Page:A Little Country Girl - Coolidge (1887).djvu/175

 "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?"