"Who on earth gave you that?" demanded Marian.
Mrs. Gray looked surprised and not very well pleased.
"It is a joke, I suppose," she said. "Georgie, Gertrude,—which of you has been amusing yourself in this odd way?"
"Not I, mamma," said Georgie. Gertrude felt the reproof in her mother's manner, but she tried to laugh the matter off.
"Oh, I put it there just for fun," she said. "I thought the more parcels the better, and I happened to see that queer old thing, and thought it would make Cannie laugh."
This explanation was not quite sincere. Gertrude had put the book on the table, 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 not know how to face a room full of strangers gracefully,—such things are not hard to learn, and she will learn them in time; but of one thing I am very sure, and that is, that if you were her guest at North Tolland instead of her being yours at Newport, she would be quite incapable of any rudeness however slight, or of trying to make you uncomfortable in any way. I wish I could say the same of you, Gertrude. I am disappointed in you, my child."
"Oh, mamma, don't speak so!" cried Gertrude, almost ready to cry; for she admired her mother as well as loved her, and was cravingly desirous to win her good opinion. "Please don't think I meant to be rude. It really and truly was a joke."
"My dear, you meant a little more by it than that," replied Mrs. Gray, fixing her soft, penetrating look on Gertrude's face. "You haven't begun quite rightly with Candace. I have noticed it, and have been sorry,—sorry for you even more than for her. She is an affectionate, true-hearted girl. You can make a good friend of her if you will; and you can be of use to her and she to you."
"Now, what did mamma mean by that?" thought Gertrude, after she had gone upstairs. "I can't, for the life of me, see what use Cannie could be to me. I might to her, perhaps, if I wanted to."