Nothing, indeed, was absolutely plain to her, except that it was now early morning, and that, whatever might happen next, it was proper, first of all, to get up and say her prayers. She was the more inclined to devotion from the grim aspect of the chamber and its furniture, especially the tall, stiff chairs; one of which stood close by her bedside, and looked as if some oldfashioned personage had been sitting there all night, and had vanished only just in season to escape discovery. When Phoebe was quite dressed, she peeped out of the window, and saw a rosebush in the garden. Being a very tall one, and of luxuriant growth, it had been propped up against the side of the house, and was literally covered with a rare and very beautiful species of white rose. A large portion of them, as the girl afterwards discovered, had blight or mildew at their hearts; but, viewed at a fair distance, the whole rosebush looked as if it had been brought from Eden that very summer, together with the mould in which it grew. The truth was, nevertheless, that it had been planted by Alice Pyncheonshe was Phoebes greatgreatgrandauntin soil which, reckoning only its cultivation as a gardenplat, was now unctuous with nearly two hundred years of vegetable decay. Growing as they did, however, out of the old earth, the flowers still sent a fresh and sweet incense up to their Creator; nor could it have been the less pure and acceptable because Phoebes young breath mingled with it, as the fragrance floated past the window. Hastening down the creaking and carpetless staircase, she found her way into the garden, gathered some of the most perfect of the roses, and brought them to her chamber. Little Phoebe was one of those persons who possess, as their exclusive patrimony, the gift of practical arrangement. It is a kind of natural magic that enables these favored ones to bring out the hidden capabilities of things around them; and particularly to give a look of comfort and habitableness to any place which, for however brief a period, may happen to be their home. A wild hut of underbrush, tossed together by wayfarers through the primitive forest, would acquire the home aspect by one nights lodging of such a woman, and would retain it long after her quiet figure had disappeared into the surrounding shade. No less a portion of such homely witchcraft was requisite to reclaim, as it were, Phoebes waste, cheerless, and dusky chamber, which had been untenanted so longexcept by spiders, and mice, and rats, and ghoststhat it was all overgrown with the desolation which watches to obliterate every trace of mans happier hours. What was precisely Phoebes process we find it impossible to say. She appeared to have no preliminary design, but gave a touch here and another there; brought some articles of furniture to light and dragged others into the shadow; looped up or let down a windowcurtain; and, in the course of half an hour, had fully succeeded in throwing a kindly and hospitable smile over the apartment. No longer ago than the night before, it had resembled nothing so much as the old maids heart; for there was neither sunshine nor household fire in one nor the other, and, save for ghosts and ghostly reminiscences, not a guest, for many years gone by, had entered the heart or the chamber. There was still another peculiarity of this inscrutable charm. The bedchamber, no doubt, was a chamber of very great and varied experience, as a scene of human life the joy of bridal nights had throbbed itself away here; new immortals had first drawn earthly breath here; and here old people had died. Butwhether it were the white roses, or whatever the subtle influence might bea person of delicate instinct would have known at once that it was now a maidens bedchamber, and had been purified of all former evil and sorrow by her sweet breath and happy thoughts. Her dreams of the past night, being such cheerful ones, had exorcised the gloom, and now haunted the chamber in its stead. After arranging matters to her satisfaction, Phoebe emerged from her chamber, with a purpose to descend again into the garden. Besides the rosebush, she had observed several other species of flowers growing there in a wilderness of neglect, and obstructing one anothers development (as is often the parallel case in human society) by their uneducated entanglement and confusion. At the head of the stairs, however, she met Hepzibah, who, it being still early, invited her into a room which she would probably have called her boudoir, had her education embraced any such French phrase. It was strewn about with a few old books, and a workbasket, and a dusty writingdesk; and had, on one side, a large black article of furniture, of very strange appearance, which the old gentlewoman told Phoebe was a harpsichord. It looked more like a coffin than anything else; and, indeednot having been played upon, or opened, for yearsthere must have been a vast deal of dead music in it, stifled for want of air. Human finger was hardly known to have touched its chords since the days of Alice Pyncheon, who had learned the sweet accomplishment of melody in Europe. Hepzibah bade her young guest sit down, and, herself taking a chair near by, looked as earnestly at Phoebes trim little figure as if she expected to see right into its springs and motive secrets. Cousin Phoebe, said she, at last, I really cant see my way clear to keep you with me. These words, however, had not the inhospitable bluntness with which they may strike the reader; for the two relatives, in a talk before bedtime, had arrived at a certain degree of mutual understanding. Hepzibah knew enough to enable her to appreciate the circumstances (resulting from the second marriage of the girls mother) which made it desirable for Phoebe to establish herself in another home. Nor did she misinterpret Phoebes character, and the genial activity pervading itone of the most valuable traits of the true New England womanwhich had impelled her forth, as might be said, to seek her fortune, but with a selfrespecting purpose to confer as much benefit as she could anywise receive. As one of her nearest kindred, she had naturally betaken herself to Hepzibah, with no idea of forcing herself on her cousins protection, but only for a visit of a week or two, which might be indefinitely extended, should it prove for the happiness of both. To Hepzibahs blunt observation, therefore, Phoebe replied as frankly, and more cheerfully. Dear cousin, I cannot tell how it will be, said she. But I really think we may suit one another much better than you suppose. You are a nice girlI see it plainly, continued Hepzibah; and it is not any question as to that point which makes me hesitate. But, Phoebe, this house of mine is but a melancholy place for a young person to be in. It lets in the wind and rain, and the snow, too, in the garret and upper chambers, in wintertime, but it never lets in the sunshine. And as for myself, you see what I ama dismal and lonesome old woman (for I begin to call myself old, Phoebe), whose temper, I am afraid, is none of the best, and whose spirits are as bad as can be! I cannot make your life pleasant, Cousin Phoebe, neither can I so much as give you bread to eat. You will find me a cheerful little body, answered Phoebe, smiling, and yet with a kind of gentle dignity, and I mean to earn my bread. You know I have not been brought up a Pyncheon. A girl learns many things in a New England village. Ah! Phoebe, said Hepzibah, sighing, your knowledge would do but little for you here! And then it is a wretched thought that you should fling away your young days in a place like this. Those cheeks would not be so rosy after a month or two. Look at my face! and, indeed, the contrast was very strikingyou see how pale I am! It is my idea that the dust and continual decay of these old houses are unwholesome for the lungs. There is the gardenthe flowers to be taken care of, observed Phoebe. I should keep myself healthy with exercise in the open air. And, after all, child, exclaimed Hepzibah, suddenly rising, as if to dismiss the subject, it is not for me to say who shall be a guest or inhabitant of the old Pyncheon House. Its master is coming. Do you mean Judge Pyncheon? asked Phoebe in surprise. Judge Pyncheon! answered her cousin angrily. He will hardly cross the threshold while I live! No, no! But, Phoebe, you shall see the face of him I speak of. She went in quest of the miniature already described, and returned with it in her hand. Giving it to Phoebe, she watched her features narrowly, and with a certain jealousy as to the mode in which the girl would show herself affected by the picture. How do you like the face? asked Hepzibah. It is handsome!it is very beautiful! said Phoebe admiringly. It is as sweet a face as a mans can be, or ought to be. It has something of a childs expressionand yet not childishonly one feels so very kindly towards him! He ought never to suffer anything. One would bear much for the sake of sparing him toil or sorrow. Who is it, Cousin Hepzibah? Did you never hear, whispered her cousin, bending towards her, of Clifford Pyncheon? Never. I thought there were no Pyncheons left, except yourself and our cousin Jaffrey, answered Phoebe. And yet I seem to have heard the name of Clifford Pyncheon. Yes!from my father or my mother; but has he not been a long while dead? Well, well, child, perhaps he has! said Hepzibah with a sad, hollow laugh; but, in old houses like this, you know, dead people are very apt to come back again! We shall see. And, Cousin Phoebe, since, after all that I have said, your courage does not fail you, we will not part so soon. You are welcome, my child, for the present, to such a home as your kinswoman can offer you. With this measured, but not exactly cold assurance of a hospitable purpose, Hepzibah kissed her cheek. They now went below stairs, where Phoebenot so much assuming the office as attracting it to herself, by the magnetism of innate fitnesstook the most active part in preparing breakfast. The mistress of the house, meanwhile, as is usual with persons of her stiff and unmalleable cast, stood mostly aside; willing to lend her aid, yet conscious that her natural inaptitude would be likely to impede the business in hand. Phoebe and the fire that boiled the teakettle were equally bright, cheerful, and efficient, in their respective offices. Hepzibah gazed forth from her habitual sluggishness, the necessary result of long solitude, as from another sphere. She could not help being interested, however, and even amused, at the readiness with which her new inmate adapted herself to the circumstances, and brought the house, moreover, and all its rusty old appliances, into a suitableness for her purposes. Whatever she did, too, was done without conscious effort, and with frequent outbreaks of song, which were exceedingly pleasant to the ear. This natural tunefulness made Phoebe seem like a bird in a shadowy tree; or conveyed the idea that the stream of life warbled through her heart as a brook sometimes warbles through a pleasant little dell. It betokened the cheeriness of an active temperament, finding joy in its activity, and, therefore, rendering it beautiful; it was a New England traitthe stern old stuff of Puritanism with a gold thread in the web. Hepzibah brought out some old silver spoons with the family crest upon them, and a china teaset painted over with grotesque figures of man, bird, and beast, in as grotesque a landscape. These pictured people were odd humorists, in a world of their owna world of vivid brilliancy, so far as color went, and still unfaded, although the teapot and small cups were as ancient as the custom itself of teadrinking. Your greatgreatgreatgreatgrandmother had these cups, when she was married, said Hepzibah to Phoebe. She was a Davenport, of a good family. They were almost the first teacups ever seen in the colony; and