He was pitying her
keenly--this child, at once stunted and abnormally developed, this stray
from one of the classes that keeps their women sheltered; and here she was
adrift, without any of those resources of experience which assist the girls
of the tenements.
Her features were small, sensitive, regular. Her eyes were brown with lines
of reddish gold raying from the pupils. Her chin and mouth were firm
enough, yet suggested weakness through the passions. Her clear skin had the
glow of youth and health upon its smooth surface. She was certainly
beautiful and she certainly had magnetism.
"What do you think is going to become of you?" he asked.
"I don't know," she said, after a deep sigh. "A girl doesn't have a fair
chance. I don't seem to be able to have any fun without getting into
trouble. I don't know what to think. It's all so black. I wish I was dead."
Her dreary tone put the deepest pathos into her words. Howard had seen
despondency in youth before--had felt it himself. But there had always
been a certain lightness in it. Here was a mere child who evidently
thought, and thought with reason, that there was no hope for her; and her
despair was not a passing cloud or storm, but a settled conviction.
"There doesn't seem to be any chance for a young girl," she repeated as if
that phrase summed up all that was weighing upon her.
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