His grandfather liked his youngest grandchild's manners. He told himself, once he even told his son, that he couldn't possibly give any affection to the daughter of "that wretched Frenchman" who had stolen his daughter. Perhaps he couldn't, just at first. No doubt, he thought he couldn't. But he did. 'Way down in his lonesome old heart he was glad that mathematics were hard for her, because he was glad that she needed his help.
"Just what are you thinking?" asked her grandfather, one day.
"I was making an example," explained Jeanne. "I've been here seven months. That leaves four years and five months; but the last two months went faster than the first two. If five years seemed like a thousand years to begin with, and the last two months—"
"I refuse," said her grandfather, with a sudden twinkle in his eye, "to tackle any such example as that."
"Well," laughed Jeanne, "here's another. Miss Wardell asked us in school today to decide what we'd like to do when we're grown up. We're to tell her tomorrow."
"Rather short notice, isn't it?"
"Ye—es," said Jeanne. "You see, ever since I visited Miss Warden's sister's kindergarten, I've thought I'd like to teach that. But I thought I'd like to get married, too."
"What!" gasped her grandfather.
"Get married. I should like to bring up a family right—with the proper tools. Old Captain says you have to have the proper tools to sew with. I think you have to have the proper tools to bring up a family. Tooth-brushes and stocking-straps, smelly soap and cold cream and underclothes."
"Have you picked out a husband?" asked her grandfather.