if one of them were to be broken, my heart would break with it. But it is nonsense to speak so about a brittle teacup, when I remember what my heart has gone through without breaking. The cupsnot having been used, perhaps, since Hepzibahs youthhad contracted no small burden of dust, which Phoebe washed away with so much care and delicacy as to satisfy even the proprietor of this invaluable china. What a nice little housewife you are! exclaimed the latter, smiling, and at the same time frowning so prodigiously that the smile was sunshine under a thundercloud. Do you do other things as well? Are you as good at your book as you are at washing teacups? Not quite, I am afraid, said Phoebe, laughing at the form of Hepzibahs question. But I was schoolmistress for the little children in our district last summer, and might have been so still. Ah! tis all very well! observed the maiden lady, drawing herself up. But these things must have come to you with your mothers blood. I never knew a Pyncheon that had any turn for them. It is very queer, but not the less true, that people are generally quite as vain, or even more so, of their deficiencies than of their available gifts; as was Hepzibah of this native inapplicability, so to speak, of the Pyncheons to any useful purpose. She regarded it as an hereditary trait; and so, perhaps, it was, but unfortunately a morbid one, such as is often generated in families that remain long above the surface of society. Before they left the breakfasttable, the shopbell rang sharply, and Hepzibah set down the remnant of her final cup of tea, with a look of sallow despair that was truly piteous to behold. In cases of distasteful occupation, the second day is generally worse than the first. We return to the rack with all the soreness of the preceding torture in our limbs. At all events, Hepzibah had fully satisfied herself of the impossibility of ever becoming wonted to this peevishly obstreperous little bell. Ring as often as it might, the sound always smote upon her nervous system rudely and suddenly. And especially now, while, with her crested teaspoons and antique china, she was flattering herself with ideas of gentility, she felt an unspeakable disinclination to confront a customer. Do not trouble yourself, dear cousin! cried Phoebe, starting lightly up. I am shopkeeper today. You, child! exclaimed Hepzibah. What can a little country girl know of such matters? Oh, I have done all the shopping for the family at our village store, said Phoebe. And I have had a table at a fancy fair, and made better sales than anybody. These things are not to be learnt; they depend upon a knack that comes, I suppose, added she, smiling, with ones mothers blood. You shall see that I am as nice a little saleswoman as I am a housewife! The old gentlewoman stole behind Phoebe, and peeped from the passageway into the shop, to note how she would manage her undertaking. It was a case of some intricacy. A very ancient woman, in a white short gown and a green petticoat, with a string of gold beads about her neck, and what looked like a nightcap on her head, had brought a quantity of yarn to barter for the commodities of the shop. She was probably the very last person in town who still kept the timehonored spinningwheel in constant revolution. It was worth while to hear the croaking and hollow tones of the old lady, and the pleasant voice of Phoebe, mingling in one twisted thread of talk; and still better to contrast their figuresso light and bloomyso decrepit and duskywith only the counter betwixt them, in one sense, but more than threescore years, in another. As for the bargain, it was wrinkled slyness and craft pitted against native truth and sagacity. Was not that well done? asked Phoebe, laughing, when the customer was gone. Nicely done, indeed, child! answered Hepzibah. I could not have gone through with it nearly so well. As you say, it must be a knack that belongs to you on the mothers side. It is a very genuine admiration, that with which persons too shy or too awkward to take a due part in the bustling world regard the real actors in lifes stirring scenes; so genuine, in fact, that the former are usually fain to make it palatable to their selflove, by assuming that these active and forcible qualities are incompatible with others, which they choose to deem higher and more important. Thus, Hepzibah was well content to acknowledge Phoebes vastly superior gifts as a shopkeeper; she listened, with compliant ear, to her suggestion of various methods whereby the influx of trade might be increased, and rendered profitable, without a hazardous outlay of capital. She consented that the village maiden should manufacture yeast, both liquid and in cakes; and should brew a certain kind of beer, nectareous to the palate, and of rare stomachic virtues; and, moreover, should bake and exhibit for sale some little spicecakes, which whosoever tasted would longingly desire to taste again. All such proofs of a ready mind and skilful handiwork were highly acceptable to the aristocratic hucksteress, so long as she could murmur to herself with a grim smile, and a halfnatural sigh, and a sentiment of mixed wonder, pity, and growing affection What a nice little body she is! If she only could be a lady; toobut thats impossible! Phoebe is no Pyncheon. She takes everything from her mother! As to Phoebes not being a lady, or whether she were a lady or no, it was a point, perhaps, difficult to decide, but which could hardly have come up for judgment at all in any fair and healthy mind. Out of New England, it would be impossible to meet with a person combining so many ladylike attributes with so many others that form no necessary (if compatible) part of the character. She shocked no canon of taste; she was admirably in keeping with herself, and never jarred against surrounding circumstances. Her figure, to be sureso small as to be almost childlike, and so elastic that motion seemed as easy or easier to it than rest, would hardly have suited ones idea of a countess. Neither did her facewith the brown ringlets on either side, and the slightly piquant nose, and the wholesome bloom, and the clear shade of tan, and the half dozen freckles, friendly remembrances of the April sun and breezeprecisely give us a right to call her beautiful. But there was both lustre and depth in her eyes. She was very pretty; as graceful as a bird, and graceful much in the same way; as pleasant about the house as a gleam of sunshine falling on the floor through a shadow of twinkling leaves, or as a ray of firelight that dances on the wall while evening is drawing nigh. Instead of discussing her claim to rank among ladies, it would be preferable to regard Phoebe as the example of feminine grace and availability combined, in a state of society, if there were any such, where ladies did not exist. There it should be womans office to move in the midst of practical affairs, and to gild them all, the very homeliestwere it even the scouring of pots and kettleswith an atmosphere of loveliness and joy. Such was the sphere of Phoebe. To find the born and educated lady, on the other hand, we need look no farther than Hepzibah, our forlorn old maid, in her rustling and rusty silks, with her deeply cherished and ridiculous consciousness of long descent, her shadowy claims to princely territory, and, in the way of accomplishment, her recollections, it may be, of having formerly thrummed on a harpsichord, and walked a minuet, and worked an antique tapestrystitch on her sampler. It was a fair parallel between new Plebeianism and old Gentility. It really seemed as if the battered visage of the House of the Seven Gables, black and heavybrowed as it still certainly looked, must have shown a kind of cheerfulness glimmering through its dusky windows as Phoebe passed to and fro in the interior. Otherwise, it is impossible to explain how the people of the neighborhood so soon became aware of the girls presence. There was a great run of custom, setting steadily in, from about ten oclock until towards noonrelaxing, somewhat, at dinnertime, but recommencing in the afternoon, and, finally, dying away a half an hour or so before the long days sunset. One of the stanchest patrons was little Ned Higgins, the devourer of Jim Crow and the elephant, who today signalized his omnivorous prowess by swallowing two dromedaries and a locomotive. Phoebe laughed, as she summed up her aggregate of sales upon the slate; while Hepzibah, first drawing on a pair of silk gloves, reckoned over the sordid accumulation of copper coin, not without silver intermixed, that had jingled into the till. We must renew our stock, Cousin Hepzibah! cried the little saleswoman. The gingerbread figures are all gone, and so are those Dutch wooden milkmaids, and most of our other playthings. There has been constant inquiry for cheap raisins, and a great cry for whistles, and trumpets, and jewsharps; and at least a dozen little boys have asked for molassescandy. And we must contrive to get a peck of russet apples, late in the season as it is. But, dear cousin, what an enormous heap of copper! Positively a copper mountain! Well done! well done! well done! quoth Uncle Venner, who had taken occasion to shuffle in and out of the shop several times in the course of the day. Heres a girl that will never end her days at my farm! Bless my eyes, what a brisk little soul! Yes, Phoebe is a nice girl! said Hepzibah, with a scowl of austere approbation. But, Uncle Venner, you have known the family a great many years. Can you tell me whether there ever was a Pyncheon whom she takes after? I dont believe there ever was, answered the venerable man. At any rate, it never was my luck to see her like among them, nor, for that matter, anywhere else. Ive seen a great deal of the world, not only in peoples kitchens and backyards but at the streetcorners, and on the wharves, and in other places where my business calls me; and Im free to say, Miss Hepzibah, that I never knew a human creature do her work so much like one of Gods angels as this child Phoebe does! Uncle Venners eulogium, if it appear rather too highstrained for the person and occasion, had, nevertheless, a sense in which it was both subtle and true. There was a spiritual quality in Phoebes activity. The life of the long and busy dayspent in occupations that might so easily have taken a squalid and ugly aspecthad been made pleasant, and even lovely, by the spontaneous grace with which these homely duties seemed to bloom out of her character; so that labor, while she dealt with it, had the easy and flexible charm of play. Angels do not toil, but let their good works grow out of them; and so did Phoebe. The two relativesthe young maid and the old onefound time before nightfall, in the intervals of trade, to make rapid advances towards affection and confidence. A recluse, like Hepzibah, usually displays remarkable frankness, and at least temporary affability, on being absolutely cornered, and brought to the point of personal intercourse; like the angel whom Jacob wrestled with, she is ready to bless you when once overcome. The old gentlewoman took a dreary and proud satisfaction in leading Phoebe from room to room of the house, and recounting the traditions with which, as we may say, the walls were lugubriously frescoed. She showed the indentations made by the lieutenantgovernors swordhilt in the doorpanels of the apartment where old Colonel Pyncheon, a dead host, had received his affrighted visitors with an awful frown. The dusky terror of that frown, Hepzibah observed, was thought to be lingering ever since in the passageway. She bade Phoebe step into one of the tall chairs, and inspect the ancient map of the Pyncheon territory at the eastward. In a tract of land on which she laid her finger, there existed a silver mine, the locality of which was precisely pointed out in some memoranda of Colonel