thought as I told it,--and what Miss Catherine herself felt,--that it
was such a wonderfully linked-together chain. All the time she thought
she was going wrong, that it was a series of mistakes. "I never will
be so miserable again," said she. "It was all ordered for the best;
and may the Lord forgive me for doubting his care and goodness as I
did that day!" It went straight to her heart the next Sunday, when the
old minister said in his sermon, "Dear friends, do not let us forget
what the Psalmist says, that the steps of a good man are ordered by
the Lord. He plans the way we go; and so let us always try to see what
he means in sending us this way or that. Do not let us go astray from
wilfulness, or blame him for the work he gives us to do, or the
burdens he gives us to carry, since he knows best."
So often, in looking back, we find that what seemed the unluckiest day
of the week really proved most fortunate, and what we called bad luck
proved just the other thing. We trace out the good results of what we
thought must make every thing go wrong: we say, "If it had not been
for this or that, I should have missed and lost so much." I once
happened to open a book of sermons, and to see the title of one,
"Every Man's Life a Plan of God." I did not read the sermon itself,
and have never seen the book again; but I have thought of it a great
many times. Since it is true that our lives are planned with the
greatest love and wisdom, must it not be that our sorrows and
hindrances come just from our taking things wrong?
And here, for the last of the story, is a verse that Robert Browning
wrote, that Miss Ashton said one morning, and Miss Catherine liked:--
"Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made:
Our times are in His hand
Who saith 'A whole I planned,
Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!'"
MR. BRUCE.
Last summer (said Aunt Mary), while you were with your father in
Canada, I met for the first time Miss Margaret Tennant of Boston, whom
I had for years a great desire to see and know. My dear friend, Anne
Langdon, has had from her girlhood two very intimate friends; and Miss
Tennant is one, and I the other. Though we each had known the other
through Anne, we had never seen each other before.
I was at the mountains, and upon our being introduced we became very
good friends immediately; and, from at first holding complimentary and
interesting conversations concerning Anne in the hotel parlor, we came
to taking long walks, and spending the most of our time together; and
now we are as fond of each other as possible. When we parted in
September, I had promised to visit her at her house in Boston in the
winter; and, when she was ready for it, I was too.
To my great delight, I found Anne there; and we three old maiden
ladies enjoyed ourselves quite as well as if we were your age, my
dear, with the world before us. Miss Margaret Tennant certainly keeps
house most delightfully.
She lives alone in the old Tennant house, in a pleasant street; and I
think most of the Tennants, for a dozen generations back, must have
been maiden ladies with exquisite taste and deep purses, just like
herself; for every thing there is perfect of its kind, and its kind
the right kind. Then she is such a popular person: it is charming to
see the delight her friends have in her. For one thing, all the young
ladies of her acquaintance--not to mention her nieces, who seem to bow
down and worship her--are her devoted friends; and she often gives
them dinners and tea parties, takes them to plays and concerts,
matronizes them in the summer, takes them to drive in her handsome
carriages, and is the repository of all their joys and sorrows, and, I
have no doubt, knows them better than their fathers and mothers do,
and has nearly as much influence over them. Elly, my dear, I wish you
were one of the clan; for I'm afraid, between your careless papa and
your wicked aunty, you haven't had the most irreproachable bringing
up! But, she is coming to visit me in June, and we'll see what she can
do for you!
One night, while I was there, we were just home from a charming
dinner-party at the house of her sister, Mrs. Bruce; and, as it was a
very stormy night, we had come away early. Not being in the least
tired, we sat ourselves down in our accustomed easy-chairs before the
fire, for a talk, and were lazily making plans for the morrow; Miss
Tennant telling us she should have the eight young ladies whom she
knew best; the Quadrille as she calls them; to dine with us. I must
tell you about that party some day, Elly. It was the nicest affair in
its way I ever saw, and the girls were all such dear ones! I spoke of
the company we had just left, and of my admiration of the Bruce family
in general, and Mrs. Bruce in particular, and of my enjoyment of the
evening.
"Yes," said Margaret, "I think Kitty is quite as young as her two
daughters, and at their age she was more brilliant than either." She
stopped talking for a moment, and then said, "Girls, are you in a
hurry for bed?" (Elly! you ought to be ashamed of yourself for
laughing! Just as if Anne Langdon and I were not as young as you and
Nelly Cameron. There's no difference, sometimes, if we are fifty, and
you twenty!)
We were not in a hurry, and told her so.
