OR, THE TRIALS OF A SEAMSTRESS.

CHAPTER I.

LIZZY GLENN--MRS. GASTON AND HER SICK CHILD.





NEEDLE-WORK, at best, yields but a small return. Yet how many
thousands have no other resource in life, no other barrier thrown up
between them and starvation! The manly stay upon which a woman has
leaned suddenly fails, and she finds self-support an imperative
necessity; yet she has no skill, no strength, no developed
resources. In all probability she is a mother. In this case she must
not only stand alone, but sustain her helpless children. Since her
earliest recollection, others have ministered to her wants and
pleasures. From a father's hand, childhood and youth received their
countless natural blessings; and brother or husband, in later years,
has stood between her and the rough winds of a stormy world. All at
once, like a bird reared, from a fledgling, in its cage, and then
turned (sic) lose in dreary winter time, she finds herself in the
world, unskilled in its ways, yet required to earn her bread or
perish.

What can she do? In what art or profession has she been educated?
The world demands service, and proffers its money for labor. But
what has she learned? What work can she perform? She can sew. And is
that all? Every woman we meet can ply the needle. Ah! as a