the mean tendencies, and the moral
diseases which lead to crime are handed down from one generation to
another, by a far surer process of transmission than human law has been
able to establish in respect to the riches and honors which it seeks to
entail upon posterity.

But, as it happened, scarcely had Phoebe's eyes rested again on the
Judge's countenance than all its ugly sternness vanished; and she found
herself quite overpowered by the sultry, dog-day heat, as it were, of
benevolence, which this excellent man diffused out of his great heart
into the surrounding atmosphere,--very much like a serpent, which, as a
preliminary to fascination, is said to fill the air with his peculiar
odor.

"I like that, Cousin Phoebe!" cried he, with an emphatic nod of
approbation. "I like it much, my little cousin! You are a good child,
and know how to take care of yourself. A young girl--especially if she
be a very pretty one--can never be too chary of her lips."

"Indeed, sir," said Phoebe, trying to laugh the matter off, "I did not
mean to be unkind."

Nevertheless, whether or no it were entirely owing to the inauspicious
commencement of their acquaintance, she still acted under a certain
reserve, which was by no means customary to her frank and genial
nature. The fantasy would not quit her, that the original Puritan, of
whom she had heard so many sombre traditions,--the progenitor of the
whole race of New England Pyncheons, the founder of the House of the
Seven Gables, and who had died so strangely in it,--had now stept into
the shop. In these days of off-hand equipment, the matter was easily
enough arranged. On his arrival from the other world, he had merely
found it necessary to spend a quarter of an hour at a barber's, who had
trimmed down the Puritan's full beard into a pair of grizzled whiskers,
then, patronizing a ready-made clothing establishment, he had exchanged
his velvet doublet and sable cloak, with the richly worked band under
his chin, for a white collar and cravat, coat, vest, and pantaloons;
and lastly, putting aside his steel-hilted broadsword to take up a
gold-headed cane, the Colonel Pyncheon of two centuries ago steps
forward as the Judge of the passing moment!

Of course, Phoebe 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 before her eye, many points of
difference would have been perceptib