er was over and the hard sobs had grown faint and far between, "what
made you cry? Was it because you are tired and a little homesick among
us all, or were you troubled about anything? Tell me, Cannie."

"Oh, it's only because I'm so stupid and--and--countrified," said
Candace, beginning to sob again. "I made such horrid mistakes at
dinner, and Gertrude wanted to laugh,--she didn't laugh, but I saw her
want to,--and Marian did laugh, and I felt so badly."

"Marian is such a little girl that you must forgive her this once," said
Mrs. Gray, "though I am rather ashamed of her myself. I saw all your
'mistakes,' as you call them, Cannie, even one or two that you didn't
see yourself. They were very little mistakes, dear, not worth crying
about,--small blunders in social etiquette, which is a matter of minor
importance,--not failures in good feeling or good manners, which are of
real consequence. They did not make anybody uncomfortable except
yourself."

"Cousin Kate," Candace ventured to ask, "will you tell me why there is
such a thing as etiquette? Why must everybody eat and behave and speak
in the same way, and make rules about it? Is it any real use?"

"That is rather a large question, and leads back to the beginning of
things," said Mrs. Gray, smiling. "I don't suppose I quite understand
it myself, but I think I can make you understand a part of it. I
imagine, when the world was first peopled, in the strange faraway times
of which we know almost nothing except the hints we get in the Bible,
that the few people there were did pretty much as they liked. Noah and
his family in the ark, for instance, probably never set any tables or
had any regular meals, but just ate when they were hungry, each one by
himself. Savage tribes do the same to this day; they seize their bone or
their handful of meat and gnaw it in a corner, or as they walk about.
This was the primitive idea of comfort. But after a time people found
that it was less trouble to have the family food made ready at a certain
time for everybody at once, and have all come together to eat it.
Perhaps at first it was served in one great pot or dish, and each one
dipped in his hand or spoon. The Arabs still do this. Then, of course,
the strongest and greediest got the most of everything, and it may have
been some weak or slow person who went hungry in consequence, who
invented the idea of separate plates and portions."

"But that is not etiquette," objected Cannie. "Pe