g to be married
in her "intended's" vacation. Then, the foreman thought, he'd have to
get a wife himself, if he could find anybody to have him. And she
wouldn't have to work, either--not on your tintype! She would live at
home with his mother, and darn his socks and sew on his buttons, and
she'd have no washing or ironing to do, as he got his all done for
nothing in the "Pearl." That perquisite went along with the eighteen
dollars a week. Oh, she'd have things as nice as any hard-working young
fellow could give her.

"Would she have to be purty?" asked the one-eyed girl, who seemed
unusually interested in this hypothetical wife, and who took such a
lively interest in the foreman and his plans that I felt my heart sink
in pity for the poor maimed creature. Was she hanging breathless on the
foreman's reply to this question? If so, there was a certain comfort in
the gallant answer.

"No, I should say not," he replied, as I thought with gentle
consideration of her to whom he was speaking; "I don't think I could
ever trust a wife who was a ten-thousand-dollar beaut'. She'd want to
gad too much. I don't think looks count for much; and I'd think she was
pretty, anyway, if I was terrible stuck on her. Them things don't make
much difference only in story-papers. But there's one thing she would
have to be, and that is handy at doing things. I wouldn't marry a lazy
girl, and I wouldn't marry a girl that wasn't a working girl."

The engines began to give out a warning rumble, and the foreman
scrambled somewhat reluctantly to his feet, and stretching out his long
arms, started off.

"Say, that feller's clean, dead gone on you," remarked my companion,
closing her hand over mine in a pressure that was full of congratulation
and honest delight.

I scouted the idea, but nevertheless I became suddenly conscious of a
complete change in his manner from the easy familiarity of the morning
before. Instead of the generic name of "Sally," or the Christian name
which on better acquaintance he applied to the other girls, he had
politely prefixed a "Miss" to my surname. There had come, too, a
peculiar feeling of trust and confidence in him--a welcome sensation in
this horrible, degraded place; and it was with gratefulness that I
watched him disappear in the steamy vista, throwing off his suspenders
preparatory to plunging into the turmoil of the afternoon's work now
under way.

"Sure thing he is, I'd bet my life on it," she insisted, as w