It was Jean's first sharp conception of the brutal truth that the stigma of the reformatory was all-embracing. The world presently emphasized the stern lesson. True to her word on learning of the censorship, she had never written home; but her mother's letters, formal and mutilated as they were, had nevertheless meant more to her than she realized until her degradation to the prison lopped this privilege too away. The cumulative effect of Mrs. Fanshaw's correspondence, when finally read, was not tonic. Despite the censor, Jean gathered that Shawnee Springs now linked her name with Stella Wilkes's. A refuge girl was a refuge girl; degrees and shadings of misconduct lost themselves in the murky sameness of the stain. Her grateful wonder grew that her champion of the forest had had the insight to distinguish. His quixotic young faith and a heartening word now and then from Miss Archer, when some infrequent errand brought the little secretary near, between them redeemed humanity. A torrid summer dragged into an autumn scarcely less enervating. The kitchen-gardens were arid; the grass-plots sere; the scant wisps of ivy wherewith Miss Archer, unsanctioned by the state, had attempted to soften the more glaring shortcomings of the architect, hung dead beyond all hope of resurrection; and the endless reaches of brick wall, soaked in sunshine by day, reeked like huge ovens the live-long night. The officials' tempers grew short, their decisions arbitrary beyond common; obedience became daily more difficult; riot, full-charged, awaited only its galvanizing spark. This the prison contributed. Conditions were always hardest here, and the rage they fostered had gathered itself into an ominous hatred of the matron. Nor was this wholly due to her chance embodiment of law. That carried weight, of course, but the prime factor in her unpopularity was a stolid cynicism implanted by some years' prior service in a metropolitan police station. Joined to a temperament like the superintendent's, this could have been endured, though detested; but the former matron of a "sunrise court" mixed her doubt with a lumbering joviality against which sincerity beat itself in vain. Her smile was a goad; her laugh a stinging blow. The revolt turned upon an old grievance. Breakfast was a scant meal in the prison, and the laundry squad, upon which the severest toil fell, had for months clamored for a mid-forenoon luncheon. This request was reasonable, but an intricate knot of red tape, understood clearly by nobody, had balked its granting, and the matron accordingly reaped a whirlwind which others had sown. All the week it threatened. On Monday perhaps half the workers in the laundry, headed by Stella Wilkes, repeated the old demand, and were sent about their business with heavy sarcasm.