a scolding; I shall just stop
you." And Marian flung her arms round her mother's neck, and gave her
half a dozen enormous kisses.

"We shall consider a kiss as a favor," went on Mrs. Gray, inexorably,
holding Marian off at arm's length, "not a punishment to be inflicted
whenever we happen to feel like it. We shall never trot one foot when we
are nervous, and shake the table."

"Cannie, that's you. I thought it would be your turn soon," said Marian.

"Oh! did I trot?" said Cannie. "Please excuse me, Cousin Kate. I have
such a bad habit of doing that. Aunt Myra says it's my safety-valve."

"If it's a safety-valve, it's all very well," replied her cousin. "I
didn't know. In short, my dears, as the poet says,--

'Manners are not idle, but the fruit
Of noble nature and of lofty mind.'

The instinct of self-control, of gentleness, of consideration and
forethought and quick sympathy, which go to make up what we call good
breeding; the absence of noise and hurry, the thousand and one little
ways by which we can please people, or avoid displeasing them,--are all
taught us by our own hearts. Good manners are the fine flower of
civilization. And everybody can have them. I always say that one of the
best-bred men of my acquaintance is Mr. Jarvis, the mason. I have known
him come up out of a cistern to speak to me, dressed in overalls and a
flannel shirt; and his bow and his manner and the politeness of his
address would have done credit to any gentleman in the world."

"Mamma, how funny you are," said Georgie, wonderingly; but Gertrude
caught her mother's meaning more clearly.

"I rather like it," she said slowly. "It sounds like something in a poem
or a storybook, and it would be nice if everybody felt like that, but
people don't. I've heard Mrs. Joy speak quite rudely to Mr. Jarvis,
mamma."

"Very likely. I never have considered Mrs. Joy as a model of manners,"
replied Mrs. Gray, coolly. "And that reminds me to say just one other
word about good breeding toward servants and people who work for us, or
are poor and need our help. Gentleness and politeness are even more
important with them than they are with other people."

"Why more, mamma?"

"Because their lives are harder than ours, and we owe them all the
little help that courtesy can give. Because, too, we are their models,
consciously or unconsciously, and if we are polite to them they will in
return be polite to us. And besides, they meet us