A Little Country Girl Part 6

"A watch! for me! to be my own!" cried Candace, hardly able to believe her eyes. "I never thought I should have a watch, and such a darling beauty as this. Oh, Cousin Kate!"

"I am glad it pleases you," said her cousin, with another kiss. "You should have had it two years ago; but I thought you rather young to be trusted with a watch then, so I kept it till we should meet."

"Oh, do make haste and open another! It's such fun to see you," pleaded Marian.

One by one, the other parcels were unfastened. There was a little ring of twisted gold from Georgie, a sachet of braided ribbons, dark and light blue, from Gertrude, a slender silver bangle from Marian, and from Mr. Gray a long roll of tissue paper in which lay six pairs of undressed kid gloves in pretty shades of tan color and pale yellow. There was besides a big box of candy. This, Mr. Gray declared, was his real present. Cousin Kate was responsible for the gloves, but he knew very well that there never yet was a girl of seventeen who did not have a sweet tooth ready for a sugar-plum.

One bundle remained. It was tied with pink packthread instead of ribbon.

Cannie undid the string. It was a book, not new, bound in faded brown; and the t.i.tle printed on the back was "The Ladies' Manual of Perfect Gentility."

"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."

The "Manual of Perfect Gentility" was destined to excite more attention than its donor had intended, in more ways than one. Candace and Marian fell to reading it, and found its contents so amusing that they carried it to the morning-room, where Georgie was taking a lesson in china-painting from her mother, who was very clever at all the minor art accomplishments. Gertrude came in at the same time, in search of some crewels to match an embroidery pattern; so they were all together.

"Mamma, mamma, please listen to this!" cried Marian, and she read:--

"'_Directions for entering the room at an evening party._--Fix your eye on the lady of the house on entering, and advance toward her with outstretched hand, looking neither to the right nor to the left, until you have interchanged the ordinary salutations of the occasion. When this is done, turn aside and mingle with the other guests.'

Now, mamma, just imagine it,--marching in with your hand out and your eye fixed!" And Marian, relinquis.h.i.+ng the Manual to Cannie, flew to the door, and entered in the manner prescribed, with her eyes set in a stony glare on her mother's face, and her hand held before her as stiffly as if it had been a s.h.i.+ngle. No one could help laughing.

"I don't think the hand and the glare are necessary," said Mrs. Gray; "but it is certainly quite proper to speak to the lady of the house, when you come in, before you begin to talk to other people."

"Here's another," cried Marian, hardly waiting till her mother had done speaking. "Just listen to these--

"'_Directions for a horseback ride.

Mounting._--The lady should stand on the left side of the horse, with her right hand on the pommel of her saddle, and rest her left foot lightly on the shoulder of her gentleman attendant, who bends before her. When this is done, the gentleman will slowly raise himself to the perpendicular position, and in doing so lift the lady without difficulty to the level of her seat.'"

"My gracious! suppose he didn't," remarked Georgie, looking up from her painting. "There she would be, standing on his shoulder, on one foot!

Imagine it, on the Avenue!" And the four girls united in a peal of laughter.

"But there is something here that I really want to know about," said Candace. "May I read it to you, Cousin Kate? It's in a chapter called 'Correspondence.'"

"Oh, my!" cried Marian, who still held fast to one side of the Manual.

"It tells how to refuse gentlemen when they offer themselves to you.

Here it all is. You must say,--

"'SIR,--I regret extremely if anything in my manner has led to a misapprehension of my true feelings. I do not experience for you the affection which alone can make the marriage relation a happy one; so I--'"

"No, no," interrupted Candace, blus.h.i.+ng very pink, and pulling the book away from Marian; "that isn't at all what I wanted to ask you about, Cousin Kate. It was--"

"Oh, then perhaps you meant to accept him," went on the incorrigible Marian, again getting possession of one side of the "Manual of Gentility." "Here you are:--

"'DEAR FRIEND,--Your letter has made me truly happy, breathing, as it does, expressions of deep and heartfelt affection, of which I have long felt the corresponding sentiments. I shall be happy to receive you in my home as an accepted suitor, and I--'"

"Cousin Kate, make her stop--isn't she too bad?" said Cannie, vainly struggling for the possession of the book.

"'And I'--let me see, where was I when you interrupted?" went on Marian.

"Oh, yes, here--

"'And I am sure that my parents will give their hearty consent to our union. Receive my thanks for your a.s.surances, and believe--'"

But Candace had again got hold of the volume, and no one ever learned the end of the letter, or what the lover of this obliging lady was to "believe."

"_This_ is what I wanted to ask you about, Cousin Kate," said Candace, when quiet was restored. "The book says:--

"'The signature of a letter should depend upon the degree of familiarity existing between the writer and the person addressed. For instance, in writing to a perfect stranger a lady would naturally use the form,--

Yours truly, Mrs. A. M. Cotterell.'"

"Oh! oh!" interrupted Georgie. "Fancy any one signing herself 'Yours truly, Mrs. A. M. Cotterell.' It's awfully vulgar, isn't it mamma?"

"That is a very old-fas.h.i.+oned book," observed Mrs. Gray; "still I don't think, even at the time when it was published, that well-bred people used a signature like that. It may not be 'awfully vulgar,' but it certainly is not correct; nothing but the Christian name should ever be used as a signature."

"But suppose the person you were writing to did not know whether you were married or not," said Candace.

"Then you can add your address below, like this;" and she wrote on the edge of her drawing-paper,--

"Yours truly, "CATHERINE V. GRAY.

"MRS. COURTENAY GRAY, "Newport, R. I.

That is what I should do if I were writing to a stranger."

"Then there is this about the addresses of letters," went on Candace:--

"'In addressing a married lady, use her maiden as well as her married name; for example, in writing to Miss Sarah J. Beebe, who is married to George Gordon, the proper direction would be

Mrs. Sarah B. Gordon, Care of George Gordon, Oshkosh, Michigan.'

Is that right, Cousin Kate?"