University of Virginia Library

7. VII.
THE GUEST.

When Phœbe awoke, — which she did with the early
twittering of the conjugal couple of robins in the pear-tree,
— she 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 Hepzibah's hand; and
the kitchen, in such an event, would forthwith have steamed
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 devides of the
culinary art (not one of which, probably, had been tested,
within the memory of any man's 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 Phœbe whether old Speckle, as she called
one of the hens, had laid an egg the preceding day. Phœbe

ran to see, but returned without the expected treasure in
her hand. At that instant, however, the blast of a fish-dealer's
conch was heard, announcing his approach along
the street. With energetic raps at the shop-window, 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 Phœbe to roast some coffee, — which she casually
observed was the real Mocha, and so long kept that
each of the small berries ought to be worth its weight in
gold, — the 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 country-girl,
willing to give her utmost assistance, proposed to make an
Indian cake, after her mother's 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 breakfast-cake. Hepzibah gladly
assenting, the kitchen was soon the scene of savory preparation.
Perchance, amid their proper element of smoke,
which eddied forth from the ill-constructed chimney, the
ghosts of departed cook-maids 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
half-starved rats, at any rate, stole visibly out of their
hiding-places, and sat on their hind-legs, 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

Phœbe, 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 a-blaze with heat and hurry. She watched the
fish with as much tender care and minuteness of attention
as if, — we know not how to express it otherwise, — as 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 well-provisioned breakfast-table. 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. Hepzibah's
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 breakfast-table. Phœbe's Indian cakes were the
sweetest offering of all, — in their hue befitting the rustic
altars of the innocent and golden age, — or, 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 forgotten, — butter which Phœbe

herself had churned, in her own rural home, and brought it
to her cousin as a propitiatory gift, — smelling of clover-blossoms,
and diffusing the charm of pastoral scenery
through the dark-panelled parlor. All this, with the quaint
gorgeousness of the old China cups and saucers, and the
crested spoons, and a silver cream-jug (Hepzibah's only
other article of plate, and shaped like the rudest porringer),
set out a board at which the stateliest of old Colonel Pyncheon's
guests need not have scorned to take his place.
But the Puritan's face scowled down out of the picture, as
if nothing on the table pleased his appetite.

By way of contributing what grace she could, Phœbe
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 flower-vase. The early sunshine — as fresh as
that which peeped into Eve's bower, while she and Adam
sat at breakfast there — came twinkling through the branches
of the pear-tree, and fell quite across the table. All was now
ready. There were chairs and plates for three. A chair
and plate for Hepzibah, — the same for Phœbe, — but what
other guest did her cousin look for?

Throughout this preparation, there had been a constant
tremor in Hepzibah's frame; an agitation so powerful that
Phœbe could see the quivering of her gaunt shadow, as
thrown by the fire-light 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 enfold Phœbe 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 breathing-room. 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 enfranchised — a 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 gust 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 Phœbe, as we have said, she was affectionate, —
far tenderer than ever before, in their brief acquaintance,
except for that one kiss on the preceding night, — yet 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 just-forgiven injury.

At last, when their mutual labor was all finished, she
took Phœbe's 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,
Phœbe, 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 Phœbe, 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, Phœbe;
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 life, — poor Clifford, — and,
oh, what a black shadow! Poor, poor Clifford!”

Thus murmuring, in an under tone, as if speaking rather
to her own heart than to Phœbe, 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 passage-way, above
stairs. Phœbe recognized it as the same which had passed
upward, as through her dream, in the night-time. 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 person's feet came involuntarily to a stand-still,
because the motive power 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 don't look so!” said
Phœbe, trembling; for her cousin's emotion, and this mysteriously
reluctant stop, 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, Phœbe saw an elderly personage, in an
old-fashioned dressing-gown 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 child's 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 countenance — while, notwithstanding, it had the
light of reason in it — seemed 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 half-extinguished
embers; we gaze at it more intently than if it were
a positive blaze, gushing vividly upward, — more 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 Hepzibah's hand, instinctively, as a child
does that of the grown person who guides it. He saw
Phœbe, 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 ill-defined, abortive attempt at courtesy. 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 Phœbe,
— little Phœbe Pyncheon, — Arthur's only child, you
know. She has come from the country to stay with us a
while; for our old house has grown to be very lonely now.”

“Phœbe? — Phœbe Pyncheon? — Phœbe?” repeated the
guest, with a strange, sluggish, ill-defined utterance. “Arthur's
child! Ah, I forget! No matter! She is very
welcome!”

“Come, dear Clifford, take this chair,” said Hepzibah,
leading him to his place. “Pray, Phœbe, 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 low-studded,
cross-beamed, oaken-panelled 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 figure, — a substantial emptiness, a
material ghost, — to occupy his seat at table. Again, after
a blank moment, there would be a flickering taper-gleam in
his eye-balls. It betokened that his spiritual part had
returned, and was doing its best to kindle the heart's 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, Phœbe 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 Hepzibah's possession.
Indeed, with a feminine eye for costume, she had at
once identified the damask dressing-gown, 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 wearer's untold
misfortune, and make it perceptible to the beholder's eye.
It was the better to be discerned, by this exterior type, how
worn and old were the soul's 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
Malbone — venturing a happy touch, with suspended breath
— had imparted to the miniature! There had been something
so innately characteristic in this look, that all the
dusky years, and the burthen 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 near-sightedness, and the fret of inward discomfort,
had rendered so habitual that any vehemence of mood invariably
evoked it. But, at the indistinct manner 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 soul-thrilling sweetness
out of a cracked instrument, which makes its physical
imperfection heard in the midst of ethereal harmony, — so
deep was the sensibility that found an organ in Hepzibah's
voice!

“There is nothing but love, here, Clifford,” she added, —
“nothing 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 high-wrought
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 Phœbe
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
world's 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 itself, — it would have flung down the hopes, so
paltry in its regard, — if thereby the wintry blasts of our
rude sphere might come tempered to such a man.

Not to speak it harshly or scornfully, it seemed Clifford's
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 Phœbe, whose fresh and maidenly figure was both
sunshine and flowers, — their 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 Hepzibah's misfortune, — not Clifford's fault.
How could he, — so 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 brow, —
how 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 Clifford's can contract no debts
of that kind. It is, — we say it without censure, nor in
diminution of the claim which it indefeasibly possesses on
beings of another mould, — it 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 rejoiced, —
rejoiced, 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 any one. “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 girl's face, how
cheerful, how blooming! — a flower with the dew on it, and
sunbeams in the dew-drops! 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 prison window, — still lessening, too, as if he were
sinking further into the depths. Phœbe (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 flower
— long 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 breakfast-table. 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 ill-tempered 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 stairs, — a little faded and moth-eaten, I 'm
afraid, — but Phœbe and I will do wonders with it.”

“This very day, remember!” said he; and then added,
in a low, self-communing 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
grosser, — almost cloddish. If aught of interest or beauty
— even ruined beauty — had 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 shop-bell made itself audible.
Striking most disagreeably on Clifford's 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
impatience — as a matter of course, and a custom of old
— on 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 relief — even
as if a dim picture should leap suddenly from its canvas —
Clifford's 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 possible — for similar cases have often happened
— that 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 noise, — pray run, Phœbe, and see who is there!
— this naughty little tinkle is nothing but our shop-bell!”

“Shop-bell!” repeated Clifford, with a bewildered stare.

“Yes, our shop-bell,” 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 it, — no 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 great-great-grandfather 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 Clifford, — not angrily, however; for when
a man's 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 man — he that had been born for
enjoyment, but had met a doom so very wretched — burst
into a woman's 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, half-derisory
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.