e
their entire selves to a labor most stern and unremitting, and most ill
rewarded.

Mary, nevertheless, avoided the worst perils of her lot. She did not
flinch under privation, but went her way through it, if not serenely, at
least without ever a thought of yielding to those temptations that beset
a girl who is at once poor and charming. Fortunately for her, those
in closest authority over her were not so deeply smitten as to make
obligatory on her a choice between complaisance and loss of position.
She knew of situations like that, the cul-de-sac of chastity, worse
than any devised by a Javert. In the store, such things were matters of
course. There is little innocence for the girl in the modern city.
There can be none for the worker thrown into the storm-center of a great
commercial activity, humming with vicious gossip, all alive with
quips from the worldly wise. At the very outset of her employment, the
sixteen-year-old girl learned that she might eke out the six dollars
weekly by trading on her personal attractiveness to those of the
opposite sex. The idea was repugnant to her; not only from the maidenly
instinct of purity, but also from the moral principles woven into her
character by the teachings of a father wise in most things, though a
fool in finance. Thus, she remained unsmirched, though well informed as
to the verities of life. She preferred purity and penury, rather than a
slight pampering of the body to be bought by its degradation. Among her
fellows were some like herself; others, unlike. Of her own sort, in this
single particular, were the two girls with whom she shared a cheap room.
Their common decency in attitude toward the other sex was the unique
bond of union. In their association, she found no real companionship.
Nevertheless, they were wholesome enough. Otherwise they were
illiterate, altogether uncongenial.

In such wise, through five dreary years, Mary Turner lived. Nine hours
daily, she stood behind a counter. She spent her other waking hours
in obligatory menial labors: cooking her own scant meals over the gas;
washing and ironing, for the sake of that neat appearance which was
required of her by those in authority at the Emporium--yet, more
especially, necessary for her own self-respect. With a mind keen and
earnest, she contrived some solace from reading and studying, since
the free library gave her this opportunity. So, though engaged in
stultifying occupation through most of her hours