n her account specially that I sent for you
to come down," continued Mrs. Gray. "Did she tell you that she was at
school with your mother when they were quite little girls?"

"No!" said Candace, surprised.

"Yes; they were great friends, and she wrote to me before she came up
that she was looking forward to seeing you. Shall I tell you why she so
soon stopped talking to you? She told me afterward. She said: 'I wanted
to talk to your niece about her mother, and to ask her to come to me for
a visit; but she looked so frightened and seemed so stiff and shy and
hard to get at, that I thought the kindest thing I could do would be to
let her alone for the moment, till she was a little more used to me, and
to talk to some one else. Next time I come, we shall get on better, I
hope.'"

Candace looked much mortified.

"Was I stiff?" she asked. "I didn't know it. I didn't mean to be."

"You are almost always stiff with strangers," said her cousin. "I know
you do not mean it, and you are not conscious of the effect of your own
manner; but all the same it is stiff. Now, Cannie, will you promise me
not to be hurt at what I am going to say?"

"Why, of course I won't," said Cannie, looking at her with trustful
eyes.

"Well then, listen! If I didn't know you,--if you were not my own dear
little Cannie, whose warm heart I am sure of, and whose good intentions
I know all about,--if I met you for the first time and judged of you
merely from your manner, as all strangers must judge,--do you know what
I should think?"

"What?"

"I should think you rather a cold-hearted girl, who didn't like people
and didn't mind letting them know it."

"Oh, Cousin Kate!"

"Or else, if I were more charitably inclined, I should think you a dull
girl who did not take much interest in what went on about her."

"Oh, Cousin Kate!"

"Or," continued her cousin, relentlessly, "if I were a real angel, and
disposed to make the very best of everybody, I should say to myself,
'The poor thing is so shy that she can't show what she really is.'
Unluckily, there are few perfect angels in this world, and a great many
of the other sort. And even as a perfect angel, my dear Cannie, I don't
think I should consider you exactly agreeable."

"But what can I do?" demanded Candace, looking very unhappy. "I can't
make myself not shy."

"No; but you can mend matters by forcing yourself to hide your shyness.
I have been meditating on the subject, Cannie, and I have