The House of the Seven Gables

In his youth, he had probably been considered a handsome man; at his present age, his brow was too heavy, his temples too bare, his remaining hair too gray, his eye too cold, hi...

“Can it be Phœbe?” questioned she within herself. “It must be little Phœbe; for it can be nobody else,—and there is a look of her father about her, too! But what does she want h...

His career it would be difficult to prefigure. There appeared to be qualities in Holgrave, such as, in a country where everything is free to the hand that can grasp it, could ha...

We have already hinted that it is not our purpose to trace down the history of the Pyncheon family, in its unbroken connection with the House of the Seven Gables; nor to show, a...

“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...

“Softly, Mr. Pyncheon!” said the carpenter with scornful composure. “Softly, an’ it please your worship, else you will spoil those rich lace-ruffles at your wrists! Is it my cri...

“Well; no matter if it be past!” answered the artist, a strange gleam of half-hidden sarcasm flashing through the kindliness of his manner. “Let it go! You are the better withou...

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 express...

Yet the artist did not feel the horror, which was proper to Phœbe’s sweet and order-loving character, at thus finding herself at issue with society, and brought in contact with...

The sun, meanwhile, if not already above the horizon, was ascending nearer and nearer to its verge. A few clouds, floating high upward, caught some of the earliest light, and th...

Nevertheless, in spite of this perception that the Judge would draw all human aid to his own behalf, Hepzibah was so unaccustomed to act for herself, that the least word of coun...

Truly was there something high, generous, and noble in the native composition of our poor old Hepzibah! Or else,—and it was quite as probably the case,—she had been enriched by...

Not a great while afterwards there was a sound of music turning the corner and approaching down the street, with several intervals of silence, and then a renewed and nearer outb...

Indulging our fancy in this freak, we have partly lost the power of restraint and guidance. We distinguish an unlooked-for figure in our visionary scene. Among those ancestral p...

At a small table, before a fire of English sea-coal, sat Mr. Pyncheon, sipping coffee, which had grown to be a very favorite beverage with him in France. He was a middle-aged an...

So Hepzibah and her brother made themselves, ready—as ready as they could in the best of their old-fashioned garments, which had hung on pegs, or been laid away in trunks, so lo...

The tears were in Phœbe’s eyes; a smile, dewy with affectionate regret, was glimmering around her pleasant mouth. She wondered how it came to pass, that her life of a few weeks,...

After the reputed wizard’s death, his humble homestead had fallen an easy spoil into Colonel Pyncheon’s grasp. When it was understood, however, that the Colonel intended to erec...

He vanished; and Phœbe, lingering a moment, saw a glimmering light, and then the steady beam of a lamp, in a chamber of the gable. On returning into Hepzibah’s apartment of the...

And then, while the yellow richness of the declining sunshine still fell into the open space of the garden, Phœbe brought out a loaf of bread and a china bowl of currants, fresh...

It is odd, however, that a gentleman so burdened with engagements,—and noted, too, for punctuality,—should linger thus in an old lonely mansion, which he has never seemed very f...

And allowing that, many, many years ago, in his early and reckless youth, he had committed some one wrong act,—or that, even now, the inevitable force of circumstances should oc...

I. THE OLD PYNCHEON FAMILY II. THE LITTLE SHOP-WINDOW III. THE FIRST CUSTOMER IV. A DAY BEHIND THE COUNTER V. MAY AND NOVEMBER VI. MAULE’S WELL VII. THE GUEST VIII. THE PYNCHEON...

Clifford, except for Phœbe’s more active instigation, would ordinarily have yielded to the torpor which had crept through all his modes of being, and which sluggishly counselled...

Of course, Phœbe 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 bef...

Within the car there was the usual interior life of the railroad, offering little to the observation of other passengers, but full of novelty for this pair of strangely enfranch...

“Ah! my dear child,” quoth good Uncle Venner, quite overcome, “if you were to speak to a young man as you do to an old one, his chance of keeping his heart another minute would...