Pyncheon himself, but only to be made known when the family claim should be recognized by government. Thus it was for the interest of all New England that the Pyncheons should have justice done them. She told, too, how that there was undoubtedly an immense treasure of English guineas hidden somewhere about the house, or in the cellar, or possibly in the garden. If you should happen to find it, Phoebe, said Hepzibah, glancing aside at her with a grim yet kindly smile, we will tie up the shopbell for good and all! Yes, dear cousin, answered Phoebe; but, in the meantime, I hear somebody ringing it! When the customer was gone, Hepzibah talked rather vaguely, and at great length, about a certain Alice Pyncheon, who had been exceedingly beautiful and accomplished in her lifetime, a hundred years ago. The fragrance of her rich and delightful character still lingered about the place where she had lived, as a dried rosebud scents the drawer where it has withered and perished. This lovely Alice had met with some great and mysterious calamity, and had grown thin and white, and gradually faded out of the world. But, even now, she was supposed to haunt the House of the Seven Gables, and, a great many timesespecially when one of the Pyncheons was to dieshe had been heard playing sadly and beautifully on the harpsichord. One of these tunes, just as it had sounded from her spiritual touch, had been written down by an amateur of music; it was so exquisitely mournful that nobody, to this day, could bear to hear it played, unless when a great sorrow had made them know the still profounder sweetness of it. Was it the same harpsichord that you showed me? inquired Phoebe. The very same, said Hepzibah. It was Alice Pyncheons harpsichord. When I was learning music, my father would never let me open it. So, as I could only play on my teachers instrument, I have forgotten all my music long ago. Leaving these antique themes, the old lady began to talk about the daguerreotypist, whom, as he seemed to be a wellmeaning and orderly young man, and in narrow circumstances, she had permitted to take up his residence in one of the seven gables. But, on seeing more of Mr. Holgrave, she hardly knew what to make of him. He had the strangest companions imaginable; men with long beards, and dressed in linen blouses, and other such newfangled and illfitting garments; reformers, temperance lecturers, and all manner of crosslooking philanthropists; communitymen, and comeouters, as Hepzibah believed, who acknowledged no law, and ate no solid food, but lived on the scent of other peoples cookery, and turned up their noses at the fare. As for the daguerreotypist, she had read a paragraph in a penny paper, the other day, accusing him of making a speech full of wild and disorganizing matter, at a meeting of his bandittilike associates. For her own part, she had reason to believe that he practised animal magnetism, and, if such things were in fashion nowadays, should be apt to suspect him of studying the Black Art up there in his lonesome chamber. But, dear cousin, said Phoebe, if the young man is so dangerous, why do you let him stay? If he does nothing worse, he may set the house on fire! Why, sometimes, answered Hepzibah, I have seriously made it a question, whether I ought not to send him away. But, with all his oddities, he is a quiet kind of a person, and has such a way of taking hold of ones mind, that, without exactly liking him (for I dont know enough of the young man), I should be sorry to lose sight of him entirely. A woman clings to slight acquaintances when she lives so much alone as I do. But if Mr. Holgrave is a lawless person! remonstrated Phoebe, a part of whose essence it was to keep within the limits of law. Oh! said Hepzibah carelesslyfor, formal as she was, still, in her lifes experience, she had gnashed her teeth against human lawI suppose he has a law of his own! VI Maules Well After an early tea, the little countrygirl strayed into the garden. The enclosure had formerly been very extensive, but was now contracted within small compass, and hemmed about, partly by high wooden fences, and partly by the outbuildings of houses that stood on another street. In its centre was a grassplat, surrounding a ruinous little structure, which showed just enough of its original design to indicate that it had once been a summerhouse. A hopvine, springing from last years root, was beginning to clamber over it, but would be long in covering the roof with its green mantle. Three of the seven gables either fronted or looked sideways, with a dark solemnity of aspect, down into the garden. The black, rich soil had fed itself with the decay of a long period of time; such as fallen leaves, the petals of flowers, and the stalks and seedvessels of vagrant and lawless plants, more useful after their death than ever while flaunting in the sun. The evil of these departed years would naturally have sprung up again, in such rank weeds (symbolic of the transmitted vices of society) as are always prone to root themselves about human dwellings. Phoebe saw, however, that their growth must have been checked by a degree of careful labor, bestowed daily and systematically on the garden. The white double rosebush had evidently been propped up anew against the house since the commencement of the season; and a peartree and three damsontrees, which, except a row of currantbushes, constituted the only varieties of fruit, bore marks of the recent amputation of several superfluous or defective limbs. There were also a few species of antique and hereditary flowers, in no very flourishing condition, but scrupulously weeded; as if some person, either out of love or curiosity, had been anxious to bring them to such perfection as they were capable of attaining. The remainder of the garden presented a wellselected assortment of esculent vegetables, in a praiseworthy state of advancement. Summer squashes almost in their golden blossom; cucumbers, now evincing a tendency to spread away from the main stock, and ramble far and wide; two or three rows of stringbeans and as many more that were about to festoon themselves on poles; tomatoes, occupying a site so sheltered and sunny that the plants were already gigantic, and promised an early and abundant harvest. Phoebe wondered whose care and toil it could have been that had planted these vegetables, and kept the soil so clean and orderly. Not surely her cousin Hepzibahs, who had no taste nor spirits for the ladylike employment of cultivating flowers, andwith her recluse habits, and tendency to shelter herself within the dismal shadow of the housewould hardly have come forth under the speck of open sky to weed and hoe among the fraternity of beans and squashes. It being her first day of complete estrangement from rural objects, Phoebe found an unexpected charm in this little nook of grass, and foliage, and aristocratic flowers, and plebeian vegetables. The eye of Heaven seemed to look down into it pleasantly, and with a peculiar smile, as if glad to perceive that nature, elsewhere overwhelmed, and driven out of the dusty town, had here been able to retain a breathingplace. The spot acquired a somewhat wilder grace, and yet a very gentle one, from the fact that a pair of robins had built their nest in the peartree, and were making themselves exceedingly busy and happy in the dark intricacy of its boughs. Bees, toostrange to sayhad thought it worth their while to come hither, possibly from the range of hives beside some farmhouse miles away. How many aerial voyages might they have made, in quest of honey, or honeyladen, betwixt dawn and sunset! Yet, late as it now was, there still arose a pleasant hum out of one or two of the squashblossoms, in the depths of which these bees were plying their golden labor. There was one other object in the garden which Nature might fairly claim as her inalienable property, in spite of whatever man could do to render it his own.


This was a fountain, set round with a rim of old mossy stones, and paved, in its bed, with what appeared to be a sort of mosaicwork of variously colored pebbles. The play and slight agitation of the water, in its upward gush, wrought magically with these variegated pebbles, and made a continually shifting apparition of quaint figures, vanishing too suddenly to be definable. Thence, swelling over the rim of mossgrown stones, the water stole away under the fence, through what we regret to call a gutter, rather than a channel. Nor must we forget to mention a hencoop of very reverend antiquity that stood in the farther corner of the garden, not a great way from the fountain. It now contained only Chanticleer, his two wives, and a solitary chicken. All of them were pure specimens of a breed which had been transmitted down as an heirloom in the Pyncheon family, and were said, while in their prime, to have attained almost the size of turkeys, and, on the score of delicate flesh, to be fit for a princes table. In proof of the authenticity of this legendary renown, Hepzibah could have exhibited the shell of a great egg, which an ostrich need hardly have been ashamed of. Be that as it might, the hens were now scarcely larger than pigeons, and had a queer, rusty, withered aspect, and a gouty kind of movement, and a sleepy and melancholy tone throughout all the variations of their clucking and cackling. It was evident that the race had degenerated, like many a noble race besides, in consequence of too strict a watchfulness to keep it pure. These feathered people had existed too long in their distinct variety; a fact of which the present representatives, judging by their lugubrious deportment, seemed to be aware. They kept themselves alive, unquestionably, and laid now and then an egg, and hatched a chicken; not for any pleasure of their own, but that the world might not absolutely lose what had once been so admirable a breed of fowls. The distinguishing mark of the hens was a crest of lamentably scanty growth, in these latter days, but so oddly and wickedly analogous to Hepzibahs turban, that Phoebeto the poignant distress of her conscience, but inevitablywas led to fancy a general resemblance betwixt these forlorn bipeds and her respectable relative. The girl ran into the house to get some crumbs of bread, cold potatoes, and other such scraps as were suitable to the accommodating appetite of fowls. Returning, she gave a peculiar call, which they seemed to recognize. The chicken crept through the pales of the coop and ran, with some show of liveliness, to her feet; while Chanticleer and the ladies of his household regarded her with queer, sidelong glances, and then croaked one to another, as if communicating their sage opinions of her character. So wise, as well as antique, was their aspect, as to give color to the idea, not merely that they were the descendants of a timehonored race, but that they had existed, in their individual capacity, ever since the House of the Seven Gables was founded, and were somehow mixed up with its destiny. They were a species of tutelary sprite, or Banshee; although winged and feathered differently from most other guardian angels. Here, you odd little chicken! said Phoebe; here are some nice crumbs for you! The chicken, hereupon, though almost as venerable in appearance as its motherpossessing, indeed, the whole antiquity of its progenitors in miniaturemustered vivacity enough to flutter upward and alight on Phoebes shoulder. That little fowl pays you a high compliment! said a voice behind Phoebe. Turning quickly, she was surprised at sight of a young man, who had found access into the garden by a door opening out of another gable than that whence she had emerged. He held a hoe in his hand, and, while Phoebe was gone in quest of the crumbs, had begun to busy himself with drawing up fresh earth about the roots of the tomatoes. The chicken really treats you like an old