se, and Candace, from
training and long habit, was submissive; so she accepted the inevitable,
and, as her great-aunt said, "made no difficulty."

Letters came now and then from "Cousin Kate," far away in China, and
once a little box with a carved ivory fan as fine as lace-work, a dozen
gay pictures on rice paper, and a scarf of watermelon-pink crape, which
smelt of sandalwood, and was by far the most beautiful thing that Cannie
had ever seen. Then, two years before our story opens, the Grays came
back to America to live; and a correspondence began between Mrs. Gray
and Aunt Myra, part of which Candace heard about and part she did not.
Mrs. Gray was anxious to know her cousin's child and be of use to her;
but first one thing and then another delayed their meeting. The first
winter the Grays spent at a hotel looking for a house; the second, they
were all in Florida on account of Mr. Gray's health. These difficulties
were now settled. A town house had been chosen, a Newport cottage leased
for a term of years, and Cannie was asked for a long summer visit.

It was Mrs. Gray's secret desire that this visit should lead to a sort
of adoption, that Cannie should stay on with them as a fourth daughter,
and share all her cousins' advantages of education and society; but
before committing herself to such a step, she wished to see what the
girl was like.

"It's so much easier to keep out of such an arrangement than to get out
of it," she told her husband. "My poor Candace was an angel, all
sweetness and charm; but her child has the blood of those stiff
Connecticut farmers in her. She may be like her father's people, and not
in the least like her mother; she may be hopelessly stupid or vulgar or
obstinate or un-improvable. We will wait and see."

This secret doubt and question was, I think, the reason why Mrs. Gray
was so pleased at Cannie's little speech about Miss Joy and her friend.

"That was the true, honorable feeling," she thought to herself; "the
child is a lady by instinct. It wasn't easy for her to say it, either;
she's a shy little thing. Well, if she has the instinct, the rest can be
added. It's easy enough to polish a piece of mahogany, but you may rub
all day at a pine stick and not make much out of it."

As these thoughts passed rapidly through her mind, she stole her arm
across Candace's shoulders and gave them a little warm pressure; but all
she said was,--

"Dinner in twenty minutes, children. You would bett