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later patchwork, still gives its prevailing tint to New England character),--here the company of strolling players sets up its little stage, and claims patronage for the legitimate drama. But, on the autumnal evening which I speak of, a number of printed handbills--stuck up in the bar-room, and on the sign-post of the hotel, and on the meeting-house porch, and distributed largely through the village--had promised the inhabitants an interview with that celebrated and hitherto inexplicable phenomenon, the Veiled Lady! The hall was fitted up with an amphitheatrical descent of seats towards a platform, on which stood a desk, two lights, a stool, and a capacious antique chair. The audience was of a generally decent and respectable character: old farmers, in their Sunday black coats, with shrewd, hard, sun-dried faces, and a cynical humor, oftener than any other expression, in their eyes; pretty girls, in many-colored attire; pretty young men,--the schoolmaster, the lawyer, or student at law, the shop-keeper,--all looking rather suburban than rural. In these days, there is absolutely no rusticity, except when the actual labor of the soil leaves its earth-mould on the person. There was likewise a considerable proportion of young and middle-aged women, many of them stern in feature, with marked foreheads, and a very definite line of eyebrow; a type of womanhood in which a bold intellectual development seems to be keeping pace with the progressive delicacy of the physical constitution. Of all these people I took note, at first, according to my custom. But I ceased to do so the moment that my eyes fell on an individual who sat two or three seats below me, immovable, apparently deep in thought, with his back, of course, towards me, and his face turned steadfastly upon the platform. After sitting awhile in contemplation of this person's familiar contour, I was irresistibly moved to step over the intervening benches, lay my hand on his shoulder, put my mouth close to his ear, and address him in a sepulchral, melodramatic whisper: "Hollingsworth! where have you left Zenobia?" His nerves, however, were proof against my attack. He turned half around, and looked me in the face with great sad eyes, in which there was neither kindness nor resentment, nor any perceptible surprise. "Zenobia, when I last saw her," he answered, "was at Blithedale." He said no more. But there was a great deal of talk going on near me, amon
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