Hostess and Guest

"Hostess and Guest" is a charming short story by Sarah Orne Jewett that explores themes of hospitality, social expectations, and the nuances of human relationships. Set in a small, tight-knit community, the narrative unfolds during a visit between friends, revealing the delicate balance between the roles of the host and the guest. Through intricate character interactions and subtle observations, Jewett examines the deeper meanings of connection and the unspoken rules governing social etiquette. The story is a poignant reflection on the complexities of friendship and the ways in which people navigate their relationships.

• Short story

								
Nan had, indeed, resolved to take a most important step. She had
always dismissed the idea of having any communication with her aunt
most contemptuously when she had first understood their unhappy
position toward each other; but during the last year or two she had
been forced to look at the relationship from a wider point of view.
Dr. Leslie protested that he had always treated Miss Prince in a
perfectly fair and friendly manner, and that if she had chosen to show
no interest in her only niece, nobody was to blame but herself. But
Nan pleaded that her aunt was no longer young; that she might be
wishing that a reconciliation could be brought about; the very fact of
her having constantly sent the yearly allowance in spite of Mrs.
Thacher's and Dr. Leslie's unwillingness to receive it appealed to the
young girl, who was glad to believe that her aunt had, after all, more
interest in her than others cared to observe. She had no near
relatives except Miss Prince. There were some cousins of old Mrs.
Thacher's and their descendants settled in the vicinity of Oldfields;
but Nan clung more eagerly to this one closer tie of kindred than she
cared to confess even to her guardian. It was too late now for any
interference in Dr. Leslie's plans, or usurping of his affectionate
relationship; so, after he found that Nan's loyal heart was bent upon
making so kind a venture, he said one day, with a smile, that she had
better write a letter to her aunt, the immediate result of which we
already know. Nan had been studying too hard, and suffering not a
little from her long-continued city life, and though the doctor had
been making a most charming plan that later in the season they should
take a journey together to Canada, he said nothing about that, and
told himself with a sigh that this would be a more thorough change,
and even urged Nan to stay as long as she pleased in Dunport, if she
found her aunt's house pleasant and everything went well. For whether
Nan liked Miss Prince remained to be proved, though nobody in their
senses could doubt that Miss Prince would be proud of her niece.

It was not until after Nan had fairly started that she began to feel
at all dismayed. Perhaps she had done a foolish thing after all;
Marilla had not approved the adventure, while at the last minute Nan
had become suspicious that the doctor had made another plan, though
she contented herself with the remembrance of perfect freedom to go
home whenever she chose. She told herself grimly that if her aunt died
she should be thankful that she had done this duty; yet when, after a
journey of several hours, she knew that Dunport was the next station,
her heart began to beat in a ridiculous manner. It was unlike any
experience that had ever come to her, and she felt strangely unequal
to the occasion. Long ago she had laughed at her early romances of her
grand Dunport belongings, but the memory of them lingered still, in
spite of this commonplace approach to their realities, and she looked
eagerly at the groups of people at the railway station with a great
hope and almost certainty that she should find her aunt waiting to
meet her. There was no such good fortune, which was a chill at the
outset to the somewhat tired young traveler, but she beckoned a driver
whom she had just ignored, and presently was shut into a somewhat
antiquated public carriage and on her way to Miss Prince's house.

So this was Dunport, and in these very streets her father had played,
and here her mother had become deeper and deeper involved in the
suffering and tragedy which had clouded the end of her short life. It
seemed to the young stranger as if she must shrink away from the
curious glances that stray passers-by sent into the old carriage; and
that she was going to be made very conspicuous by the newly-awakened
interest in a sad story which surely could not have been forgotten.
Poor Nan! she sent a swift thought homeward to the doctor's house and
Mrs. Graham's; even to the deserted little place which had sheltered
her good old grandmother and herself in the first years she could
remember. And with strange irony came also a picture of the home of
one of her schoolmates,--where the father and mother and their
children lived together and loved each other. The tears started to her
eyes until some good angel whispered the kind "Come back soon, Nan
dear," with which Dr. Leslie had let her go away.

The streets were narrow and roughly paved in the old provincial
seaport town; the houses looked a good deal alike as they stood close
to the street, though here and there the tops of some fruit trees
showed themselves over a high garden fence. And presently before a
broad-faced and gambrel-roofed house, the driver stopped his horses,
and now only the front door with its bull's-eyed top-lights and
shining knocker stood between Nan and her aunt. The coachman had given
a resounding summons at this somewhat formidable entrance before he
turned to open the carriage door, but Nan had already alighted, and
stepped quickly into the hall. Priscilla directed her with some
ceremony to the south parlor, and a prim figure turned away from one
of the windows that overlooked the garden, and came forward a few
steps. "I suppose this is Anna," the not very cordial voice began, and
faltered; and then Miss Prince led her niece toward the window she had
left, and without a thought of the reserve she had decided upon,
pushed one of the blinds wide open, and looked again at Nan's
appealing face, half eager herself, and half afraid. Then she fumbled
for a handkerchief, and betook herself to the end of the sofa and
began to cry: "You are so like my mother and Jack," she said. "I did
not think I should be so glad to see you."

The driver had deposited Nan's box, and now appeared at the door of
the parlor with Priscilla (who had quite lost her wits with
excitement) looking over his shoulder. Nan sprang forward, glad of
something to do in the midst of her vague discomfort, and at this
sight the hostess recovered herself, and, commanding Priscilla to show
Miss Prince to her room, assumed the direction of business affairs.

The best bedroom was very pleasant, though somewhat stiff and unused,
and Nan was glad to close its door and find herself in such a
comfortable haven of rest and refuge from the teasing details of that
strange day. The wind had gone to the eastward, and the salt odor was
most delightful to her. A vast inheritance of memories and
associations was dimly brought to mind by that breath of the sea and
freshness of the June day by the harbor side. Her heart leaped at the
thought of the neighborhood of the wharves and shipping, and as she
looked out at the ancient street, she told herself with a sense of
great fun that if she had been a boy she would inevitably have been a
surgeon in the navy. So this was the aunt whom Nan had thought about
and dreamed about by day and by night, whose acquaintance had always
been a waiting pleasure, and the mere fact of whose existence had

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