"Then," said Margaret, "I will tell you a story. Anne knows it, or
used to; but I doubt if she has thought of it these dozen years, and I
do not think she will mind hearing it again. It is about Kitty and
Mr. Bruce, and their first meeting; also divers singular
misunderstandings which followed, finally ending in their peaceful
wedding in this very room."
Anne laughed; and I settled myself contentedly in my chair, for I had
already found out that Miss Tennant possesses the art of telling a
story capitally.
"Kitty Bruce is three years older than I," said Margaret,--"though I
dare say you do not believe me,--and consequently, at the time I was
fifteen she was eighteen; and whereas I was in my first year at
boarding-school, she was about finishing. I was at Mrs. Walkintwo's,
where you and I met, Anne; and that, as you know, was a quiet place,
where we were taught history and arithmetic, and the other 'solids,'
and from which she had graduated the year before, and gone to Madame
Riche's to acquire the extras and be 'finished.' Her beauty was very
striking, and she was quite as entertaining and agreeable as she is
now,--very witty and original, with the kindest heart in the world,
and enjoying life to the utmost. In the Easter vacation of that year
we were at home together; and one morning I was sitting with her in
her chamber, and she was confiding to me some of the state secrets of
her room at school, to my inexpressible delight, for it was my great
ambition to be intimate with Kitty; and, you know, that elder sisters
are often strangely blind to the virtues of the younger.
"Mamma came in in the midst of it, with her usually cheerful face
exceedingly clouded, so much so that both of us immediately asked what
had happened.
"'Happened!' said poor mamma, sitting down disconsolately on Kitty's
bed, and helping herself, by way of relief, from a box of candy which
lay there. 'I'm sure I don't know what I'm to do. Your father has just
sent me a note from the office, saying he has invited four gentlemen
to dine, and wishes to have every thing as nice as possible. I can
send John for the dinner; and, of course, I don't mind that part of
it, for there is time enough and to spare, and Peggy never fails me;
but you know Hannah is away; and this morning a small Irish boy came
for Ann, saying his sister is sick and she went away with him. About
an hour ago another little wretch came to say she was obliged to go to
Salem with the sister, and would be back to breakfast. Now, children,
what shall I do for some one to wait on the table?
"Kitty and I were as much posed as mamma. John, our coachman, was an
immense Englishman, and perfectly unavailable as to taking upon
himself any of Ann's duties save waiting upon the door. His daughter,
who had been our nurse and was at that time seamstress, might have
done very well, but she was away at Portsmouth; and as for Peggy, our
dear old black cook, though I never knew any one to equal her in her
realm, the kitchen, she had no idea of any thing out of it, and never
had done any thing of this kind. It was raining in torrents, and none
of us could go out; and we sat and looked at each other.
"Suddenly Kitty clapped her hands. 'Mamma,' said she, 'read us their
names again.'
"So mamma read the names of two gentlemen from South America, and one
from New Orleans, and that of Mr. Philip Bruce of London.
"'All perfect strangers except to papa,' said Kitty joyfully; 'and
they're interested in that South-American business of his, and are all
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
friends of Kitty's had that very day come from Europe, which was a
great inducement. Baltimore was a kind of paradise to her, and her
friends there were very dear ones. Her room-mate at Madame Riche's,
who was her very best friend, lived quite near my uncle Hunter's, and
she had not seen her for months. Besides, Boston was getting dull, and
she was tired, and Baltimore air always made her well. So it was
settled, and Kitty went.
"Papa carried her on; and for the first week she had a cold, and was
not out of the house. However, her letters were very happy ones; the
contents being mostly abstracts of conversations between herself and
the dear Alice Thornton, and bits of Baltimore gossip, in which I
wasn't particularly interested. But the cold got better, and her
letters grew rather shorter as she got farther into the round of
parties and pleasure.
"Finally there came a very thick letter, and there was something new
on the stage. She wrote to me somewhat after this fashion, while
staying with Miss Thornton:--
"'You're not to tell this, Margie; but I'm getting involved in what
seems to be a mystery. Ever since I've been here, the girls have
talked to me of the most charming gentleman ever seen in Baltimore,
and they all declared I must be introduced; so at last I got up quite
a curiosity. They said he was an Englishman, very rich, and so
handsome! why! if one were to believe their stories, he might be
carried about for a show! He was said to be very reserved, and to pay
very little attention to any of the young ladies. He knows
Mr. Thornton, Alice's father; and they are good friends, so Alice has
seen a good deal of him, and he has been more polite to her than to
any one else.
"'She had told him of me, and he seemed quite anxious to know me. She
had promised to present him the very first chance, and that was last
night at her party.
