"Well then, listen! If I didn't know you,--if you were not my own dear little Cannie, whose warm heart I am sure of, and whose good intentions I know all about,--if I met you for the first time and judged of you merely from your manner, as all strangers must judge,--do you know what I should think?" "What?" "I should think you rather a cold-hearted girl, who didn't like people and didn't mind letting them know it." "Oh, Cousin Kate!" "Or else, if I were more charitably inclined, I should think you a dull girl who did not take much interest in what went on about her." "Oh, Cousin Kate!" "Or," continued her cousin, relentlessly, "if I were a real angel, and disposed to make the very best of everybody, I should say to myself, 'The poor thing is so shy that she can't show what she really is.' Unluckily, there are few perfect angels in this world, and a great many of the other sort. And even as a perfect angel, my dear Cannie, I don't think I should consider you exactly agreeable." "But what can I do?" demanded Candace, looking very unhappy. "I can't make myself not shy." "No; but you can mend matters by forcing yourself to hide your shyness. I have been meditating on the subject, Cannie, and I have made up my mind that shyness is one form of selfishness." "Cousin Kate, how can you say that? I thought selfishness was doing what you liked and what is pleasant. I'm sure I don't _like_ to be shy." "Oh, it's not that kind of selfishness," said Mrs. Gray, smiling. "There is nothing pleasant about shyness; that I am quite ready to admit. But can't you see that it is self-occupation, the being absorbed with your own sensations and feelings, and with trying to imagine what people are thinking about you, that makes you so miserable? If you could forget and occupy yourself with others, this shyness would go. Now, this morning, had you been full of Mrs. Endicott, and what she was like, and what she wanted to talk about, instead of little Candace Arden, and what Mrs. Endicott considered her like, it would all have been different, and much pleasanter for both of you." "Oh, if I only could," said Candace, with a catch in her voice, "I would give anything I have in the world! I hate to seem so awkward and dull. But you've no idea how uncomfortable I feel, Cousin Kate. The moment I come downstairs and see that roomful of company, my face twitches and my cheeks burn, and I can't think of anything to say, and I keep wishing I could run upstairs again and hide somewhere." "Yes, because, as I said, your mind is full of yourself. If instead of coming in with this miserable self-consciousness full upon you, you could look upon the roomful as just so many people to whom you owe the little duties of politeness and cordiality, for whom you have the chance to do something kind or pleasant, you would forget your face and your cheeks and the desire to run away. You would be thinking of them, and in thinking of them you would forget to be shy."