with the delivery of which message and reproof Henrietta
stood on the edge of the path looking down upon us with great and
scornful interest.

"You've got on your night shirt and haven't combed your hair or washed
your face," she continued sternly. "There'll be hell to pay with all the
breakfast getting cold, and I'm empty down to my feet. Come on, quick!"

"Henrietta," I said, sternly, as I rose to my feet, "I've asked you once
not to say ugly words like that."

"I'll go make the lightning toilet, Henrietta. Do run like a good girl
and ask Mrs. Hargrove to let Cousin Jasmine have her cup of coffee right
away. I'll be there before the rest are dead from hunger," and Cousin
James skilfully interrupted the threatened feminine clash as he emptied
my glass bowl into his tin can and stuck the sharp stick in the ground
for future reference. Even Henrietta's pointed allusion to his toilet
had not in the least ruffled his equanimity or brought a shade of
consciousness to his face.

"Mis' Hargrove said that the Bible said not for any woman to say a
blessing at any table or at any place that anybody can hear her, when
Cousin Marfy wanted to be polite to the Lord by saying just a little one
and go on before we was all too hungry," answered Henrietta, in her most
scornfully tolerant voice. "If women eat out loud before everybody why
can't they pray their thank-you out loud like any man?"

"Answer her, Evelina," laughed Cousin James, as he hurried down the walk
away from us.

"Henrietta," I asked, in a calmly argumentative tone of voice as she and
I walked up the path to the house, "didn't Mr. Haley talk to you just
yesterday and tell you how wicked it is for you to use--use such strong
words as you do?"

Mr. Haley had told me just a few days ago that he and Aunt Augusta had
agreed to open their campaign of reform on Henrietta by a pastoral
lecture from him, to be followed strongly by a neighborly one from her.

"No, he never did any such thing," answered Henrietta, promptly--and
what Henrietta says is always the truth, because she isn't afraid of
anybody or anything enough to tell a lie---"he just telled me over and
over in a whole lot of words how I ought to love and be good to Sallie.
If I was to love Sallie that kind of way, he said, I would be so busy I
couldn't do none of the things Sallie don't like to do herself and makes
me do. 'Stid er saying, 'my precious mother, I love you and want to be
good because you want m