"'I wish I had time to tell you about it. Every one says it was one of
the most delightful ones ever given in Baltimore, and I did enjoy it
wonderfully. But do let me tell you about the Englishman. It was about
eleven before he came, and every thing was at its height. I was
dancing with Mr. Dent; and the moment I stopped, up came Alice, with
the most elegant-looking man I ever saw; and the strangest thing is,
that I think now, and thought then, I have seen him somewhere before.
He watched me intently as he crossed the room, and asked Alice, as she
has told me to-day, who I was; and when she said, "That is Kitty
Tennant," he looked as pleased as Punch. Don't tell mamma,' said
Kitty. I keep wondering where it is I have met him; but I know I
cannot have, for they say he is just from England. But you don't know
how queerly he acted. All at once he looked as puzzled as could be;
and by the time he was close to me he stared in the queerest way; and
when Alice introduced us, he bowed, and said, "Haven't we met before,
Miss Tennant?" I said, "I think so;" and said I wished he would help
me remember, for I was very certain I had seen him.
"'Suddenly it seemed to flash into his mind; and he said to himself,
"It couldn't be." But I heard him; and after that he was a perfect
icicle; and I didn't have the courage to ask him any questions, for I
knew it was something horrid by his looks. He evidently mistakes me
for some one, and it is so queer that I firmly believe I have seen
him. He went away from me in a very few minutes, and staid only a
half-hour or so, avoiding Alice all the time. I had promised all the
dances, and was desperately' busy all night, having such a good time
that I quite forgot this unpleasant affair. Alice came to me after the
people were gone away, and said, "Kate Tennant, what did you say to
the poor man?" And she seemed so utterly astonished when I told her
what had happened. She cannot account for it any more than I can, and
says it is as unlike him as possible. I don't know whether I have told
you his name: it is Bruce.'"
When Miss Tennant reached this point in her story, I laughed heartily
(said Aunt Mary); and Anne and she laughed with me. "Why in the world
didn't she know him," said I: "I should have thought the circumstances
would have made her remember him always."
Miss Tennant said, "Indeed, I should have thought so too. I know I
should have recognized him myself if I had seen him; but Kitty was
always the very worst person in the world to remember people, and it
had happened a year before nearly. We always had a great many guests.
"When I answered her letter, I said nothing about him; for I must
confess that I did not recollect that the gentleman who stared so at
Kitty the night she played waiter was Mr. Bruce of London; and,
indeed, I didn't feel particularly interested; and my reply was
probably filled as usual with an account of the exciting things that
had happened to me at the school from which I so earnestly longed for
deliverance.
"Kitty wrote me very often; and once in a while she mentioned this
strange Mr. Bruce, and finally it occurred to me that my sister was
getting very much interested in him; and as I had a woeful dread of
losing her, I expostulated with her concerning the foolishness of
caring any thing for a man who had treated her in so uncourteous a
way, and I laughed at her.
"For some time after that she did not allude to him, and I had nearly
forgotten him. At last there came a letter in which Kitty said, "I
must tell you more of Mr. Bruce, if you _are_ tired to death hearing
of him; for it is really a perfect mystery. I have seen him at a
number of parties, watching me in the most earnest way, as if he
enjoyed it and still was rather ashamed. But when we meet he is just
as cool and distant as possible. Alice and I have missed his calls;
and all the way he has betrayed the slightest interest in me to any
one else is that he met a Miss Burt, who has only lived here a short
time, and to whom he had been presented a night or two before. He
asked her incidentally if she knew Miss Alice Thornton; and, when she
said she did a very little, he asked who the young lady was visiting
her. Miss Burt said she never had seen her, but some one had told her
it was a young lady Miss Thornton had met at boarding-school. "Then
she has never been here before?" said he. And Miss Burt thought not,
indeed was quite sure, as she never had heard of me. Isn't it a pity
he didn't ask some one who could tell him all about me?--and then he
could know whether he had met me, of course.'
"Now Kitty, in that same letter, confessed to me that she liked
Mr. Bruce better than any one she had ever seen, which alarmed me so
much that I remember I wrote her the most shocking scolding."
And here Miss Tennant was silent for a little while, and, when she
spoke, said,--
"I see by your faces you're quite interested; and I think the rest of
the story cannot be better told than by my reading you some of the
letters Kitty wrote to me at the time. I'd like to look them over
myself; and, if you are not in the least sleepy, I will go up to my
room and get them."
In a few minutes she returned; and after making the gas and fire a
little brighter, and taking an observation on the state of the
weather, she began to read:--
"Baltimore, Friday.