ALLAY HER RUFFLED FEELINGS.
“Where do they live?”
“Most of them live with their relatives. Some of them work by fits and starts. I assure you they are as passionless as marble statues, and yet they are as fully cognizant of the nature and constitution of man as the most learned professors of the universities. I believe that the great majority keep themselves personally free from gross immorality, yet in their pursuit of what they think to be fun, combined with pieces of cloth, silk hose, high-heeled boots and bright ribbons, they go as near the fires of sin as it is possible to go and not get scorched, though I can assure you that the smoke of evil has so blackened them that they are morally as bad as those who have fallen, and should be avoided by decent men and virtuous women.”
“On what then, do they base their claims to man’s gratitude. I mean that gratitude that expresses itself in presents of gewgaws and finery?”
“It is all built up on hope and fear. I tell you, sir, that these maidens—there’s Polly B⸺ just gone by; I’ll tell you something about her presently. These maidens, as I was saying, find their chief game among the ranks of the old, staid, bald-headed married men. These old fellows in whom wickedness lives though youth be dead, are flattered by what they think to be a mash made on one in whom throbs