Borrowed feathers

by Ruth Lamb

Annette Clifford, bright, talkative and socially nobody, has been left alone in a large house with a deaf servant while her mother and elder sister spend a month among grander friends. She resolves to pull down the blinds and pretend there is no one at home, until a cab brings an aunt with luggage and a proposal that depends entirely on Annette herself. Ruth Lamb's short story, published in a summer number of The Leisure Hour, takes three chapters to teach its lesson about appearances and borrowed plumage, and does so with more humor than most moral tales of its period. It can be read in a single sitting. It is available to read online in your browser on Vinteuil, with the first chapter free.