To be sure, the wage was infinitesimal, while the toil
was body-breaking soul-breaking. Still, the pittance could be
made to sustain life, and Mary was blessed with both soul and
body to sustain much. So she merged herself in the army of
workers--in the vast battalion of those that give 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.
Pages:
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27