She laboured at the sorrowful needle,

" With fingers weary and worn,
"With eyelids heavy and red,"

until her delicate frame refused to obey her will any
longer ; and then the heartless mammon worshippers of
that " magnificent establishment " discharged her, to go
to the workhouse, or on the streets, as she pleased ! It
was no business of theirs. The machine had served its
purpose. There were plenty more of the same kind in
the market. They were to be had at a moment's
notice, and very cheap. A five-shilling advertisement
in the Times would bring 500 any day. People who
work for the jewelled beauties of Belgravia have no
right to be ill. It shows great want of respect. To
delay a costly ball dress for an aristrocratic young lady,
who is just coming out, or, for the matter of that, a
retired tripe merchant's wealthy heiress, simply because
a fellow-creature, who is, after all, only the daughter of
a deceased preacher, and is utterly unable to hold the
needle longer, is altogether out of the question. If she
won't finish the order, another will. Thus the gay, the
fashionable, and the covetous combine, without knowing
it, to crush and kill the lowly, the virtuous, and the
well-deserving. Assuredly it was so in the case of
the educated, amiable, and pious Maria Lanton. Stag-
gering from the gilded and costly premises where she
had lost her health, she knew not where to bend her
trembling steps. A bewildered, homeless, sick, and
sorrowful female on the streets of London — whose kin*
dred and friends are many miles away — and whose heart
is throbbing under the sense of oppression and injustice,
is a most melancholy sight. Unhappily it is no un-
common thing to meet such victims of avarice. The



164 STORY OF MARIA LANTON.
