Page:A Little Country Girl - Coolidge (1887).djvu/124

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114
A LITTLE COUNTRY GIRL.

neck, and gave her half a dozen enormous kisses.

"We shall consider a kiss as a favor," went on Mrs. Gray, inexorably, holding Marian off at arm's length, "not a punishment to be inflicted whenever we happen to feel like it. We shall never trot one foot when we are nervous, and shake the table."

"Cannie, that's you. I thought it would be your turn soon," said Marian.

"Oh! did I trot?" said Cannie. "Please excuse me, Cousin Kate. I have such a bad habit of doing that. Aunt Myra says it's my safety-valve."

"If it's a safety-valve, it's all very well," replied her cousin. "I didn't know. In short, my dears, as the poet says,—

The instinct of self-control, of gentleness, of consideration and forethought and quick sympathy, which go to make up what we call good breeding; the absence of noise and