— and some say twice as much! If you choose to call it luck, it is all very well; but if we are to take it as the will of Providence, why, I can’t exactly fathom it!”

“Pretty good business!” quoth the sagacious Dixey, — ”pretty good business!”

Maule’s well, all this time, though left in solitude, was throwing up a succession of kaleidoscopic pictures, in which a gifted eye might have seen foreshadowed the coming fortunes of Hepzibah and Clifford, and the descendant of the legendary wizard, and the village maiden, over whom he had thrown Love’s web of sorcery.

The Pyncheon Elm, moreover, with what foliage the September gale had spared to it, whispered unintelligible prophecies.