acquaintance, continued he in a quiet way, while a smile made his face pleasanter than Phoebe at first fancied it. Those venerable personages in the coop, too, seem very affably disposed. You are lucky to be in their good graces so soon! They have known me much longer, but never honor me with any familiarity, though hardly a day passes without my bringing them food. Miss Hepzibah, I suppose, will interweave the fact with her other traditions, and set it down that the fowls know you to be a Pyncheon! The secret is, said Phoebe, smiling, that I have learned how to talk with hens and chickens. Ah, but these hens, answered the young manthese hens of aristocratic lineage would scorn to understand the vulgar language of a barnyard fowl. I prefer to thinkand so would Miss Hepzibahthat they recognize the family tone. For you are a Pyncheon? My name is Phoebe Pyncheon, said the girl, with a manner of some reserve; for she was aware that her new acquaintance could be no other than the daguerreotypist, of whose lawless propensities the old maid had given her a disagreeable idea. I did not know that my cousin Hepzibahs garden was under another persons care. Yes, said Holgrave, I dig, and hoe, and weed, in this black old earth, for the sake of refreshing myself with what little nature and simplicity may be left in it, after men have so long sown and reaped here. I turn up the earth by way of pastime. My sober occupation, so far as I have any, is with a lighter material. In short, I make pictures out of sunshine; and, not to be too much dazzled with my own trade, I have prevailed with Miss Hepzibah to let me lodge in one of these dusky gables. It is like a bandage over ones eyes, to come into it. But would you like to see a specimen of my productions? A daguerreotype likeness, do you mean? asked Phoebe with less reserve; for, in spite of prejudice, her own youthfulness sprang forward to meet his. I dont much like pictures of that sortthey are so hard and stern; besides dodging away from the eye, and trying to escape altogether. They are conscious of looking very unamiable, I suppose, and therefore hate to be seen. If you would permit me, said the artist, looking at Phoebe, I should like to try whether the daguerreotype can bring out disagreeable traits on a perfectly amiable face. But there certainly is truth in what you have said. Most of my likenesses do look unamiable; but the very sufficient reason, I fancy, is, because the originals are so. There is a wonderful insight in Heavens broad and simple sunshine. While we give it credit only for depicting the merest surface, it actually brings out the secret character with a truth that no painter would ever venture upon, even could he detect it. There is, at least, no flattery in my humble line of art. Now, here is a likeness which I have taken over and over again, and still with no better result. Yet the original wears, to common eyes, a very different expression. It would gratify me to have your judgment on this character. He exhibited a daguerreotype miniature in a morocco case. Phoebe merely glanced at it, and gave it back. I know the face, she replied; for its stern eye has been following me about all day. It is my Puritan ancestor, who hangs yonder in the parlor. To be sure, you have found some way of copying the portrait without its black velvet cap and gray beard, and have given him a modern coat and satin cravat, instead of his cloak and band. I dont think him improved by your alterations. You would have seen other differences had you looked a little longer, said Holgrave, laughing, yet apparently much struck. I can assure you that this is a modern face, and one which you will very probably meet. Now, the remarkable point is, that the original wears, to the worlds eyeand, for aught I know, to his most intimate friendsan exceedingly pleasant countenance, indicative of benevolence, openness of heart, sunny goodhumor, and other praiseworthy qualities of that cast. The sun, as you see, tells quite another story, and will not be coaxed out of it, after half a dozen patient attempts on my part. Here we have the man, sly, subtle, hard, imperious, and, withal, cold as ice. Look at that eye! Would you like to be at its mercy? At that mouth! Could it ever smile? And yet, if you could only see the benign smile of the original! It is so much the more unfortunate, as he is a public character of some eminence, and the likeness was intended to be engraved. Well, I dont wish to see it any more, observed Phoebe, turning away her eyes. It is certainly very like the old portrait. But my cousin Hepzibah has another picturea miniature. If the original is still in the world, I think he might defy the sun to make him look stern and hard. You have seen that picture, then! exclaimed the artist, with an expression of much interest. I never did, but have a great curiosity to do so. And you judge favorably of the face? There never was a sweeter one, said Phoebe. It is almost too soft and gentle for a mans. Is there nothing wild in the eye? continued Holgrave, so earnestly that it embarrassed Phoebe, as did also the quiet freedom with which he presumed on their so recent acquaintance. Is there nothing dark or sinister anywhere? Could you not conceive the original to have been guilty of a great crime? It is nonsense, said Phoebe a little impatiently, for us to talk about a picture which you have never seen. You mistake it for some other. A crime, indeed! Since you are a friend of my cousin Hepzibahs, you should ask her to show you the picture. It will suit my purpose still better to see the original, replied the daguerreotypist coolly. As to his character, we need not discuss its points; they have already been settled by a competent tribunal, or one which called itself competent. But, stay! Do not go yet, if you please! I have a proposition to make you. Phoebe was on the point of retreating, but turned back, with some hesitation; for she did not exactly comprehend his manner, although, on better observation, its feature seemed rather to be lack of ceremony than any approach to offensive rudeness. There was an odd kind of authority, too, in what he now proceeded to say, rather as if the garden were his own than a place to which he was admitted merely by Hepzibahs courtesy. If agreeable to you, he observed, it would give me pleasure to turn over these flowers, and those ancient and respectable fowls, to your care. Coming fresh from country air and occupations, you will soon feel the need of some such outofdoor employment. My own sphere does not so much lie among flowers. You can trim and tend them, therefore, as you please; and I will ask only the least trifle of a blossom, now and then, in exchange for all the good, honest kitchen vegetables with which I propose to enrich Miss Hepzibahs table. So we will be fellowlaborers, somewhat on the community system. Silently, and rather surprised at her own compliance, Phoebe accordingly betook herself to weeding a flowerbed, but busied herself still more with cogitations respecting this young man, with whom she so unexpectedly found herself on terms approaching to familiarity. She did not altogether like him. His character perplexed the little countrygirl, as it might a more practised observer; for, while the tone of his conversation had generally been playful, the impression left on her mind was that of gravity, and, except as his youth modified it, almost sternness. She rebelled, as it were, against a certain magnetic element in the artists nature, which he exercised towards her, possibly without being conscious of it. After a little while, the twilight, deepened by the shadows of the fruittrees and the surrounding buildings, threw an obscurity over the garden. There, said Holgrave, it is time to give over work! That last stroke of the hoe has cut off a beanstalk. Good night, Miss Phoebe Pyncheon! Any bright day, if you will put one of those rosebuds in your hair, and come to my rooms in Central Street, I will seize the purest ray of sunshine, and make a picture of the flower and its wearer. He retired towards his own solitary gable, but turned his head, on reaching the door, and called to Phoebe, with a tone which certainly had laughter in it, yet which seemed to be more than half in earnest. Be careful not to drink at Maules well! said he. Neither drink nor bathe your face in it! Maules well! answered Phoebe. Is that it with the rim of mossy stones? I have no thought of drinking therebut why not? Oh, rejoined the daguerreotypist, because, like an old ladys cup of tea, it is water bewitched! He vanished; and Phoebe, lingering a moment, saw a glimmering light, and then the steady beam of a lamp, in a chamber of the gable. On returning into Hepzibahs apartment of the house, she found the lowstudded parlor so dim and dusky that her eyes could not penetrate the interior. She was indistinctly aware, however, that the gaunt figure of the old gentlewoman was sitting in one of the straightbacked chairs, a little withdrawn from the window, the faint gleam of which showed the blanched paleness of her cheek, turned sideways towards a corner. Shall I light a lamp, Cousin Hepzibah? she asked. Do, if you please, my dear child, answered Hepzibah. But put it on the table in the corner of the passage. My eyes are weak; and I can seldom bear the lamplight on them. What an instrument is the human voice! How wonderfully responsive to every emotion of the human soul! In Hepzibahs tone, at that moment, there was a certain rich depth and moisture, as if the words, commonplace as they were, had been steeped in the warmth of her heart. Again, while lighting the lamp in the kitchen, Phoebe fancied that her cousin spoke to her. In a moment, cousin! answered the girl. These matches just glimmer, and go out. But, instead of a response from Hepzibah, she seemed to hear the murmur of an unknown voice. It was strangely indistinct, however, and less like articulate words than an unshaped sound, such as would be the utterance of feeling and sympathy, rather than of the intellect. So vague was it, that its impression or echo in Phoebes mind was that of unreality. She concluded that she must have mistaken some other sound for that of the human voice; or else that it was altogether in her fancy. She set the lighted lamp in the passage, and again entered the parlor. Hepzibahs form, though its sable outline mingled with the dusk, was now less imperfectly visible. In the remoter parts of the room, however, its walls being so ill adapted to reflect light, there was nearly the same obscurity as before. Cousin, said Phoebe, did you speak to me just now? No, child! replied Hepzibah. Fewer words than before, but with the same mysterious music in them! Mellow, melancholy, yet not mournful, the tone seemed to gush up out of the deep well of Hepzibahs heart, all steeped in its profoundest emotion. There was a tremor in it, too, thatas all strong feeling is electricpartly communicated itself to Phoebe. The girl sat silently for a moment. But soon, her senses being very acute, she became conscious of an irregular respiration in an obscure corner of the room. Her physical organization, moreover, being at once delicate and healthy, gave her a perception, operating with almost the effect of a spiritual medium, that somebody was near at hand. My dear cousin, asked she, overcoming an indefinable reluctance, is there not someone in the room with us? Phoebe, my dear little girl, said Hepzibah, after a moments pause, you were up betimes, and have been busy all day. Pray go to bed; for I am sure you must need rest. I will sit in the parlor awhile, and collect my thoughts. It has been my custom for more years, child, than you have lived! While thus dismissing her, the maiden lady stepped forward, kissed Phoebe, and pressed her to her heart, which beat against the girls bosom with a strong, high, and tumultuous swell. How came