Miss Ada picked up her knitting bag and Polly followed her to a sheltered corner where Molly and Mary were playing with a store of pebbles they had picked up on the shore.
"Polly has had such a nice letter from her mother," said Miss Ada. "Don't you all want to hear it? She gives such interesting accounts of things out there, and Mary will get quite an idea of ranch life from it." She sat down and read the pages which were full of a pleasant recital of every-day doings, interesting to those unaccustomed to the great west, and more interesting to Polly. At the last came these words:
"There is one thing I want my little girl to remember: the essence of good breeding comes from a good heart. It is both unkind and ill-bred to give offense in a house where hospitality is shown you, to find fault or criticise what is set before you, to draw comparisons between the locality where you live and that which you are visiting so that the latter will appear in a bad light. Persons who have not been accustomed to the society of well-bred people think it is very smart to find fault with things which are different from those with which they have been familiar. Now, I don't want my Polly to be that way, and I must ask her not to be so rude as to abuse hospitality by belittling the customs of a house or the town, state or locality in which it is. I want my Polly to be considered a true lady, even if she is from the wild and woolly west."
Mary looked a little startled while this reading was going on and when Polly stole a glance at her she became very red in the face and turned away her head, but to Polly's great satisfaction, from that time she was less ready to criticise things American. In consequence warm-hearted little Polly tried to be magnanimous and because Aunt Ada asked her to help her to show a generous hospitality, she overlooked Mary's praise of England, and would answer her remarks by saying: "Well, we have some nice things, too." Her clear loud voice, moreover, she tried to tone down when Aunt Ada told her to notice the difference between her way of speaking and Mary's. As to Mary the benefits of her visit were only beginning to tell. Later they showed more plainly, but it was not till there was much heart-burning and many tears were shed.