erved her
virginity. Young lodgers would take liberties with her, but at a
certain stage would receive a stinger on the face. The girl liked
me and would kiss me, but nothing else. And then--out of this
home of drunkenness and shame--May fell in love with some pretty
boy she met by chance, whom she never asked to her home. She
began to neglect me, even to neglect drink, and to dream,
preoccupied. I felt a restless jealousy, but she would look at
me, without resentment, without recognition, without seeing me,
look me straight in the eyes as I was talking to her, and dream
and dream. This same pretty boy seduced her, I believe. When next
I met her she was 'on the town,' her one dream of spring over....

"About this time I had one of those salutary turns that have
marked epochs in my life, and as a result I left that house and
resolutely abstained from drink.... I was now in a small
up-country town. I commenced to play croquet and to ride out.
Sometimes I was invited to dinner by a young man at the bank,
whose house was kept by his sister. She had a small figure, a
pretty but rather narrow face, and well-bred manners; but there
was a look in her asymmetrical eyes, in the shape of her thin
hands, even in the stoop of her shoulders, that seemed
passionate. One day--when her brother, a fine, sweet-blooded
manly young athlete, was absent--I commenced to pull her about.
She gave me one passionate kiss, but said: 'No! Do you know what
keeps me straight? It is the thought of my brother.' I refrained
from molesting her further. I met other girls, some pretty and
arrogant, others plain and hungry-eyed; it was a country town
where there were four or five females to every male. But I could
not speak frankly and candidly to a young woman as the young
banker did....

"I remember that one night, when I was living at the Port, I
slept all night with a prostitute who had taken a fancy to me and
who used to cry on my shoulder, much to my impatience and
annoyance. In the same bed with us, lying beside me, was a girl
aged about 12. On my expressing surprise I was told she was used
to it and noticed nothing. But in the morning I turned my head
and looked at her, and even in the dim light of that dirty
bedroom I could see that her eyes had noticed and understood. She
pressed herself against