"Well, they're as cold to her as a pair of milk cans, them two. Maybe that's the reason." Possibly it was. And it is quite possible, too, that neither Mr. nor Mrs. Charles Huntington realized the reason for their lack of cordiality. Only, they were _not_ cordial. At first, Jeanne had seen but little of her grandfather. On pleasant days he sat with his book in the fenced-in garden behind the house. On chilly days, he sat alone in his own sitting-room, where there was a gas log. But sometimes, at the table, he would ask Jeanne questions about her school work. "Well, Jeannette, how about school! Are you learning a lot?" "Ever so much," Jeanne would reply. "There are so many things _to_ learn." One day, when he asked the usual question, Jeannette's countenance grew troubled. "Next week," she confided, "we are to have written examinations in _everything_ and there are a thousand spots where I haven't caught up with the class. Mathematics, language, United States history, and French. The books are different, you see, from the ones I had. I'll have to _cram_. Mathematics are the worst. I _can't_ do the examples." "Suppose you bring them to me, after lunch. I used to think I was a mathematician." That was the beginning of a curious friendship between the little girl and the very quiet old man. After that, there was hardly a day in which Jeanne, whose class was ahead of her in mathematics, did not appeal for help. She liked her grandfather. He seemed nearer her own age than anyone else in the house. You see, when people get to be ninety or a hundred, they are able to be friends with persons who are only seventy or eighty--a matter of twenty years makes no difference at all. Mr. Huntington was sixty-eight, which is old enough to enjoy a friendship of _any_ age. But when people are young like Pearl and Clara, two years' difference in their ages makes a tremendous barrier. Clara was almost three years older than Jeanne, and Pearl was fourteen months older than Clara. Harold was younger than his sisters but older than Jeanne, who often seemed younger than her years. Pearl and Clara looked down, with scorn, upon _any_ child of twelve. Indeed, they had been born old. Some children are, you know. Also, it seemed to their grandfather, they had been born _impolite_. For all that they called her "The Cinder Pond Savage," Jeanne's manners were really very good. She seemed to know, instinctively, how to do the right thing; that is, after she became a little accustomed to her new way of living. And she was always very considerate of other people's feelings. So was her grandfather, most of the time. But Mrs. Huntington wasn't; and her children were very like her; cold, self-centered, and decidedly snobbish.