Jeanne, you will notice, made no complaints against her rude young cousins and passed lightly over matters that had tried her rather sorely. From her letters, her father gathered that she was much happier than she really was. Perhaps nobody _ever_ enjoyed a letter more than Mr. Duval enjoyed that first one. He went to the post office to get it because no letter-carrier could be expected to deliver mail to a tumble-down shack on the end of a long, far-away dock. He read it in the post office. He read it again in Old Captain's freight car, and when Barney Turcott came in, he too had to hear it. Then Mollie read it. And as she read, her face was quite beautiful with the "mother-look" that Jeanne liked--it was the only attractive thing about Mollie. Then the children awoke and sat up in their bunks to hear it read aloud. Poor children! they could not understand what had become of their beloved Jeanne. Afterwards, Mr. Duval laid the letter away in his shabby trunk, beside the little green bottle that still held a shriveled pink rose, the late wild rose that Jeanne had left on his table that last day. He had found what remained of it, on his return from his journey. It was certainly very lonely in that little room evenings, without those lessons. Jeannette Huntington Duval found school decidedly trying at first. The pupils _would_ pry into her past. Their questions were most embarrassing. Even the teachers, puzzled by many contradictory facts, asked questions that Jeanne could not answer without mentioning poverty or fish. Yes, she had lived in the country (_is_ on a dock "in the country"? wondered truthful Jeanne). No, she _truly_ didn't know what a theater was; and she had never had a birthday party nor been to one. What did _keeping_ one's birthday mean? Jeanne had asked. How _could_ one give her birthday away! Of _course_ she knew all the capitals of South America. Mountains and rivers, too. She could draw maps showing them all--she _loved_ to draw maps. But asparagus--what was that? And velvet? And vanilla? And plumber? "Really," said Miss Wardell, one day, after a lesson in definitions, "you _can't_ be as ignorant as you seem. You _must_ know the meaning of such words as jardinière, tapestry, doily, mattress, counterpane, banister, newel-post, brocade. Didn't you live in a house?" "Yes'm--yes, Miss Wardell," stammered Jeanne, coloring as a vision of the Duval shack presented itself. "Didn't you sleep on a mattress?"