The House of the Seven Gables

ty street. On coming within the shadow of the Pyncheon Elm, he stopt, and (taking off his hat, meanwhile, to wipe the perspiration from his brow) seemed to scrutinize,

must have been a characteristic of the wearer, since it could not be defined as pertaining either to the cut or material. His gold-headed cane, too - a serviceable staff, of dark polished wood - had similar traits, and, had it chosen to take a walk by itself, would have been recognized anywhere as a tolerably adequate representative of its master. This character - which showed itself so strikingly in everything about hi

to bear any relation to mere personal beauty. He would have made a good and massive portrait; better now, perhaps, than at any previous period of his life, although his look might grow positively harsh in t

ly surveyed Hepzibah's little arrangement of toys and commodities. At first it seemed not to please him - nay, to cause him exceeding displeasure - and yet, the very next moment, he smiled. While the latter expression was yet on his lips, he caught a glim

, since she could not rid herself of it, trying to drive it back into her heart.

hanced, his purpose was anticipated by Hepzibah's first customer, the little cannibal of Jim Crow, who, staring up at the window, was irresistibly attracted by an elephant of gingerbread. What a grand appetite had this small ur

thrusting out her head, and looking up and down the street -"Take it as you like! You have seen my l

behind the duskiness of age; in another, she could not but fancy that it had been growing more prominent and strikingly expressive, ever since her earliest familiarity with it as a child. For, while the physical outline and substance were darkening away from the beholder's eye, the bold, hard, and, at the same time, indirect character of the man seemed to be brought out in a kind of spiritual relief. Such an effect may occasionally be observed in pictures of antique date.

he original so harshly as a perception of the truth compelled her to do. But still she gazed, because the face of the picture enabl

and a band, and a black cloak, and a Bible in one hand and a sword in the other - then let Jaffrey smile as he might - nobody would doubt t

o much alone - too long in the Pyncheon House - until her very brain was impregnated with

drawn picture, at which affection and sorrowful remembrance wrought together. Soft, mildly, and cheerfully contemplative, with full, red lips, just on the verge of a smile, which the eyes seemed to herald by a gentle kindling-up of their orbs! Feminine traits, moulded inseparably with those

re tolerable portion that welled up from her heart to her eyeli

d not gone up and down the street, stooping a little and drawing his feet heavily over the gravel or pavement. But still there was something tough and vigorous about him, that not only kept him in daily breath, but enabled him to fill a place which would else have been vacant in the apparently crowded world. To go of errands with his slow and shuffling gait, which made you doubt how he ever was to arrive anywhere; to saw a small household's foot or two of firewood, or knock to pieces an old barrel, or split up a pine board for kindling-stuff; in summer, to dig the few yards of garden ground appertaining to a low-rented tenement, and

eme old age - whether it were that his long and hard experience had actually brightened him, or that his decaying judgment rendered him less capable of fairly measuring himself - the venerable man made pretensions to no little wisdom, and really enjoyed the credit of it. There was likewise, at times, a vein of something like poetry in him; it was the moss or wall-flower of his mind in its small dilapidation, and gave a charm to what

tow-cloth, very short in the legs, and bagging down strangely in the rear, but yet having a suitableness to his figure which his other garment entirely lacked. His hat had relation to no other part of his dress, and but

e gets hold of them. It has given me warning already; and in two or three years longer, I shall think of putting aside business and retiring to my farm. That's yonder - the great brick hous

man. Had he been an old woman, she might probably have repelled the freedom, which she now took in good part. "I

ith you - a grown-up air, when you were only the height of my knee. It seems as if I saw you now; and your grandfather with his red cloak, and his white wig, and his cocked hat, and his cane, coming out of the house, and stepping so grandly up the street! Those old gentlemen that grew up before the Revolution used to put on grand airs. In my young days, the great man of the town was com

ealing unawares into her tone; "my cousin Jaff

and agreeable set of folks. There was no getting close to them. But Now, Miss Hepzibah, if an old man may be bold to ask, why don't Judge Pyncheon, with his great me

bread for myself, it is not Judge Pyncheon's fault. Neither will he deserve the blame," added she more kindly, remembering Uncle

elderly man, like me, to be nodding, by the hour together, with no company but his air-tight stove. Summer or winter, there's a great deal to be said in favor of my farm! And, take it in the autumn, what can be pleasanter than to spend a whole day on the sunny side of a barn or a wood-pile, chatting with somebody as old as one's self; or, perhaps, idling away the time with a natura

ars before, and never been heard of since - might yet return, and adopt her to be the comfort of his very extreme and decrepit age, and adorn her with pearls, diamonds, and Oriental shawls and turbans, and make her the ultimate heiress of his unreckonable riches. Or the member of Parliament, now at the head of the English branch of the family - with which the elder stock, on this side of the Atlantic, had held little or no intercourse for the last two centuries - this eminent gentleman might invite Hepzibah to quit the ruinous House of the Seven Gables, and come over to dwell with her kindred at Pyncheon Hall. But, for reasons the most imperative, she could not yield to his request. It was more probable, therefore, that the descendants of a Pynch

oly chambers of her brain, as if that inner world were suddenly lighted up with gas. But either he knew nothing of her castles in the air - as how should he?- or else her earnest scowl disturb

r on the four-pound weight! Shove back all English half-pence and base copper tokens, such as are very plenty about town

pellets of his already uttered wisdom, he gave vent to his final

them what they ask for! A stale article, if you dip it in a good, warm, s

Venner quite away, like a withered leaf - as he was - before an autumnal gale. Recovering himself, howe

xpect him home

n?" asked Hepzib

, well! we'll say no more, though there's word of it all over t

on, indeed, when the spirit thus flits away into the past, or into the more awful future, or, in any manner, steps across the spaceless boundary betwixt its own region and the actual world; where the body remains to guide itself as best it may, with little more than the mechanism of animal life. It is like death, without death's quiet privilege - its freedom from mortal care. Worst of all, when the actual duties are comprised in such petty details as now vexed the brooding soul of the old gentlewoman. As the animosity of fate would have it, there was a great influx of custom in the course of the afternoon. Hepzibah blundered to and fro about her smal

ce, in sullen resignation, and let life, and its toils and vexations, trample over one's prostrate body as they may! Hepzibah's final operation was with the little devourer of Jim Crow and the elephant, who now proposed to eat a camel. In her bewilderment, she offered him first a wooden dragoon, and next a

bah's heart was in her mouth. Remote and dusky, and with no sunshine on all the intervening space, wa

ps, and made an airy little jump from the final one to the sidewalk. She rewarded her cavalier with a smile, the cheery glow of which was seen reflected on his own face as he reentered the vehicle. The girl then turned towards the House of the Seven Gables

the house." She stole softly into the hall, and, herself invisible, gazed through the dusty side-lights of the portal at the young, blooming, and very ch

vy projection that overshadowed her, and the time-worn framework of the door - none of these things belonged to her sphere. But, even as a ray of sunshine, fall into what dismal place it may, instantaneously creates for itself a propriety in being there, so did it seem altogether fit that the g

her, too! But what does she want here? And how like a country cousin, to come down upon a poor body in this way, without so much as a day's noti

it was regarded as by no means improper for kinsfolk to visit one another without invitation, or preliminary and ceremonious warning. Yet, in consideration of Miss Hepzibah's recluse way of life, a letter had actually been written and despatched, conveying in

pzibah, unbolting the door. "If Clifford we