughly. "Show it
quick, for there's others waiting."
Meekly she unfolded a small shawl, somewhat faded from long use.
"What will you give me on that?" she asked, timidly.
"It isn't worth much."
"It cost five dollars."
"Then you got cheated. It never was worth half the money. What
do you want on it?"
The seamstress intended to ask a dollar and a half, but after
this depreciation she did not venture to name so high a figure.
"A dollar and a quarter," she said.
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