Page:A Little Country Girl - Coolidge (1887).djvu/112

 hoping to tease Cannie. She had overheard something which her mother was telling Candace the day before,—an explanation about some little point of manners,—and it had suggested the idea of the old volume. Her shaft had missed its mark somehow, or, like the boomerangs used by the Australian blacks, had returned again to the hand that aimed it; for Cannie did not seem to mind at all, and Mrs. Gray, though she said no more at the moment, was evidently meditating a lecture. It came after breakfast, and was unexpectedly severe, hurting Gertrude a great deal more than her maliciously intended gift had hurt Candace.

"You are inclined to despise your cousin as countrified and unused to society," said Mrs. Gray. "I grant that she is not up in all the little social rules; but let me tell you, Gertrude, that Cannie has the true instinct of ladyhood in her, and after the occurrence of this morning I am beginning to fear that you have not. Good manners are based on good feeling. Cannie may be shy and awkward; she may