"My poor Jeannette," groaned Léon Duval, "it is certainly time that you were with your mother's people. You need a gentlewoman's care."
"But, Daddy. You said we'd be on this train all day, and it's only nine now. My stocking drops all the way down. Haven't you a bit of fish-twine anywhere about you?"
"Not an inch," lamented Mr. Duval. "But perhaps the porter might have a shoestring."
"Shoestring? Yass, suh," said the porter. "Put it in your shoe foh you, suh?"
"No, thank you," replied Mr. Duval, gravely; but Jeannette giggled.
"Daddy, if you'll spread your newspaper out a good deal, I think I can fix it. There! That's ever so much better."
They spent the night in a hotel; Jeanne in a small, but very clean room—the very cleanest room she had ever seen. She examined and counted the bed-covers with much interest, and admired the white counterpane.
But she liked the outside of her snowy bed better than the inside, after she had crawled in between the clammy sheets.
"I wish," shivered Jeanne, "that Annie and Sammy were here with me—or even Patsy, if he does wiggle. It's so smooth and cold. I don't believe I like smooth, cold places."
Poor little Cinder from the Cinder Pond! She was to find other smooth, cold places; and to learn that there were smooth, cold persons even harder to endure than chilly beds.