crested spoons, and a silver cream-jug (Hepzibah’s only other article of plate, and shaped like the rudest porringer), set out a board at which the stateliest of old Colonel Pyncheon’s guests need not have scorned to take his place.

But the Puritan’s face scowled down out of the picture, as if nothing on the table pleased his appetite.

By way of contributing what grace she could, Phoebe gathered some roses and a few other flowers, possessing either scent or beauty, and arranged them in a glass pitcher, which, having long ago lost its handle, 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