Happily, by watching the others, Jeanne, naturally bright and quick, soon learned to avoid mistakes. As she was also naturally kind, her manners were really better, in a short time, than those of the young Huntingtons.
Her new relatives, particularly the younger ones, asked her a great many questions about her former life. Had she really never been to school? Weren't there any schools? Was the climate very cold in Northern Michigan? Were the people very uncivilized? Were they Indians or Esquimaux? What was her home like? What was the Cinder Pond? Sometimes the children giggled over her replies, sometimes they looked scornful. Almost always, both Mr. and Mrs. Huntington appeared shocked. It wasn't so easy to guess what old Mr. Huntington thought.
CHAPTER XI
A NEW LIFE
At the conclusion of Jeanne's first uncomfortable meal with her new relatives, Mrs. Huntington detained the children, for a moment, in the dining-room.
"Next week," said she, "Jeannette will be going to school. You are not to tell the other pupils nor any of your friends, nor the maids in this house, anything of her former life. And you, too, Jeannette, will please be silent concerning your poverty and the fact that your father was a common fishman."
"Gee!" scoffed Harold, holding his nose. "A fishman!"
"He was a gentleman," replied Jeanne, loyally. "He was not common. Mollie was common, but my father wasn't."
"No gentleman could be a fishman," returned Mrs. Huntington, who really supposed she was telling the truth. "You will remember, I hope, not to mention his business!"