Mr. Bruce Page #2

"Mr. Bruce" by Sarah Orne Jewett is a charming novella that explores themes of community, friendship, and the complexities of human relationships. Set in a small coastal town in Maine, the story centers around the interactions between the protagonist, a young woman named Miss Bruce, and the various inhabitants of the town. Through her keen observations and gentle humor, Jewett paints a vivid picture of rural life and the bonds that tie people together. The narrative highlights the importance of understanding and compassion in relationships, capturing the essence of small-town dynamics and the richness of everyday experiences.

• Short story

								

on their way there very likely; and we shall never see them again.'

"'Well, child, what has all this to do with Ann's being gone?'

"'I'll tell you, mamma: I have the jolliest plan, and it will be such
fun! I shall be so disappointed if you say no to me. It isn't the
least harm, and I know it will make no trouble. Just let me wear one
of Ann's white aprons and look stupid, you call me Katherine, and I'll
wait on the table as well as she could. No one ever notices the
servants, and I'm not like you or papa or Margaret. You can turn my
portrait to the wall in the drawing-room, and they'll think it's
somebody that is disinherited. Those gentlemen haven't the least
particle of information concerning papa's family; they may be
possessed of the delusion that he is a bachelor in lodgings, for all
we know; and if any thing is said about your children, tell them that
your sons are in college and your eldest daughter with a friend. Of
course I shall be, whether I am with Peggy in the kitchen or standing
behind you. Oh! I'd like it so much better than sitting at the table;
and Peggy will never tell. Who will be the wiser?'

"Mamma at first, though very much amused, shook her head, and said it
was too foolish to be thought of; we could explain our troubles to the
gentlemen, and get on as best we could; but Kate would not give up.
Mamma gave some very good reasons; what should we do without Kitty to
help entertain them? And any one,--though she knew it wouldn't be
considered proper conduct in a mother to make such a remark,--any one
would know Kate was not a servant. Papa, too, would want her to sing
for them in the evening (for, though her voice is wonderfully sweet
now, then she sang like a bird; and we were all very proud of the
girl, as well we might be).

"But she upset all mamma's arguments, asking her how in the world she
entertained so much company unaided, during the years she was unable
to appear on account of extreme youth. She was charmed to hear her say
she was too good looking; but as to her being wanted to sing, just see
if the whole five didn't go directly to the library, and if the
waste-paper basket wasn't filled with papers covered with figures in
the morning!

"And so the end was, that mamma very reluctantly yielded to our
teasing. Peggy, to whom the secret was instantly confided, nearly went
into fits with laughing; and the more we all thought of it the more we
were amused. Kitty suggested our total discomfiture in case papa
brought home some one who knew her. I suggested, that, if it were any
one we were intimate with, we take them into the secret, for I wished
to see how Kate would carry it out; and if it were not, we might--and
thereby I nearly ruined the whole affair--send for the 'lending' of
Mrs. Duncan's Mary,--Mrs. Duncan being a great friend of ours, who
lived only a door or two away. Such a pull as Kitty gave my dress when
I mentioned it!

"However, in due season papa appeared with the four strangers, who had
been at the office with him all day, and, luckily, no one with them.
He was duly made acquainted with the programme for the evening; and
finding the plans all settled, and Kitty's heart evidently set upon
them, he made but little opposition, considering the disappointment it
probably was to him not to show his uncommonly nice little daughter.
We three could hardly conceal our amusement when Kate entered the
drawing-room to announce dinner; and it was made the harder for us by
the queer little Irish brogue she had assumed for the occasion. The
guests--one in particular--could evidently not account for so striking
a display of beauty and grace in so humble a position.

"The dinner went off capitally. Kitty was perfection; and the only way
I could see that she betrayed herself was in having, for a moment or
two, the most interested expression during a conversation we were all
very much interested in. She told me afterward that she came very near
giving her opinion,--and I know it would have been very sensible and
original,--in the most decided manner. Wouldn't it have been shocking?

"We sat a much longer time than usual. The three gentlemen from the
South were middle-aged, and evidently absorbed in business; but the
Englishman was not over thirty, and as handsome and agreeable as
possible. He watched Kitty as often as he dared, to our great
amusement; and once, as she left the room, seemed on the point of
asking us about her. My dears, what could mamma have said?

"Papa was overflowing with fun, and enjoyed it all very much. I could
see he was nearly choking sometimes at Kitty's unnecessary 'Yis,
sur-rs.' She never passed me a plate without giving me a poke; and, I
dare say, reminded papa and mamma of her existence in the same way.

"As she had prophesied, they excused themselves after dinner, and went
to the library,--all but Mr. Bruce, who had no interest in South
America. He had an engagement, and so left us in the course of half an
hour. Conceive our amusement, when, just after we left the table,
Kitty entered with a note on a waiter, and a message purporting to be
from Miss Harriet Wolfe, to the effect that she would call for mamma
to go to an afternoon concert the next day. I was just leaving the
room as she entered; and I can tell you I hurried a bit after that;
and, as I looked around at mamma to see how she bore it, she was
holding a fan before her face, in a perfect convulsion of laughter;
and there stood that wicked Kate, with her hands folded, waiting
solemnly for the answer. Poor Miss Wolfe had died some years before,
and had been stone-deaf at that! How mamma gave the answer, or excused
her amusement, I have forgotten. Kitty did it, as she said then, for a
grand finale to her masquerading; but as she says now, and I firmly
believed at the time, for a parting look at the Englishman.

"He went away, and Kitty came into the parlor, and we had a great
laugh over our dinner-party; and the next day it was told to an
admiring audience of three,--grandmamma and my two aunts; but I think
the story never went any farther, as we did not even dare to tell my
brothers. Ann probably wonders to this day who took her place.

"The next Monday we went back to our two boarding-schools, and after a
while we forgot the whole affair. Kitty finished school with high
honors in July, and 'came out' in November, and was a great belle in
Boston all that winter. I, in durance vile at Mrs. Walkintwo's, read
her journal-letters to a select circle of friends; and they were a
green spot in our so-considered desert of life.

"Towards the last of the winter, papa's sister, for whom Kate was
named, and who was very fond of her, sent for my sister to come to her
for a visit of a few weeks during my uncle's absence. She wrote she
would not have to suspend her pleasure in the least, as there had
never been more gayety in Baltimore than at that time; and some young
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