When a girl leaves her home at eighteen, she does one oftwo things. Either she falls into saving hands and becomesbetter, or she rapidly assumes the cosmopolitan standardof virtue and becomes worse. Of an intermediate balance,under the circumstances, there is no possibility. The cityhas its cunning wiles, no less than the infinitely smaller andmore human tempter. There are large forces which allurewith all the soulfulness of expression possible in the mostcultured human. The gleam of a thousand lights is often aseffective as the persuasive light in a wooing and fascinatingeye. Half the undoing of the unsophisticated and naturalmind is accomplished by forces wholly superhuman. A blareof sound, a roar of life, a vast array of human hives, appealto the astonished senses in equivocal terms. Without acounselor at hand to whisper cautious interpretations, whatfalsehoods may not these things breathe into the unguardedear! Unrecognized for what they are, their beauty, like music,too often relaxes, then weakens, then perverts the simplerhuman perceptions.
Caroline, or Sister Carrie, as she had been halfaffectionately termed by the family, was possessed of amind rudimentary in its power of observation and analysis.Self-interest with her was high, but not strong. It was,nevertheless, her guiding characteristic. Warm with thefancies of youth, pretty with the insipid prettiness of theformative period, possessed of a figure promising eventualshapeliness and an eye alight with certain native intelligence,she was a fair example of the middle American class--twogenerations removed from the emigrant. Books were beyondher interest--knowledge a sealed book. In the intuitivegraces she was still crude. She could scarcely toss her headgracefully. Her hands were almost ineffectual. The feet,though small, were set flatly. And yet she was interested inher charms, quick to understand the keener pleasures of life,ambitious to gain in material things. A half-equipped littleknight she was, venturing to reconnoiter the mysteriouscity and dreaming wild dreams of some vague, far-offsupremacy, which should make it prey and subject--theproper penitent, groveling at a woman's slipper.
"That," said a voice in her ear, "is one of the prettiest littleresorts in Wisconsin."
"Is it?" she answered nervously.
The train was just pulling out of Waukesha. For sometime she had been conscious of a man behind. She felt himobserving her mass of hair. He had been fidgetting, andwith natural intuition she felt a certain interest growing inthat quarter. Her maidenly reserve, and a certain sense ofwhat was conventional under the circumstances, called herto forestall and deny this familiarity, but the daring andmagnetism of the individual, born of past experiences andtriumphs, prevailed. She answered.
He leaned forward to put his elbows upon the back of herseat and proceeded to make himself volubly agreeable.
"Yes, that is a great resort for Chicago people. The hotelsare swell. You are not familiar with this part of the country,are you?"
"Oh, yes, I am," answered Carrie. "That is, I live at
Columbia City. I have never been through here, though."
"And so this is your first visit to Chicago," he observed.
All the time she was conscious of certain features out ofthe side of her eye. Flush, colorful cheeks, a light mustache,
