University of Virginia Library

5. V.
MAY AND NOVEMBER.

Phœbe Pyncheon slept, on the night of her arrival, in a
chamber that looked down on the garden of the old house.
It fronted towards the east, so that at a very seasonable
hour a glow of crimson light came flooding through the
window, and bathed the dingy ceiling and paper-hangings
in its own hue. There were curtains to Phœbe's bed; a
dark, antique canopy and ponderous festoons, of a stuff
which had been rich, and even magnificent, in its time; but
which now brooded over the girl like a cloud, making a
night in that one corner, while elsewhere it was beginning
to be day. The morning light, however, soon stole into the
aperture at the foot of the bed, betwixt those faded curtains.
Finding the new guest there, — with a bloom on her cheeks
like the morning's own, and a gentle stir of departing slumber
in her limbs, as when an early breeze moves the foliage,
— the dawn kissed her brow. It was the caress which a
dewy maiden — such as the Dawn is, immortally — gives
to her sleeping sister, partly from the impulse of irresistible
fondness, and partly as a pretty hint that it is time now to
unclose her eyes.

At the touch of those lips of light, Phœbe quietly awoke,
and, for a moment, did not recognize where she was, nor
how those heavy curtains chanced to be festooned around
her. 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 old-fashioned personage had been sitting
there all night, and had vanished only just in season
to escape discovery.

When Phœbe was quite dressed, she peeped out of the
window, and saw a rose-bush in the garden. Being a very
tall one, and of luxurious 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 rose-bush 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 Pyncheon, — she was Phœbe's great-great-grand-aunt,
— in soil which, reckoning only its cultivation
as a garden-plat, 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 Phœbe's 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 Phœbe 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 night's 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,
Phœbe's waste, cheerless, and dusky chamber, which had
been untenanted so long — except by spiders, and mice, and
rats, and ghosts — that it was all overgrown with the desolation
which watches to obliterate every trace of man's happier
hours. What was precisely Phœbe's 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 window-curtain; 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 maid's 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 bed-chamber, 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. But — whether it were the white roses,
or whatever the subtile influence might be — a person of
delicate instinct would have known, at once, that it was
now a maiden's bed-chamber, 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, Phœbe emerged

from her chamber, with a purpose to descend again into the
garden. Besides the rose-bush, she had observed several
other species of flowers, growing there in a wilderness of
neglect, and obstructing one another's 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 work-basket, and a dusty writing-desk; and had, on
one side, a large, black article of furniture, of very strange
appearance, which the old gentlewoman told Phœbe was a
harpsichord. It looked more like a coffin than anything
else; and, indeed, — not having been played upon, or opened,
for years, — there 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 Phœbe's trim
little figure as if she expected to see right into its springs
and motive secrets.

“Cousin Phœbe,” said she, at last, “I really can't 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 girl's mother) which made it desirable
for Phœbe to establish herself in another home. Nor did
she misinterpret Phœbe's character, and the genial activity

pervading it, — one of the most valuable traits of the true
New England woman, — which had impelled her forth, as
might be said, to seek her fortune, but with a self-respecting
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 cousin's 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 Hepzibah's blunt observation, therefore, Phœbe 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 girl, — I see it plainly,” continued Hepzibah;
“and it is not any question as to that point which
makes me hesitate. But, Phœbe, 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 winter-time; but it never lets in the
sunshine! And as for myself, you see what I am, — a dismal
and lonesome old woman (for I begin to call myself old,
Phœbe), 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 Phœbe, neither can I so much as give
you bread to eat.”

“You will find me a cheerful little body,” answered
Phœbe, 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! Phœbe,” 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 striking, — “you 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 garden, — the flowers to be taken care of,”
observed Phœbe. “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 Phœbe, in surprise.

“Judge Pyncheon!” answered her cousin, angrily. “He
will hardly cross the threshold while I live! No, no!
But, Phœbe, 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 Phœbe, 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 Phœbe,
admiringly. “It is as sweet a face as a man's can be, or
ought to be. It has something of a child's expression, —
and yet not childish, — only, 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 Phœbe. “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 Phœbe, 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 Phœbe — not so
much assuming the office as attracting it to herself, by the
magnetism of innate fitness — took 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. Phœbe, 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 Phœbe 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 trait, — the 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 tea-set, 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 own, — a world of vivid
brilliancy, so far as color went, and still unfaded, although
the tea-pot and small cups were as ancient as the custom
itself of tea-drinking.

“Your great-great-great-great-grandmother had these
cups, when she was married,” said Hepzibah to Phœbe.
“She was a Davenport, of a good family. They were
almost the first tea-cups 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 tea-cup, when
I remember what my heart has gone through, without
breaking.”

The cups — not having been used, perhaps, since Hepzibah's
youth — had contracted no small burthen of dust,
which Phœbe 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 thunder-cloud.
“Do you do other things as well? Are you as
good at your book as you are at washing tea-cups?”

“Not quite, I am afraid,” said Phœbe, laughing at the
form of Hepzibah's question. “But I was schoolmistress
for the little children in our district, last summer, and might
have been so still.”

