"You are self-conscious, Mary. Always thinking about the impression you are making on people, and so eager to please that it makes you miserable if you think you fall short of any of their standards. I knew a girl at school who let her sensitiveness to other people's opinions run away with her. She was so anxious for her friends to be pleased with her that she couldn't be natural. If anybody glanced in the direction of her head, she immediately began to fix her side-combs, or if they seemed to be noticing her dress, she felt her belt and looked down at herself to see if anything was wrong. Half the time they were not looking at her at all, and not even giving her a thought. And I've known her to agonize for days over some trifle, some remark she had made or some one had made to her, that every one but her had forgotten. She developed into a dreadful bore, because she never could forget herself, and was always looking at her affairs through a magnifying-glass.
"Now if you should keep out of Rob's way after this, and act as if you had done something to be ashamed of, which you have not, don't you see that your very actions would remind him of what you want him to forget? But if when you meet him you are your own bright, cheerful, friendly little self, this morning's scene will fade into a dim background."
Only half-convinced, Mary nodded that she understood, but still proceeded to wipe her eyes at intervals.
"Then, there's another thing," continued Betty. "If you sit and brood over your mortification, it will spread all over your sky like a black cloud, till it will seem bigger than any of the good times you have had. In the dear old garden at Warwick Hall there is a sun-dial that has this inscription on it, 'I only mark the hours that shine,' So I am going to give you that as a text. Now, dear, that is the end of my sermon, but here is the application."
She pointed to a row of little white books on the shelf above her desk, all bound in kid, with her initials stamped on the back in gold. "Those are my good-times books. 'I only mark the hours that shine' in them, and when things go wrong and I get discouraged over my mistakes, I glance through them and find that there's lots more to laugh over than cry about, and I'm going to recommend the same course to you. Godmother gave me the first volume when I came to the first house-party, and the little record gave me so much pleasure that I've gone on adding volume after volume. Suppose you try it, dear. Will you, if I give you a book?"
"Yes," answered Mary, who had heard of these books before, and longed for a peep into them. She had her wish now, for, taking them down from the shelf, Betty read an extract here and there, to illustrate what she meant. Presently, to their astonishment, they heard Mom Beck knocking at Lloyd's door to awaken her, and Betty realized with a start that she had been reading over an hour. Her letters were unanswered, but she had accomplished something better. Mary's tears had dried, as she listened to these accounts of their frolics at boarding-school and their adventures abroad, and in her interest in them her own affairs had taken their proper proportion. She was no longer heart-broken over having been discovered by Rob, and she was determined to overcome the sensitiveness and self-consciousness which Betty had pointed out as her great fault.
As she rose to go, Betty opened a drawer in her desk and took out a square, fat diary, bound in red morocco. "One of the girls gave me this last Christmas," she said. "I never have used it, because I want to keep my journals uniform in size and binding, and I'll be so glad to have you take it and start a record of your own, if you will."
"Oh, I'll begin this very morning!" cried Mary, in delight, throwing her arms around Betty's neck with an impulsive kiss, and trying to express her thanks.
"Then wait till I write my text in it," said Betty, "so that it will always recall my sermon. I've talked to you as if I were your grandmother, haven't I?"
"You've made me feel a lot more comfortable," answered Mary, humbly, with another kiss as Betty handed her the book. On the fly-leaf she had written her own name and Mary's and the inscription borne by the old sun-dial in Warwick Hall garden: