, Mr.
Pyncheon turned partly round, but resumed his former position, and
proceeded deliberately to finish his cup of coffee, without immediate
notice of the guest whom he had summoned to his presence. It was not
that he intended any rudeness or improper neglect,--which, indeed, he
would have blushed to be guilty of,--but it never occurred to him that
a person in Maule's station had a claim on his courtesy, or would
trouble himself about it one way or the other.

The carpenter, however, stepped at once to the hearth, and turned
himself about, so as to look Mr. Pyncheon in the face.

"You sent for me," said he. "Be pleased to explain your business, that
I may go back to my own affairs."

"Ah! excuse me," said Mr. Pyncheon quietly. "I did not mean to tax
your time without a recompense. Your name, I think, is Maule,--Thomas
or Matthew Maule,--a son or grandson of the builder of this house?"

"Matthew Maule," replied the carpenter,--"son of him who built the
house,--grandson of the rightful proprietor of the soil."

"I know the dispute to which you allude," observed Mr. Pyncheon with
undisturbed equanimity. "I am well aware that my grandfather was
compelled to resort to a suit at law, in order to establish his claim
to the foundation-site of this edifice. We will not, if you please,
renew the discussion. The matter was settled at the time, and by the
competent authorities,--equitably, it is to be presumed,--and, at all
events, irrevocably. Yet, singularly enough, there is an incidental
reference to this very subject in what I am now about to say to you.
And this same inveterate grudge,--excuse me, I mean no offence,--this
irritability, which you have just shown, is not entirely aside from the
matter."

"If you can find anything for your purpose, Mr. Pyncheon," said the
carpenter, "in a man's natural resentment for the wrongs done to his
blood, you are welcome to it."

"I take you at your word, Goodman Maule," said the owner of the Seven
Gables, with a smile, "and will proceed to suggest a mode in which your
hereditary resentments--justifiable or otherwise--may have had a
bearing on my affairs. You have heard, I suppose, that the Pyncheon
family, ever since my grandfather's days, have been prosecuting a still
unsettled claim to a very large extent of territory at the Eastward?"

"Often," replied Maule,--and it is said that a smile came over his
face,--"very often,--from my father!"

"This claim," continued