The House of the Seven Gables

stairs, and, hastening down, found Hepzibah already in the kitchen. She stood by a window, holding a book in close contiguity to her nose,

es, 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.

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.

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 pal

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. Phoebe'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

andle, 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

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 fort

was all finished, she took Phoebe

e brim! Bear with me; for I love you, Phoebe, though I speak so roughly. Th

s happened?" asked Phoebe, with a sunny and te

ed 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 t

rt than to Phoebe, the old gentlewoman stepped on tiptoe about the r

ice 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 mot

's emotion, and this mysteriously reluctant step, made her feel as if a ghost were

Be cheerful! whatever may hap

er 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,

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 curtsy. Imperfect as it was

is our cousin Phoebe - little Phoebe Pyncheon - Arthur's only child, you know. She has come

with a strange, sluggish, ill-defined utterance. "Arthu

leading him to his place. "Pray, Phoebe, lower the cu

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 materi

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

agrant coffee, and presented it to her guest. As hi

d perhaps unconscious that he was overheard, "How changed! how c

habitual that any vehemence of mood invariably evoked it. But at the indistinct murmur of his words her whole face grew tender,

ated; "angry wit

n 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 ins

re, Clifford," she added -"not

ual 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 sensibi

tle essence acted on him like a charmed draught, and caused the opaque substance of his animal being to grow transparen

erance, as if anxious to retain his grasp of what sou

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 h

ation. 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 o

nd unrest. He was seeking to make himself more fully sensible of the scene around him; or, perhaps, dreading it to be a dre

An open window! How beautiful that play of sunshine! Those flowers, how very fragrant! That young girl's face, how cheerful, how blooming!- a flow

he iron grates of a prison window-still lessening, too, as if he were sinking farther into the depths. Phoebe (being of that quickness and activity of tempe

g 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;

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 make

s 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

us picture on the wall? Yes, yes!- that is precisely your taste! I have told you, a thousand time

d Hepzibah sadly, "y

over it with a crimson curtain, broad enough to hang in folds, and with a go

ngly. "There is a crimson curtain in a trunk above stairs - a little fad

hould we live in this dismal house at all? Why not go to the South of France?- to Italy?-

rew a glance of fine sarcast

round 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

made itself audible. Striking most disagreeably on Clifford's auditory organs and the ch

l impatience - as a matter of course, and a custom of old - on the one person in the world that loved him." I

ked 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

l suffusion of shame. "It is very disagreeable even to me. But, do you know, Clifford, I have something to tell you?

ted Clifford, with

d 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 thi

an's spirit has been thoroughly crushed, he may be peevish at small offences, but never resentful of great ones

was but of brief continuance, however; soon leaving him in a quiescent, and, to judge by his countenance, not an uncomfortable state. From this m

ry poor, Hepz

ettled 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 irrever