there to be so much love in this desolate old heart, that it could afford to well over thus abundantly? Goodnight, cousin, said Phoebe, strangely affected by Hepzibahs manner. If you begin to love me, I am glad! She retired to her chamber, but did not soon fall asleep, nor then very profoundly. At some uncertain period in the depths of night, and, as it were, through the thin veil of a dream, she was conscious of a footstep mounting the stairs heavily, but not with force and decision. The voice of Hepzibah, with a hush through it, was going up along with the footsteps; and, again, responsive to her cousins voice, Phoebe heard that strange, vague murmur, which might be likened to an indistinct shadow of human utterance. VII The Guest When Phoebe awokewhich she did with the early twittering of the conjugal couple of robins in the peartreeshe heard movements below stairs, and, hastening down, found Hepzibah already in the kitchen. She stood by a window, holding a book in close contiguity to her nose, as if with the hope of gaining an olfactory acquaintance with its contents, since her imperfect vision made it not very easy to read them. If any volume could have manifested its essential wisdom in the mode suggested, it would certainly have been the one now in Hepzibahs hand; and the kitchen, in such an event, would forthwith have streamed with the fragrance of venison, turkeys, capons, larded partridges, puddings, cakes, and Christmas pies, in all manner of elaborate mixture and concoction. It was a cookery book, full of innumerable old fashions of English dishes, and illustrated with engravings, which represented the arrangements of the table at such banquets as it might have befitted a nobleman to give in the great hall of his castle. And, amid these rich and potent devices of the culinary art (not one of which, probably, had been tested, within the memory of any mans grandfather), poor Hepzibah was seeking for some nimble little titbit, which, with what skill she had, and such materials as were at hand, she might toss up for breakfast. Soon, with a deep sigh, she put aside the savory volume, and inquired of Phoebe whether old Speckle, as she called one of the hens, had laid an egg the preceding day. Phoebe ran to see, but returned without the expected treasure in her hand. At that instant, however, the blast of a fishdealers conch was heard, announcing his approach along the street. With energetic raps at the shopwindow, Hepzibah summoned the man in, and made purchase of what he warranted as the finest mackerel in his cart, and as fat a one as ever he felt with his finger so early in the season. Requesting Phoebe to roast some coffeewhich she casually observed was the real Mocha, and so long kept that each of the small berries ought to be worth its weight in goldthe maiden lady heaped fuel into the vast receptacle of the ancient fireplace in such quantity as soon to drive the lingering dusk out of the kitchen. The countrygirl, willing to give her utmost assistance, proposed to make an Indian cake, after her mothers peculiar method, of easy manufacture, and which she could vouch for as possessing a richness, and, if rightly prepared, a delicacy, unequalled by any other mode of breakfastcake. Hepzibah gladly assenting, the kitchen was soon the scene of savory preparation. Perchance, amid their proper element of smoke, which eddied forth from the illconstructed chimney, the ghosts of departed cookmaids looked wonderingly on, or peeped down the great breadth of the flue, despising the simplicity of the projected meal, yet ineffectually pining to thrust their shadowy hands into each inchoate dish. The halfstarved rats, at any rate, stole visibly out of their hidingplaces, and sat on their hindlegs, snuffing the fumy atmosphere, and wistfully awaiting an opportunity to nibble. Hepzibah had no natural turn for cookery, and, to say the truth, had fairly incurred her present meagreness by often choosing to go without her dinner rather than be attendant on the rotation of the spit, or ebullition of the pot. Her zeal over the fire, therefore, was quite an heroic test of sentiment. It was touching, and positively worthy of tears (if Phoebe, the only spectator, except the rats and ghosts aforesaid, had not been better employed than in shedding them), to see her rake out a bed of fresh and glowing coals, and proceed to broil the mackerel. Her usually pale cheeks were all ablaze with heat and hurry. She watched the fish with as much tender care and minuteness of attention as ifwe know not how to express it otherwiseas if her own heart were on the gridiron, and her immortal happiness were involved in its being done precisely to a turn! Life, within doors, has few pleasanter prospects than a neatly arranged and wellprovisioned breakfasttable. We come to it freshly, in the dewy youth of the day, and when our spiritual and sensual elements are in better accord than at a later period; so that the material delights of the morning meal are capable of being fully enjoyed, without any very grievous reproaches, whether gastric or conscientious, for yielding even a trifle overmuch to the animal department of our nature. The thoughts, too, that run around the ring of familiar guests have a piquancy and mirthfulness, and oftentimes a vivid truth, which more rarely find their way into the elaborate intercourse of dinner. Hepzibahs small and ancient table, supported on its slender and graceful legs, and covered with a cloth of the richest damask, looked worthy to be the scene and centre of one of the cheerfullest of parties. The vapor of the broiled fish arose like incense from the shrine of a barbarian idol, while the fragrance of the Mocha might have gratified the nostrils of a tutelary Lar, or whatever power has scope over a modern breakfasttable. Phoebes Indian cakes were the sweetest offering of allin their hue befitting the rustic altars of the innocent and golden ageor, so brightly yellow were they, resembling some of the bread which was changed to glistening gold when Midas tried to eat it. The butter must not be forgottenbutter which Phoebe herself had churned, in her own rural home, and brought it to her cousin as a propitiatory giftsmelling of cloverblossoms, and diffusing the charm of pastoral scenery through the darkpanelled parlor. All this, with the quaint gorgeousness of the old china cups and saucers, and the crested spoons, and a silver creamjug (Hepzibahs only other article of plate, and shaped like the rudest porringer), set out a board at which the stateliest of old Colonel Pyncheons guests need not have scorned to take his place. But the Puritans face scowled down out of the picture, as if nothing on the table pleased his appetite. By way of contributing what grace she could, Phoebe gathered some roses and a few other flowers, possessing either scent or beauty, and arranged them in a glass pitcher, which, having long ago lost its handle, was so much the fitter for a flowervase. The early sunshineas fresh as that which peeped into Eves bower while she and Adam sat at breakfast therecame twinkling through the branches of the peartree, and fell quite across the table. All was now ready. There were chairs and plates for three. A chair and plate for Hepzibahthe same for Phoebebut what other guest did her cousin look for? Throughout this preparation there had been a constant tremor in Hepzibahs frame; an agitation so powerful that Phoebe could see the quivering of her gaunt shadow, as thrown by the firelight on the kitchen wall, or by the sunshine on the parlor floor. Its manifestations were so various, and agreed so little with one another, that the girl knew not what to make of it. Sometimes it seemed an ecstasy of delight and happiness. At such moments, Hepzibah would fling out her arms, and infold Phoebe in them, and kiss her cheek as tenderly as ever her mother had; she appeared to do so by an inevitable impulse, and as if her bosom were oppressed with tenderness, of which she must needs pour out a little, in order to gain breathingroom. The next moment, without any visible cause for the change, her unwonted joy shrank back, appalled, as it were, and clothed itself in mourning; or it ran and hid itself, so to speak, in the dungeon of her heart, where it had long lain chained, while a cold, spectral sorrow took the place of the imprisoned joy, that was afraid to be enfranchiseda sorrow as black as that was bright. She often broke into a little, nervous, hysteric laugh, more touching than any tears could be; and forthwith, as if to try which was the most touching, a gush of tears would follow; or perhaps the laughter and tears came both at once, and surrounded our poor Hepzibah, in a moral sense, with a kind of pale, dim rainbow. Towards Phoebe, as we have said, she was affectionatefar tenderer than ever before, in their brief acquaintance, except for that one kiss on the preceding nightyet with a continually recurring pettishness and irritability. She would speak sharply to her; then, throwing aside all the starched reserve of her ordinary manner, ask pardon, and the next instant renew the justforgiven injury. At last, when their mutual labor was all finished, she took Phoebes hand in her own trembling one. Bear with me, my dear child, she cried; for truly my heart is full to the brim! Bear with me; for I love you, Phoebe, though I speak so roughly. Think nothing of it, dearest child! By and by, I shall be kind, and only kind! My dearest cousin, cannot you tell me what has happened? asked Phoebe, with a sunny and tearful sympathy. What is it that moves you so? Hush! hush! He is coming! whispered Hepzibah, hastily wiping her eyes. Let him see you first, Phoebe; for you are young and rosy, and cannot help letting a smile break out whether or no. He always liked bright faces! And mine is old now, and the tears are hardly dry on it. He never could abide tears. There; draw the curtain a little, so that the shadow may fall across his side of the table! But let there be a good deal of sunshine, too; for he never was fond of gloom, as some people are. He has had but little sunshine in his lifepoor Cliffordand, oh, what a black shadow. Poor, poor Clifford! Thus murmuring in an undertone, as if speaking rather to her own heart than to Phoebe, the old gentlewoman stepped on tiptoe about the room, making such arrangements as suggested themselves at the crisis. Meanwhile there was a step in the passageway, above stairs. Phoebe recognized it as the same which had passed upward, as through her dream, in the nighttime. The approaching guest, whoever it might be, appeared to pause at the head of the staircase; he paused twice or thrice in the descent; he paused again at the foot. Each time, the delay seemed to be without purpose, but rather from a forgetfulness of the purpose which had set him in motion, or as if the persons feet came involuntarily to a standstill because the motivepower was too feeble to sustain his progress. Finally, he made a long pause at the threshold of the parlor. He took hold of the knob of the door; then loosened his grasp without opening it. Hepzibah, her hands convulsively clasped, stood gazing at the entrance. Dear Cousin Hepzibah, pray dont look so! said Phoebe, trembling; for her cousins emotion, and this mysteriously reluctant step, made her feel as if a ghost were coming into the room. You really frighten me! Is something awful going to happen? Hush! whispered Hepzibah. Be cheerful! whatever may happen, be nothing but cheerful! The final pause at the threshold proved so long, that Hepzibah, unable to endure the suspense, rushed forward, threw open the door, and led in the stranger by the hand. At the first glance, Phoebe saw an elderly personage, in an oldfashioned dressinggown of faded damask, and wearing his gray or almost white hair of an unusual length. It quite overshadowed his forehead, except when he thrust