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