seven in the morning
Pearlie , sitting alone on the porch in the dark , listened to these things and blushed furiously . Pearlie had never strolled into the kindly shadows with a little beating of the heart , and she had never been surprised with a quick arm about her and eager lips pressed warmly against her own . In the daytime Pearlie worked as public stenographer at the Burke Hotel . She rose at seven in the morning , and rolled for fifteen minutes , and lay on her back and elevated her heels in the air , and stood stiff-kneed while she touched the floor with her finger tips one hundred times , and went without her breakfast . At the end of each month she usually found that she weighed three pounds more than she had the month before . The folks at home never joked with Pearlie about her weight . Even one 's family has some respect for a life sorrow .