it back, and stared vaguely about the room. After a very brief inspection of his face, it was easy to conceive that his footstep must necessarily be such an one as that which, slowly and with as indefinite an aim as a childs first journey across a floor, had just brought him hitherward. Yet there were no tokens that his physical strength might not have sufficed for a free and determined gait. It was the spirit of the man that could not walk. The expression of his countenancewhile, notwithstanding it had the light of reason in itseemed to waver, and glimmer, and nearly to die away, and feebly to recover itself again. It was like a flame which we see twinkling among halfextinguished embers; we gaze at it more intently than if it were a positive blaze, gushing vividly upwardmore intently, but with a certain impatience, as if it ought either to kindle itself into satisfactory splendor, or be at once extinguished. For an instant after entering the room, the guest stood still, retaining Hepzibahs hand instinctively, as a child does that of the grown person who guides it. He saw Phoebe, however, and caught an illumination from her youthful and pleasant aspect, which, indeed, threw a cheerfulness about the parlor, like the circle of reflected brilliancy around the glass vase of flowers that was standing in the sunshine. He made a salutation, or, to speak nearer the truth, an illdefined, abortive attempt at curtsy. Imperfect as it was, however, it conveyed an idea, or, at least, gave a hint, of indescribable grace, such as no practised art of external manners could have attained. It was too slight to seize upon at the instant; yet, as recollected afterwards, seemed to transfigure the whole man. Dear Clifford, said Hepzibah, in the tone with which one soothes a wayward infant, this is our cousin Phoebelittle Phoebe PyncheonArthurs only child, you know. She has come from the country to stay with us awhile; for our old house has grown to be very lonely now. PhoebePhoebe Pyncheon?Phoebe? repeated the guest, with a strange, sluggish, illdefined utterance. Arthurs child! Ah, I forget! No matter. She is very welcome! Come, dear Clifford, take this chair, said Hepzibah, leading him to his place. Pray, Phoebe, lower the curtain a very little more. Now let us begin breakfast. The guest seated himself in the place assigned him, and looked strangely around. He was evidently trying to grapple with the present scene, and bring it home to his mind with a more satisfactory distinctness. He desired to be certain, at least, that he was here, in the lowstudded, crossbeamed, oakenpanelled parlor, and not in some other spot, which had stereotyped itself into his senses. But the effort was too great to be sustained with more than a fragmentary success. Continually, as we may express it, he faded away out of his place; or, in other words, his mind and consciousness took their departure, leaving his wasted, gray, and melancholy figurea substantial emptiness, a material ghostto occupy his seat at table. Again, after a blank moment, there would be a flickering tapergleam in his eyeballs. It betokened that his spiritual part had returned, and was doing its best to kindle the hearts household fire, and light up intellectual lamps in the dark and ruinous mansion, where it was doomed to be a forlorn inhabitant. At one of these moments of less torpid, yet still imperfect animation, Phoebe became convinced of what she had at first rejected as too extravagant and startling an idea. She saw that the person before her must have been the original of the beautiful miniature in her cousin Hepzibahs possession. Indeed, with a feminine eye for costume, she had at once identified the damask dressinggown, which enveloped him, as the same in figure, material, and fashion, with that so elaborately represented in the picture. This old, faded garment, with all its pristine brilliancy extinct, seemed, in some indescribable way, to translate the wearers untold misfortune, and make it perceptible to the beholders eye.


It was the better to be discerned, by this exterior type, how worn and old were the souls more immediate garments; that form and countenance, the beauty and grace of which had almost transcended the skill of the most exquisite of artists. It could the more adequately be known that the soul of the man must have suffered some miserable wrong, from its earthly experience. There he seemed to sit, with a dim veil of decay and ruin betwixt him and the world, but through which, at flitting intervals, might be caught the same expression, so refined, so softly imaginative, which Malboneventuring a happy touch, with suspended breathhad imparted to the miniature! There had been something so innately characteristic in this look, that all the dusky years, and the burden of unfit calamity which had fallen upon him, did not suffice utterly to destroy it. Hepzibah had now poured out a cup of deliciously fragrant coffee, and presented it to her guest. As his eyes met hers, he seemed bewildered and disquieted. Is this you, Hepzibah? he murmured sadly; then, more apart, and perhaps unconscious that he was overheard, How changed! how changed! And is she angry with me? Why does she bend her brow so? Poor Hepzibah! It was that wretched scowl which time and her nearsightedness, and the fret of inward discomfort, had rendered so habitual that any vehemence of mood invariably evoked it. But at the indistinct murmur of his words her whole face grew tender, and even lovely, with sorrowful affection; the harshness of her features disappeared, as it were, behind the warm and misty glow. Angry! she repeated; angry with you, Clifford! Her tone, as she uttered the exclamation, had a plaintive and really exquisite melody thrilling through it, yet without subduing a certain something which an obtuse auditor might still have mistaken for asperity. It was as if some transcendent musician should draw a soulthrilling sweetness out of a cracked instrument, which makes its physical imperfection heard in the midst of ethereal harmonyso deep was the sensibility that found an organ in Hepzibahs voice! There is nothing but love here, Clifford, she addednothing but love! You are at home! The guest responded to her tone by a smile, which did not half light up his face. Feeble as it was, however, and gone in a moment, it had a charm of wonderful beauty. It was followed by a coarser expression; or one that had the effect of coarseness on the fine mould and outline of his countenance, because there was nothing intellectual to temper it. It was a look of appetite. He ate food with what might almost be termed voracity; and seemed to forget himself, Hepzibah, the young girl, and everything else around him, in the sensual enjoyment which the bountifully spread table afforded. In his natural system, though highwrought and delicately refined, a sensibility to the delights of the palate was probably inherent. It would have been kept in check, however, and even converted into an accomplishment, and one of the thousand modes of intellectual culture, had his more ethereal characteristics retained their vigor. But as it existed now, the effect was painful and made Phoebe droop her eyes. In a little while the guest became sensible of the fragrance of the yet untasted coffee. He quaffed it eagerly. The subtle essence acted on him like a charmed draught, and caused the opaque substance of his animal being to grow transparent, or, at least, translucent; so that a spiritual gleam was transmitted through it, with a clearer lustre than hitherto. More, more! he cried, with nervous haste in his utterance, as if anxious to retain his grasp of what sought to escape him. This is what I need! Give me more! Under this delicate and powerful influence he sat more erect, and looked out from his eyes with a glance that took note of what it rested on. It was not so much that his expression grew more intellectual; this, though it had its share, was not the most peculiar effect. Neither was what we call the moral nature so forcibly awakened as to present itself in remarkable prominence. But a certain fine temper of being was now not brought out in full relief, but changeably and imperfectly betrayed, of which it was the function to deal with all beautiful and enjoyable things. In a character where it should exist as the chief attribute, it would bestow on its possessor an exquisite taste, and an enviable susceptibility of happiness. Beauty would be his life; his aspirations would all tend toward it; and, allowing his frame and physical organs to be in consonance, his own developments would likewise be beautiful. Such a man should have nothing to do with sorrow; nothing with strife; nothing with the martyrdom which, in an infinite variety of shapes, awaits those who have the heart, and will, and conscience, to fight a battle with the world. To these heroic tempers, such martyrdom is the richest meed in the worlds gift. To the individual before us, it could only be a grief, intense in due proportion with the severity of the infliction. He had no right to be a martyr; and, beholding him so fit to be happy and so feeble for all other purposes, a generous, strong, and noble spirit would, methinks, have been ready to sacrifice what little enjoyment it might have planned for itselfit would have flung down the hopes, so paltry in its regardif thereby the wintry blasts of our rude sphere might come tempered to such a man. Not to speak it harshly or scornfully, it seemed Cliffords nature to be a Sybarite. It was perceptible, even there, in the dark old parlor, in the inevitable polarity with which his eyes were attracted towards the quivering play of sunbeams through the shadowy foliage. It was seen in his appreciating notice of the vase of flowers, the scent of which he inhaled with a zest almost peculiar to a physical organization so refined that spiritual ingredients are moulded in with it. It was betrayed in the unconscious smile with which he regarded Phoebe, whose fresh and maidenly figure was both sunshine and flowerstheir essence, in a prettier and more agreeable mode of manifestation. Not less evident was this love and necessity for the Beautiful, in the instinctive caution with which, even so soon, his eyes turned away from his hostess, and wandered to any quarter rather than come back. It was Hepzibahs misfortunenot Cliffords fault. How could heso yellow as she was, so wrinkled, so sad of mien, with that odd uncouthness of a turban on her head, and that most perverse of scowls contorting her browhow could he love to gaze at her? But, did he owe her no affection for so much as she had silently given? He owed her nothing. A nature like Cliffords can contract no debts of that kind. It iswe say it without censure, nor in diminution of the claim which it indefeasibly possesses on beings of another mouldit is always selfish in its essence; and we must give it leave to be so, and heap up our heroic and disinterested love upon it so much the more, without a recompense. Poor Hepzibah knew this truth, or, at least, acted on the instinct of it. So long estranged from what was lovely as Clifford had been, she rejoicedrejoiced, though with a present sigh, and a secret purpose to shed tears in her own chamber that he had brighter objects now before his eyes than her aged and uncomely features. They never possessed a charm; and if they had, the canker of her grief for him would long since have destroyed it. The guest leaned back in his chair. Mingled in his countenance with a dreamy delight, there was a troubled look of effort and unrest. He was seeking to make himself more fully sensible of the scene around him; or, perhaps, dreading it to be a dream, or a play of imagination, was vexing the fair moment with a struggle for some added brilliancy and more durable illusion. How pleasant!How delightful! he murmured, but not as if addressing anyone. Will