HAT did that lady want, Miss Tritton ?" asked Mr. Hawk, the principal of a large drapery business, of one of the young women who had just parted with a customer without selling her anything. Miss Tritton explained that the particular article required by the lady was one they did not keep.

"Then you should have sold her something else. What do you think we keep all this stock for," inquired Mr. Hawk, glancing around at the well-filled shelves, "if you cannot serve customers when they come in? I tell you plainly, Miss Tritton, that you must suit your customers, if you want to suit me."

"But, sir, we really do not keep-"

There, there, it is useless to make such excuses as that; you must not let any one else go out without buying; if

you cannot manage it, you must call Miss Oily forward— she will make them buy whether they want or not."

Mr. Hawk was a hard man-a business man, he would have called himself—who looked upon his customers as so many wells to be pumped dry, and the assistants in his shop as so many machines to perform the pumping operation: if one of the machines failed to work satisfactorily, it had to be removed and another put in its place; what became of the rejected machine was no matter to him.

Fanny Tritton was a new hand in the establishment. She had just finished her apprenticeship at a country draper's, and had only been a few weeks in the house of Mr. Hawk. Everything was strange to her; the way of carrying on the business was what she was unused to, and she feared her employer for his harsh manner and speeches. These difficulties might have been overcome in time. Fanny would have made herself useful in her new position, and have conquered her dread of her employer, but there was one thing she could not do-she could not, and would not, make use of deceit to induce her customers to buy. It went against her straightforward and conscientious principles to do so; and this in the eyes of Mr. Hawk was a great failing.

Fanny tried hard to please her employer, and to give him no cause for complaint, and for some time she succeeded; and she might have continued to give satisfaction but for the fact that I have mentioned, that she could not stoop to deceit.

It happened that two ladies were being served by Fanny; they had bought a variety of goods, and laid out a considerable amount of money; and although Fanny had found them very hard to please, and exceedingly particular in what they bought, she was congratulating herself upon her success in having satisfied them, when one of them happened to notice some handsome shawls which were displayed in the shop.

"What is the price of those shawls ?" she asked.

Fanny told her the price, and began to unfold the goods

for the customer to inspect, when the other lady turned to her companion and said, "I am afraid you will not find them good enough; they cannot be good at the price."

"They certainly are very cheap," returned the other, "but they seem very nice ones;" and she asked Fanny whether she could recommend them.

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"Yes, indeed I can," answered Fanny; "they are very good, and I believe them to be very cheap."

When Fanny said this, the lady who had first objected. to the shawls on account of the lowness of the price, observed that, "Young shop-people always have something of that kind to say; for her part, she was sure they could not be the best quality, as Mr. So-and-so, her draper, who was a very fair man, had shown her some at a pound more, and of course he would not have charged so much for them if they had not been better."

"Indeed, madam," said Fanny, "they are the best of the sort that are made, and I am sure that they would give satisfaction."

More passed between the two ladies and the young shopwoman; and the intending purchaser had more than once been on the point of deciding to buy a shawl, but had been dissuaded by her companion, who was sure the price was too low for the article to be good.

Mr. Hawk, who had been watching Fanny and her customers and had overheard what had passed, here called her to him, and going into a part of the shop that was screened off from observation, quickly put a shawl into Fanny's hands, telling her to say she had found one of a superior quality, and at exactly the same price as the lady had mentioned.

"But, sir," said Fanny, "it is one of the same."

"Never mind, you silly girl, go and do as I tell you; and mind you sell it," he added threateningly.

"I can't say it is a better one, sir," said Fanny. "Can't? what do you mean?-go at once and do what I say !"

But seeing that Fanny still hesitated, he called to Miss Oily, who was standing near, and told her to go on with Miss Tritton's customers, at the same time explaining about the shawl.

Miss Oily was of quite a different cast of character from Fanny; it was her boast that she had never let a customer go out of the shop without buying something-perhaps not at all the thing that was wanted, but buy they must when customers got into her hands. "What did it matter," she had said one day to Fanny, when the latter had been distressed by some questions put by an over-inquisitive customer, "whether the answers given to such questions were true or not? they satisfied the customer, and sold the goods, and that was all that was required."

Miss Oily, moreover, had a supreme contempt for anything that pertained to religion, and cordially disliked Fanny because she was not ashamed to acknowledge herself to be a Christian. It was therefore with a feeling of triumph that she took the shawl from Mr. Hawk and advanced towards the ladies whom Fanny had left.

"I am sorry," she said, "that the young person who has been serving you has made such a mistake about the shawls; she is so ashamed at having made it, that I have undertaken to show you what else you require. This is the better quality that you were speaking of; those that you have seen are quite an inferior sort of thing; indeed, I knew directly I saw you looking at them that they were not good enough for you." And so Miss Oily rattled on, while she displayed the shawl which was so much better (?) than the others. Meanwhile Mr. Hawk had sent another assistant to remove the shawls the ladies had already seen, so that there would be no chance of comparing the qualities.

"Is this really a much better quality?" asked the lady who wanted to buy a shawl.

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'Why, yes, my dear, of course it is," put in her companion, pleased at what she thought her cleverness; "this is just like the one Mr. So-and-so showed me, and just the

same price too. I was sure, by the price of the others, they couldn't be good."

"No, indeed," chimed in Miss Oily; "I only wonder how the mistake could have arisen, but the young person who was serving you has not been with us long, and I really suppose she didn't know better."

After a little hesitation on the part of the customer, and a little more persuasion on Miss Oily's part, the shawl was purchased and the money paid, and Miss Oily commended by Mr. Hawk for her adroitness. What "flats" they must be, thought Mr. Hawk, as he put the money into his cash-box and chuckled over his extra sovereign profit; but Oily is a clever girl, very clever; I must encourage her; I'll think what I can do for her. As to Tritton-well, she must go; I can't have a girl like her about the place. "Miss Tritton," he continued aloud, "I want to speak to you in the counting-house."

"Yes, sir," said poor Fanny, who guessed too well what Mr. Hawk wanted her for.

"Oh, Miss Tritton, I am very sorry-very sorry indeed --but really I am afraid you don't quite suit me," said Mr. Hawk, in a conciliatory tone, when Fanny was in the counting-house. "I know you do your best, and I have a very high opinion of you, Miss Tritton-very high, I am sure; but you seem to have been used to more of a country trade than mine, and I am afraid you don't quite suit my customers. In fact, I think we had better part at once. Of course, I shall be very happy to recommend you; oh yes, very. You will please take this notice."

Poor Fanny! no wonder she felt indignant at this; but there was no help for it; she must take the notice to leave, but she could not help thinking it would have been better if Mr. Hawk had spoken the truth for once, and told her plainly that she did not suit him because she would not tell a lie.

It was with a heavy heart that Fanny, when her time of notice had expired, started on her journey home. Not