noon
-- as did many of the girls who lived at home , she would have been ruined . She understood now why every girl without a family back of her , and without good prospect of marriage , was revolving the idea of becoming a streetwalker -- not as a hope , but as a fear . As she learned to observe more closely , she found good reasons for suspecting that from time to time the girls who became too hard pressed relieved the tension by taking to the streets on Saturday and Sunday nights . She read in the _ Commercial _ one noon -- Mr. Matson sometimes left his paper where she could glance through it -- she read an article on working girls , how they were seduced to lives of shame -- by love of _ finery _ ! Then she read that those who did not fall were restrained by religion and innate purity . There she laughed -- bitterly . Fear of disease , fear of maternity , yes .