Very frequently she does not attain even to the questionable dignity of a marriage ceremony. Flattered by the attentions of some swell, the pretty shop girl will be induced to accompany him to the theatre and to supper in a concert saloon. Her vanity is kindled by his appearance. She rejoices in the style of his clothes, in the magnificence of his jewelry, and she thinks her mission in life is to walk beside the splendid swell, amid rose gardens, theatres and supper rooms, for the remainder of her life. Finally she yields to his soft solicitations, and her prospects are forever blighted. She becomes an incorrigible flirt, meets her "fellows" on the corner of the street near the store, spends a certain number of evenings and nights with them at hotels where no course of catechism takes place at the clerk's desk. She goes to Coney Island or local beer gardens on Sundays, manifesting a vivid animal pleasure in her enjoyment, with little manifestation of gratitude towards her escort who is supplying the money. Sometimes, again, an exceptionally pretty girl will fall a victim to the proprietor, the manager or some of the superintendents of the store; and there have been cases of this kind heard in the courts, in one of which the proprietor not only seduced the girl, but married her, afterwards obtaining a divorce because of her incontinence. Sometimes the lapse of these girls from the paths of virtue is accompanied with exceptional hardships. The young lady is beautiful as well as good perhaps, and the pride of her idolizing parents, who have taught her that she is fit to be the wife of a duke. She attracts the eye of a man about town, and the process of courting and flattery--of sapping and mining--begins, with the result that he has had in view since the inception of the acquaintance. He is not a bad fellow as the world goes; but providence and society have made it very hard for single men to show kindness to single women in any way but one. He is sorry at her situation; but she is hardly the person for him to marry, even with her blooming, flower-like face. In such a situation--and such situations are far too common with the class--Byron's lines, slightly altered, seem peculiarly applicable to the pretty shop girl: "'Twas thine own beauty gave the fatal blow, And help'd to plant the wound that laid thee low."