"Why, you told me yourself you was born in the country, didn't you?" and I saw there was no use trying to point out to Henrietta the difference between farmers and those born in the country, both of which were terms of contempt in her vocabulary. We were still threading the maze of strange, squalid streets which was to lead us eventually to the former brief abiding-place of Fanny Harley; and, filled with curiosity regarding my own resemblance to my unfortunate predecessor, I revived the subject by asking carelessly:
"How is it I talk and act that makes me like Fanny Harley?"
"Well, you 've got a kind of high-toned way of talking," she explained. "I don't mind the way you talk, though,—using big words and all that. That ain't none of our business, I tell the girls; but you do walk so funny and stand so funny, that it is all I can do to keep from bu'stin' out laughing to see you. And the other girls says it's the same with them, but I told them it was because you was just from the country, and that farmers all walk the same way. But really, Rose,—you're getting used to that name, ain't you?—you ought to get yourself over it as quick as you can; you ain't going to have no lady-friends in the factory if you're going to be queer like that."
"But I walk as I always did. How else should I walk? How do I walk that makes me so funny?" I asked, mortified at the thought of my having been the butt of secret ridicule. Henrietta was cordial in her reply.
"You walk too light," she explained; "you don't seem to touch the ground at all when you go along, and you stand so straight it makes my back ache to watch you."
Then my mentor proceeded to correct my use and choice of diction.
"And what makes you say 'lid' when you mean a cover? Why, it just about kills us girls to hear you say 'lid.'"
"But," I remonstrated, aggravated by her silly "tee-hee" into defense of my English, "why shouldn't I say 'lid' if I want to? It means just the same as cover."
"Well, if it mean the same, why don't you say 'cover'?" my "learner" retorted, with ill-disguised anger that I should question her authority; and I dropped the subject, and the remainder of the walk was continued in silence.
It was growing more and more apparent that I had not made a wise selection in my room-mate, but it seemed too late to back out now—at least until I had given her a trial of several days.