“Ah! 't is all very well!” observed the maiden lady,

drawing herself up. — “But these things must have come
to you with your mother's 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 breakfast-table, the shop-bell 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
tea-spoons 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 Phœbe,
starting lightly up. “I am shopkeeper to-day.”

“You, child!” exclaimed Hepzibah. “What can a little
country-girl know of such matters?”

“O, I have done all the shopping for the family, at our
village store,” said Phœbe. “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 one's mother's

blood. You shall see that I am as nice a little saleswoman
as I am a housewife!”

The old gentlewoman stole behind Phœbe, and peeped
from the passage-way into the shop, to not 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 night-cap 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 time-honored spinning-wheel in constant revolution.
It was worth while to hear the croaking and hollow
tones of the old lady, and the pleasant voice of Phœbe,
mingling in one twisted thread of talk; and still better, to
contrast their figures, — so light and bloomy — so decrepit
and dusky, — with 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 Phœbe, 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 mother's
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 life's stirring scenes; so
genuine, in fact, that the former are usually fain to make it
palatable to their self-love, by assuming that these active
and forcible qualities are incompatible with others, which
they chose to deem higher and more important. Thus,
Hepzibah was well content to acknowledge Phœbe's 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 spice-cakes,
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 half-natural sigh, and a sentiment of mixed wonder,
pity, and growing affection, —

“What a nice little body she is! If she could only be a
lady, too! — but that's impossible! Phœbe is no Pyncheon.
She takes everything from her mother.”

As to Phœbe's 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 sure, — so small as to be almost childlike,
and so elastic that motion seemed as easy or easier to it
than rest, — would hardly have suited one's idea of a countess.
Neither did her face — with the brown ringlets on
either side, and the slightly piquant nose, and the wholesome
bloom, and the clear shade of tan, and the half a dozen
freckles, friendly remembrancers of the April sun and breeze
— precisely 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
Phœbe 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 woman's
office to move in the midst of practical affairs, and to gild
them all, the very homeliest, — were it even the scouring of
pots and kettles, — with an atmosphere of loveliness and
joy.

Such was the sphere of Phœbe. To find the born and
educated lady, on the other hand, we need look no further
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 tapestry-stitch
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 heavy-browed as it still certainly
looked, must have shown a kind of cheerfulness
glimmering through its dusky windows, as Phœbe 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 girl's presence. There was a great run of
custom, setting steadily in, from about ten o'clock until
towards noon, — relaxing, somewhat, at dinner-time, but
re-commencing in the afternoon, and, finally, dying away a
half an hour or so before the long day's sunset. One of the

staunchest patrons was little Ned Wiggins, the devourer of
Jim Crow and the elephant, who to-day had signalized his
omnivorous prowess by swallowing two dromedaries and a
locomotive. Phœbe 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 Jew's-harps; and at least a dozen little boys have asked
for molasses-candy. 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. “Here 's a
girl that will never end her days at my farm! Bless my
eyes, what a brisk little soul!”

“Yes, Phœbe 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 don't 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. I 've
seen a great deal of the world, not only in people's kitchens
and back-yards, but at the street-corners, and on the
wharves, and in other places where my business calls me;

and I 'm free to say, Miss Hepzibah, that I never knew a
human creature do her work so much like one of God's
angels as this child Phœbe does!”

Uncle Venner's eulogium, if it appear rather too high-strained
for the person and occasion, had, nevertheless, a
sense in which it was both subtle and true. There was a
spiritual quality in Phœbe's activity. The life of the long
and busy day — spent in occupations that might so easily
have taken a squalid and ugly aspect — had 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 Phœbe.

The two relatives — the young maid and the old one —
found 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 Phœbe 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 lieutenant-governor's sword-hilt in the
door-panels of the apartment where old Colonel Pyncheon,
a dead host, had received his affrighted visiters with an
awful frown. The dusky terror of that frown, Hepzibah
observed, was thought to be lingering ever since in the passage-way.
She bade Phœbe 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, Phœbe,” said Hepzibah,
glancing aside at her, with a grim yet kindly smile, “we
will tie up the shop-bell for good and all!”

“Yes, dear cousin,” answered Phœbe; “but, in the mean
time, 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 rose-bud 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 times, — especially when
one of the Pyncheons was to die, — she 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 Phœbe.

“The very same,” said Hepzibah. “It was Alice Pyncheon's
harpsichord. When I was learning music, my
father would never let me open it. So, as I could only play
on my teacher's 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 well-meaning 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 new-fangled
and ill-fitting garments; reformers, temperance lecturers,
and all manner of cross-looking philanthropists;
community-men and come-outers, as Hepzibah believed,
who acknowledged no law, and ate no solid food, but lived
on the scent of other people's 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 banditti-like associates. For her own part,
she had reason to believe that he practised animal magnetism,
and, if such things were in fashion now-a-days, should
be apt to suspect him of studying the Black Art, up there
in his lonesome chamber.

“But, dear cousin,” said Phœbe, “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 one's mind,
that, without exactly liking him (for I don't 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
Phœbe, a part of whose essence it was to keep within the
limits of law.

“O!” said Hepzibah, carelessly, — for, formal as she was,
still, in her life's experience, she had gnashed her teeth
against human law, — “I suppose he has a law of his
own!”