it last? How balmy the atmosphere through that open window! An open window! How beautiful that play of sunshine! Those flowers, how very fragrant! That young girls face, how cheerful, how blooming!a flower with the dew on it, and sunbeams in the dewdrops! Ah! this must be all a dream! A dream! A dream! But it has quite hidden the four stone walls! Then his face darkened, as if the shadow of a cavern or a dungeon had come over it; there was no more light in its expression than might have come through the iron grates of a prisonwindowstill lessening, too, as if he were sinking farther into the depths. Phoebe (being of that quickness and activity of temperament that she seldom long refrained from taking a part, and generally a good one, in what was going forward) now felt herself moved to address the stranger. Here is a new kind of rose, which I found this morning in the garden, said she, choosing a small crimson one from among the flowers in the vase. There will be but five or six on the bush this season. This is the most perfect of them all; not a speck of blight or mildew in it. And how sweet it is!sweet like no other rose! One can never forget that scent! Ah!let me see!let me hold it! cried the guest, eagerly seizing the flower, which, by the spell peculiar to remembered odors, brought innumerable associations along with the fragrance that it exhaled. Thank you! This has done me good. I remember how I used to prize this flowerlong ago, I suppose, very long ago!or was it only yesterday? It makes me feel young again! Am I young? Either this remembrance is singularly distinct, or this consciousness strangely dim! But how kind of the fair young girl! Thank you! Thank you! The favorable excitement derived from this little crimson rose afforded Clifford the brightest moment which he enjoyed at the breakfasttable. It might have lasted longer, but that his eyes happened, soon afterwards, to rest on the face of the old Puritan, who, out of his dingy frame and lustreless canvas, was looking down on the scene like a ghost, and a most illtempered and ungenial one. The guest made an impatient gesture of the hand, and addressed Hepzibah with what might easily be recognized as the licensed irritability of a petted member of the family. Hepzibah!Hepzibah! cried he with no little force and distinctness, why do you keep that odious picture on the wall? Yes, yes!that is precisely your taste! I have told you, a thousand times, that it was the evil genius of the house!my evil genius particularly! Take it down, at once! Dear Clifford, said Hepzibah sadly, you know it cannot be! Then, at all events, continued he, still speaking with some energy, pray cover it with a crimson curtain, broad enough to hang in folds, and with a golden border and tassels. I cannot bear it! It must not stare me in the face! Yes, dear Clifford, the picture shall be covered, said Hepzibah soothingly. There is a crimson curtain in a trunk above stairsa little faded and motheaten, Im afraidbut Phoebe and I will do wonders with it. This very day, remember, said he; and then added, in a low, selfcommuning voice, Why should we live in this dismal house at all? Why not go to the South of France?to Italy?Paris, Naples, Venice, Rome? Hepzibah will say we have not the means. A droll idea that! He smiled to himself, and threw a glance of fine sarcastic meaning towards Hepzibah. But the several moods of feeling, faintly as they were marked, through which he had passed, occurring in so brief an interval of time, had evidently wearied the stranger. He was probably accustomed to a sad monotony of life, not so much flowing in a stream, however sluggish, as stagnating in a pool around his feet. A slumberous veil diffused itself over his countenance, and had an effect, morally speaking, on its naturally delicate and elegant outline, like that which a brooding mist, with no sunshine in it, throws over the features of a landscape. He appeared to become grosseralmost cloddish. If aught of interest or beautyeven ruined beautyhad heretofore been visible in this man, the beholder might now begin to doubt it, and to accuse his own imagination of deluding him with whatever grace had flickered over that visage, and whatever exquisite lustre had gleamed in those filmy eyes. Before he had quite sunken away, however, the sharp and peevish tinkle of the shopbell made itself audible. Striking most disagreeably on Cliffords auditory organs and the characteristic sensibility of his nerves, it caused him to start upright out of his chair. Good heavens, Hepzibah! what horrible disturbance have we now in the house? cried he, wreaking his resentful impatienceas a matter of course, and a custom of oldon the one person in the world that loved him. I have never heard such a hateful clamor! Why do you permit it? In the name of all dissonance, what can it be? It was very remarkable into what prominent reliefeven as if a dim picture should leap suddenly from its canvasCliffords character was thrown by this apparently trifling annoyance. The secret was, that an individual of his temper can always be pricked more acutely through his sense of the beautiful and harmonious than through his heart. It is even possiblefor similar cases have often happenedthat if Clifford, in his foregoing life, had enjoyed the means of cultivating his taste to its utmost perfectibility, that subtle attribute might, before this period, have completely eaten out or filed away his affections. Shall we venture to pronounce, therefore, that his long and black calamity may not have had a redeeming drop of mercy at the bottom? Dear Clifford, I wish I could keep the sound from your ears, said Hepzibah, patiently, but reddening with a painful suffusion of shame. It is very disagreeable even to me. But, do you know, Clifford, I have something to tell you? This ugly noisepray run, Phoebe, and see who is there!this naughty little tinkle is nothing but our shopbell! Shopbell! repeated Clifford, with a bewildered stare. Yes, our shopbell, said Hepzibah, a certain natural dignity, mingled with deep emotion, now asserting itself in her manner. For you must know, dearest Clifford, that we are very poor. And there was no other resource, but either to accept assistance from a hand that I would push aside (and so would you!) were it to offer bread when we were dying for itno help, save from him, or else to earn our subsistence with my own hands! Alone, I might have been content to starve. But you were to be given back to me! Do you think, then, dear Clifford, added she, with a wretched smile, that I have brought an irretrievable disgrace on the old house, by opening a little shop in the front gable? Our greatgreatgrandfather did the same, when there was far less need! Are you ashamed of me? Shame! Disgrace! Do you speak these words to me, Hepzibah? said Cliffordnot angrily, however; for when a mans spirit has been thoroughly crushed, he may be peevish at small offences, but never resentful of great ones. So he spoke with only a grieved emotion. It was not kind to say so, Hepzibah! What shame can befall me now? And then the unnerved manhe that had been born for enjoyment, but had met a doom so very wretchedburst into a womans passion of tears. It was but of brief continuance, however; soon leaving him in a quiescent, and, to judge by his countenance, not an uncomfortable state. From this mood, too, he partially rallied for an instant, and looked at Hepzibah with a smile, the keen, halfderisory purport of which was a puzzle to her. Are we so very poor, Hepzibah? said he. Finally, his chair being deep and softly cushioned, Clifford fell asleep. Hearing the more regular rise and fall of his breath (which, however, even then, instead of being strong and full, had a feeble kind of tremor, corresponding with the lack of vigor in his character)hearing these tokens of settled slumber, Hepzibah seized the opportunity to peruse his face more attentively than she had yet dared to do. Her heart melted away in tears; her profoundest spirit sent forth a moaning voice, low, gentle, but inexpressibly sad. In this depth of grief and pity she felt that there was no irreverence in gazing at his altered, aged, faded, ruined face. But no sooner was she a little relieved than her conscience smote her for gazing curiously at him, now that he was so changed; and, turning hastily away, Hepzibah let down the curtain over the sunny window, and left Clifford to slumber there. VIII The Pyncheon of Today Phoebe, on entering the shop, beheld there the already familiar face of the little devourerif we can reckon his mighty deeds arightof Jim Crow, the elephant, the camel, the dromedaries, and the locomotive. Having expended his private fortune, on the two preceding days, in the purchase of the above unheardof luxuries, the young gentlemans present errand was on the part of his mother, in quest of three eggs and half a pound of raisins. These articles Phoebe accordingly supplied, and, as a mark of gratitude for his previous patronage, and a slight superadded morsel after breakfast, put likewise into his hand a whale! The great fish, reversing his experience with the prophet of Nineveh, immediately began his progress down the same red pathway of fate whither so varied a caravan had preceded him. This remarkable urchin, in truth, was the very emblem of old Father Time, both in respect of his alldevouring appetite for men and things, and because he, as well as Time, after ingulfing thus much of creation, looked almost as youthful as if he had been just that moment made. After partly closing the door, the child turned back, and mumbled something to Phoebe, which, as the whale was but half disposed of, she could not perfectly understand. What did you say, my little fellow? asked she. Mother wants to know, repeated Ned Higgins more distinctly, how Old Maid Pyncheons brother does? Folks say he has got home. My cousin Hepzibahs brother? exclaimed Phoebe, surprised at this sudden explanation of the relationship between Hepzibah and her guest. Her brother! And where can he have been? The little boy only put his thumb to his broad snubnose, with that look of shrewdness which a child, spending much of his time in the street, so soon learns to throw over his features, however unintelligent in themselves. Then as Phoebe continued to gaze at him, without answering his mothers message, he took his departure. As the child went down the steps, a gentleman ascended them, and made his entrance into the shop. It was the portly, and, had it possessed the advantage of a little more height, would have been the stately figure of a man considerably in the decline of life, dressed in a black suit of some thin stuff, resembling broadcloth as closely as possible. A goldheaded cane, of rare Oriental wood, added materially to the high respectability of his aspect, as did also a neckcloth of the utmost snowy purity, and the conscientious polish of his boots. His dark, square countenance, with its almost shaggy depth of eyebrows, was naturally impressive, and would, perhaps, have been rather stern, had not the gentleman considerately taken upon himself to mitigate the harsh effect by a look of exceeding goodhumor and benevolence. Owing, however, to a somewhat massive accumulation of animal substance about the lower region of his face, the look was, perhaps, unctuous rather than spiritual, and had, so to speak, a kind of fleshly effulgence, not altogether so satisfactory as he doubtless intended it to be. A susceptible observer, at any rate, might have regarded it as affording very little evidence of the general benignity of soul whereof it purported to be the outward reflection. And if the observer chanced to be illnatured, as well as acute and susceptible, he would probably suspect that the smile on the gentlemans face was a good deal akin to the shine on his boots, and that each must have cost him and his