"Oh, go and tell that to your grandmother!" she retorted, with a sly little laugh. "Don't none of the girls there have gentlemen-friends, or is farmers so different that they never stand gentlemen-friends to them?" "Oh, dear me, yes!" I answered hastily, trying to avoid the unpleasant _double entendre_, and choosing to accept it in its strictly explicit phase. "Why, certainly, the girls get married there every day. There are hardly any old maids in my part of the country. They get engaged almost as soon as they are out of short dresses, and the first thing you know, they are married and raising families." Then I added, "but have you got a gentleman-friend yourself?" "Yep," she answered, nodding and pouring out the coffee; "I have a very particular gentleman-friend what's been keeping company with me for nearly a year, off and on." "Oh!" I cried, eager to turn the conversation toward Henrietta's personal affairs instead of my own, which I felt she completely misconstrued. "Do tell me about him; what is his name--and are you engaged to him yet?" "My! ain't you fresh, though?" she said; but there was cordiality in the rebuff. "I met him at the mission where I teach Sundays," she went on. "He's brother Mason, and he's the Sunday-school superintendent. He give me all that perfume on the mantel," and she pointed a dripping knife toward the row of empty bottles. "Why, is he in the perfumery business?" I asked innocently, my eyes ranging over the heterogeneous collection on the mantel. Henrietta took the remark as exceedingly funny, for she immediately fell into a paroxysm of tittering, choking over a mouthful of food before she could attain gravity enough to answer. "Lord! no; you do ask the funniest questions!" Thus checked, I did not press for further information as to brother Mason's vocation, but proceeded to satisfy my hunger, which was not diminished by the unappetizing appearance of the food on the barrel. It was a matter of great surprise to me to see how little Henrietta ate, and I was likewise ashamed of my own voracious appetite. Henrietta noticed this and frowned ominously. "God! but you do eat!" she commented frankly, poising her knife in air. "I'm hungry. I've worked hard to-day," I replied with dignity. "Maybe you won't eat so much, though, after a while," she said hopefully. "Maybe not," I agreed. "But you, Henrietta--you are not eating anything!" "Me? Oh, I'm all right. I'm eating as much as I ever do. The works takes away my hunger. If it didn't, I don't know how I'd get along. If I eat as much as you, I'd be likely to starve to death. I couldn't make enough to feed me. When I first begun to work in the factory I'd eat three or four pieces of bread across the loaf, and potatoes and meat, and be hungry for things besides; but after a while you get used to being hungry for so long, you couldn't eat if you had it to eat." "How long have you been working?" I ventured.