t of any gentleman in town. The
present owner, Gervayse Pyncheon, was said to have contracted a dislike
to the house, in consequence of a shock to his sensibility, in early
childhood, from the sudden death of his grandfather. In the very act
of running to climb Colonel Pyncheon's knee, the boy had discovered the
old Puritan to be a corpse. On arriving at manhood, Mr. Pyncheon had
visited England, where he married a lady of fortune, and had
subsequently spent many years, partly in the mother country, and partly
in various cities on the continent of Europe. During this period, the
family mansion had been consigned to the charge of a kinsman, who was
allowed to make it his home for the time being, in consideration of
keeping the premises in thorough repair. So faithfully had this
contract been fulfilled, that now, as the carpenter approached the
house, his practised eye could detect nothing to criticise in its
condition. The peaks of the seven gables rose up sharply; the shingled
roof looked thoroughly water-tight; and the glittering plaster-work
entirely covered the exterior walls, and sparkled in the October sun,
as if it had been new only a week ago.

The house had that pleasant aspect of life which is like the cheery
expression of comfortable activity in the human countenance. You could
see, at once, that there was the stir of a large family within it. A
huge load of oak-wood was passing through the gateway, towards the
outbuildings in the rear; the fat cook--or probably it might be the
housekeeper--stood at the side door, bargaining for some turkeys and
poultry which a countryman had brought for sale. Now and then a
maid-servant, neatly dressed, and now the shining sable face of a
slave, might be seen bustling across the windows, in the lower part of
the house. At an open window of a room in the second story, hanging
over some pots of beautiful and delicate flowers,--exotics, but which
had never known a more genial sunshine than that of the New England
autumn,--was the figure of a young lady, an exotic, like the flowers,
and beautiful and delicate as they. Her presence imparted an
indescribable grace and faint witchery to the whole edifice. In other
respects, it was a substantial, jolly-looking mansion, and seemed fit
to be the residence of a patriarch, who might establish his own
headquarters in the front gable and assign one of the remainder to each
of his six children, while the great chimney in the cen