"Your face
is a sweet one. I could not forget it."
The words were spoken so quietly that Faith could not resent them. She
was moving slowly toward her home now, feeling a little bit nervous.
"That is a dreadful life for a girl," went on the man, very quietly. "It
is agony for the poor things, both of mind and body!"
"You are right, sir," cried Faith, who had thought instantly of Miss
Jennings. "The shop girls' life is one continuous drudgery. She is the
slave of circumstances and the victim of conditions."
"I am surprised that so many enter the life. There are surely other
vocations. They choose the hardest one possible."
"But do they choose?" asked Faith, who had become interested in spite,
of herself. "Are they not driven this way or that, according to their
opportunities? In my case there was no choice. I had tried everything
else. Hard as it is, I am thankful for my present employment."
The man looked at her sharply. There was genuine sympathy in his face.
Almost involuntarily he broke out in violent sentences.
"You girls are to blame in great measure for all this, and where the
fault is not yours it lies with your parents! Instead of cultivating
your graces you bedraggle them with labor! Instead of marketing your
smiles you trade in blood and sinew! Every day in that store means a
year off of your life; every anxious moment means an inroad into your
rightful happiness! Why will you not see the folly of your ways? Why can
you not understand that it is a false morality which is killing you?
Why, if I were a girl"--his voice had dropped to the most persuasive
cadence--"I should value my beauty too highly to hide it behind a
counter, and my subsistence should be the boundless reward of affection,
rather than the niggardly recompense for wasted tissues! Of course, I
shock you, because you have done no thinking for yourself.
Pages:
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86