"Yes, Old Captain says they do it every night all summer long. That's their home. Early in the spring there's only a few; but as the summer goes on, there are more and more." "Will oo take us to see the birdses some nother nights?" asked Annie. "Yes, if you're good." "Does 'em take they's feathers off?" "Oh, Sammy! Of _course_ they don't." "Does 'em sing all night?" "No, they sleep, and that's what you ought to be doing." CHAPTER IV WHAT WAS IN AN OLD TRUNK "Where you been?" demanded Mrs. Shannon, crossly, from the doorway of the shack. "Hurry up and put Sammy and Annie to bed and don't wake Patsy. Your pa wants you to say your lessons, Jeanne. I gotta go up town after yeast. Come along, Mollie, we can go now. Here's Barney with the boat." Her family tucked into bed, Jeanne slipped into her father's room. "Here I am," said she. "I'm not a bit sleepy, so you can teach me a lot." Jeanne seated herself on her father's little old leather trunk--the trunk that was always locked--and patted it with her hands. "There's my spelling book on the table, Daddy. There's a nice pink clover marking the place." Her father looked at her for a moment, before reaching for the book. He _liked_ to look at her; it was one of his few pleasures. A soft clear red glowed in her dark cheeks and her eyes were very bright and very black. She was small and of slender build, but she seemed sufficiently healthy. "Father, why do I have to speak a _different_ language from Mollie's?" (She had never called her stepmother by any other name, since her fastidious father had objected to "Maw.") "What difference does it make anyway, if I say I _did_ it or I _done_ it?" Here was rebellion! Her small dark father looked at her again. This time not so contentedly. "Arise from that trunk," said Mr. Duval, whose speech retained a slight foreign touch that most people found most pleasing. "I think I shall have to show you something that I have been keeping for you." Jeannette hopped up, gleefully. She had always wondered what that trunk contained. Now, it seemed, she was about to find out. From a crack in the wall, Mr. Duval fished a small key, fitted it to the lock, turned it, and lifted the lid. There was a tray containing a few packages of letters and a small box. Her father opened the little box and drew from it something that had once been white, but was now yellow. Something wonderfully fine and exquisite, with a strange, faint perfume about it. A lace handkerchief. Even Jeanne, who knew nothing of laces, felt that there was something especially fine and beautiful about the filmy thing in her hands. "Was it--was it--" "Your mother's," assented Mr. Duval. "Is it like anything of Mollie's? Well, your mother wasn't like Mollie. She was fine and exquisite like this little bit of lace. Now, here is something else for you to see."