When she returned home she spoke German and French more fluently than English, and was well-versed in European, especially German literature and history, but had little reverence for the learning and literary history of her own country. Her parents began by dictations and by interesting excerpts from Anglo-Saxon history to make her breathe their atmosphere and adapt herself to their habits of thought. After her many years of seclusion a new world opened before her young eyes when she made her first appearance in the gay society of New Orleans at the time of the Exposition. Now was formed her first acquaintance with theatre and opera. She was well prepared for this,--really her first encounter with life,--bringing to it a mind vigorous by nature and well disciplined by the study of history and economics. Hence, in spite of the great enthusiasm with which she met the world, she was prevented from forming any but just judgments of men and things. She was queen of Comus this same season,[13] and somewhat later while attending her father on his triumphal procession through Alabama and Georgia she was introduced to the Confederate veterans by General Gordon as 'The Daughter of the Confederacy,'--an eminently appropriate title which she always wore in a manner worthy of her father's daughter. In 1879 the family had moved to Beauvoir, where they lived until the death of Jefferson Davis. Miss Winnie's devotion to her father is said to have been beautiful. She was his constant companion, accompanying him on all his trips through the South; she served him as private secretary and assistant in all his literary work. She would walk hand in hand with him by the sounding sea; she would pore over volumes uninteresting to her because she knew his heart was in them; she would read aloud to him by the hour, and when he was weary she would sing to him sweet old Southern songs. In fact she was the stay of his declining years, succeeding in her effort to fill not only her own place but that of the sons he had lost. After the death of the husband and father, Mrs. Davis and her daughter moved to the North. They felt that they must do so in order to secure work, which was now a necessity.[14] It was also a great advantage to them in their literary labors to be in close touch with their publishers, and the Northern climate was better suited to the mother's health. 'The Daughter of the Confederacy' received an urgent and hearty invitation to attend every function connected with the 'lost cause,' which she always accepted when it was possible. Both hemispheres were shocked at the announcement that her life had been cut short at Narragansett Pier on the 18th of September 1898. As was fitting, her body was buried at Richmond, where her cradle had stood,--in that city which is richest in memories of the 'lost cause' and all that is associated with it.