We return to the elderly maiden. She at length withdrew her eyes from the dark countenance of the Colonel’s portrait, heaved a sigh, — indeed, her breast was a very cave of Aolus that morning, — and stept across the room on tiptoe, as is the customary gait of elderly women.

Passing through an intervening passage, she opened a door that communicated with the shop, just now so elaborately described. Owing to the projection of the upper story — and still more to the thick shadow of the Pyncheon Elm, which stood almost directly in front of the gable — the twilight, here, was still as much akin to night as morning. Another heavy sigh from Miss Hepzibah! After a moment’s pause on the threshold, peering towards the window with her near-sighted scowl, as if frowning down some bitter enemy,