bootblack, respectively, a good deal of hard labor to bring out and preserve them. As the stranger entered the little shop, where the projection of the second story and the thick foliage of the elmtree, as well as the commodities at the window, created a sort of gray medium, his smile grew as intense as if he had set his heart on counteracting the whole gloom of the atmosphere (besides any moral gloom pertaining to Hepzibah and her inmates) by the unassisted light of his countenance. On perceiving a young rosebud of a girl, instead of the gaunt presence of the old maid, a look of surprise was manifest. He at first knit his brows; then smiled with more unctuous benignity than ever. Ah, I see how it is! said he in a deep voicea voice which, had it come from the throat of an uncultivated man, would have been gruff, but, by dint of careful training, was now sufficiently agreeableI was not aware that Miss Hepzibah Pyncheon had commenced business under such favorable auspices. You are her assistant, I suppose? I certainly am, answered Phoebe, and added, with a little air of ladylike assumption (for, civil as the gentleman was, he evidently took her to be a young person serving for wages), I am a cousin of Miss Hepzibah, on a visit to her. Her cousin?and from the country? Pray pardon me, then, said the gentleman, bowing and smiling, as Phoebe never had been bowed to nor smiled on before; in that case, we must be better acquainted; for, unless I am sadly mistaken, you are my own little kinswoman likewise! Let me seeMary?Dolly?Phoebe?yes, Phoebe is the name! Is it possible that you are Phoebe Pyncheon, only child of my dear cousin and classmate, Arthur? Ah, I see your father now, about your mouth! Yes, yes! we must be better acquainted! I am your kinsman, my dear. Surely you must have heard of Judge Pyncheon? As Phoebe curtsied in reply, the Judge bent forward, with the pardonable and even praiseworthy purposeconsidering the nearness of blood and the difference of ageof bestowing on his young relative a kiss of acknowledged kindred and natural affection. Unfortunately (without design, or only with such instinctive design as gives no account of itself to the intellect) Phoebe, just at the critical moment, drew back; so that her highly respectable kinsman, with his body bent over the counter and his lips protruded, was betrayed into the rather absurd predicament of kissing the empty air. It was a modern parallel to the case of Ixion embracing a cloud, and was so much the more ridiculous as the Judge prided himself on eschewing all airy matter, and never mistaking a shadow for a substance. The truth wasand it is Phoebes only excusethat, although Judge Pyncheons glowing benignity might not be absolutely unpleasant to the feminine beholder, with the width of a street, or even an ordinarysized room, interposed between, yet it became quite too intense, when this dark, fullfed physiognomy (so roughly bearded, too, that no razor could ever make it smooth) sought to bring itself into actual contact with the object of its regards. The man, the sex, somehow or other, was entirely too prominent in the Judges demonstrations of that sort. Phoebes eyes sank, and, without knowing why, she felt herself blushing deeply under his look. Yet she had been kissed before, and without any particular squeamishness, by perhaps half a dozen different cousins, younger as well as older than this darkbrowned, grislybearded, whiteneckclothed, and unctuouslybenevolent Judge! Then, why not by him? On raising her eyes, Phoebe was startled by the change in Judge Pyncheons face. It was quite as striking, allowing for the difference of scale, as that betwixt a landscape under a broad sunshine and just before a thunderstorm; not that it had the passionate intensity of the latter aspect, but was cold, hard, immitigable, like a daylong brooding cloud. Dear me! what is to be done now? thought the countrygirl to herself. He looks as if there were nothing softer in him than a rock, nor milder than the east wind! I meant no harm! Since he is really my cousin, I would have let him kiss me, if I could! Then, all at once, it struck Phoebe that this very Judge Pyncheon was the original of the miniature which the daguerreotypist had shown her in the garden, and that the hard, stern, relentless look, now on his face, was the same that the sun had so inflexibly persisted in bringing out. Was it, therefore, no momentary mood, but, however skilfully concealed, the settled temper of his life? And not merely so, but was it hereditary in him, and transmitted down, as a precious heirloom, from that bearded ancestor, in whose picture both the expression and, to a singular degree, the features of the modern Judge were shown as by a kind of prophecy? A deeper philosopher than Phoebe might have found something very terrible in this idea. It implied that the weaknesses and defects, the bad passions, the mean tendencies, and the moral diseases which lead to crime are handed down from one generation to another, by a far surer process of transmission than human law has been able to establish in respect to the riches and honors which it seeks to entail upon posterity. But, as it happened, scarcely had Phoebes eyes rested again on the Judges countenance than all its ugly sternness vanished; and she found herself quite overpowered by the sultry, dogday heat, as it were, of benevolence, which this excellent man diffused out of his great heart into the surrounding atmospherevery much like a serpent, which, as a preliminary to fascination, is said to fill the air with his peculiar odor. I like that, Cousin Phoebe! cried he, with an emphatic nod of approbation. I like it much, my little cousin! You are a good child, and know how to take care of yourself. A young girlespecially if she be a very pretty onecan never be too chary of her lips. Indeed, sir, said Phoebe, trying to laugh the matter off, I did not mean to be unkind. Nevertheless, whether or no it were entirely owing to the inauspicious commencement of their acquaintance, she still acted under a certain reserve, which was by no means customary to her frank and genial nature. The fantasy would not quit her, that the original Puritan, of whom she had heard so many sombre traditionsthe progenitor of the whole race of New England Pyncheons, the founder of the House of the Seven Gables, and who had died so strangely in ithad now stepped into the shop. In these days of offhand equipment, the matter was easily enough arranged. On his arrival from the other world, he had merely found it necessary to spend a quarter of an hour at a barbers, who had trimmed down the Puritans full beard into a pair of grizzled whiskers, then, patronizing a readymade clothing establishment, he had exchanged his velvet doublet and sable cloak, with the richly worked band under his chin, for a white collar and cravat, coat, vest, and pantaloons; and lastly, putting aside his steelhilted broadsword to take up a goldheaded cane, the Colonel Pyncheon of two centuries ago steps forward as the Judge of the passing moment! Of course, Phoebe was far too sensible a girl to entertain this idea in any other way than as matter for a smile. Possibly, also, could the two personages have stood together before her eye, many points of difference would have been perceptible, and perhaps only a general resemblance. The long lapse of intervening years, in a climate so unlike that which had fostered the ancestral Englishman, must inevitably have wrought important changes in the physical system of his descendant. The Judges volume of muscle could hardly be the same as the Colonels; there was undoubtedly less beef in him. Though looked upon as a weighty man among his contemporaries in respect of animal substance, and as favored with a remarkable degree of fundamental development, well adapting him for the judicial bench, we conceive that the modern Judge Pyncheon, if weighed in the same balance with his ancestor, would have required at least an oldfashioned fiftysix to keep the scale in equilibrio. Then the Judges face had lost the ruddy English hue that showed its warmth through all the duskiness of the Colonels weatherbeaten cheek, and had taken a sallow shade, the established complexion of his countrymen. If we mistake not, moreover, a certain quality of nervousness had become more or less manifest, even in so solid a specimen of Puritan descent as the gentleman now under discussion. As one of its effects, it bestowed on his countenance a quicker mobility than the old Englishmans had possessed, and keener vivacity, but at the expense of a sturdier something, on which these acute endowments seemed to act like dissolving acids. This process, for aught we know, may belong to the great system of human progress, which, with every ascending footstep, as it diminishes the necessity for animal force, may be destined gradually to spiritualize us, by refining away our grosser attributes of body. If so, Judge Pyncheon could endure a century or two more of such refinement as well as most other men. The similarity, intellectual and moral, between the Judge and his ancestor appears to have been at least as strong as the resemblance of mien and feature would afford reason to anticipate. In old Colonel Pyncheons funeral discourse the clergyman absolutely canonized his deceased parishioner, and opening, as it were, a vista through the roof of the church, and thence through the firmament above, showed him seated, harp in hand, among the crowned choristers of the spiritual world. On his tombstone, too, the record is highly eulogistic; nor does history, so far as he holds a place upon its page, assail the consistency and uprightness of his character. So also, as regards the Judge Pyncheon of today, neither clergyman, nor legal critic, nor inscriber of tombstones, nor historian of general or local politics, would venture a word against this eminent persons sincerity as a Christian, or respectability as a man, or integrity as a judge, or courage and faithfulness as the oftentried representative of his political party. But, besides these cold, formal, and empty words of the chisel that inscribes, the voice that speaks, and the pen that writes, for the public eye and for distant timeand which inevitably lose much of their truth and freedom by the fatal consciousness of so doingthere were traditions about the ancestor, and private diurnal gossip about the Judge, remarkably accordant in their testimony. It is often instructive to take the womans, the private and domestic, view of a public man; nor can anything be more curious than the vast discrepancy between portraits intended for engraving and the pencilsketches that pass from hand to hand behind the originals back. For example tradition affirmed that the Puritan had been greedy of wealth; the Judge, too, with all the show of liberal expenditure, was said to be as closefisted as if his grip were of iron. The ancestor had clothed himself in a grim assumption of kindliness, a rough heartiness of word and manner, which most people took to be the genuine warmth of nature, making its way through the thick and inflexible hide of a manly character. His descendant, in compliance with the requirements of a nicer age, had etherealized this rude benevolence into that broad benignity of smile wherewith he shone like a noonday sun along the streets, or glowed like a household fire in the drawingrooms of his private acquaintance. The Puritanif not belied by some singular stories, murmured, even at this day, under the narrators breathhad fallen into certain transgressions to which men of his great animal development, whatever their faith or principles, must continue liable, until they put off impurity, along with the gross earthly substance that involves it. We must not stain our page with any contemporary scandal, to a similar purport, that may have been whispered against the Judge.