y help shrinking from her own
conclusions as to his hollow integrity. The Judge, on one side! And
who, on the other? The guilty Clifford! Once a byword! Now, an
indistinctly remembered ignominy!

Nevertheless, in spite of this perception that the Judge would draw all
human aid to his own behalf, Hepzibah was so unaccustomed to act for
herself, that the least word of counsel would have swayed her to any
mode of action. Little Phoebe Pyncheon would at once have lighted up
the whole scene, if not by any available suggestion, yet simply by the
warm vivacity of her character. The idea of the artist occurred to
Hepzibah. Young and unknown, mere vagrant adventurer as he was, she had
been conscious of a force in Holgrave which might well adapt him to be
the champion of a crisis. With this thought in her mind, she unbolted a
door, cobwebbed and long disused, but which had served as a former
medium of communication between her own part of the house and the gable
where the wandering daguerreotypist had now established his temporary
home. He was not there. A book, face downward, on the table, a roll of
manuscript, a half-written sheet, a newspaper, some tools of his
present occupation, and several rejected daguerreotypes, conveyed an
impression as if he were close at hand. But, at this period of the day,
as Hepzibah might have anticipated, the artist was at his public rooms.
With an impulse of idle curiosity, that flickered among her heavy
thoughts, she looked at one of the daguerreotypes, and beheld Judge
Pyncheon frowning at her. Fate stared her in the face. She turned back
from her fruitless quest, with a heartsinking sense of disappointment.
In all her years of seclusion, she had never felt, as now, what it was
to be alone. It seemed as if the house stood in a desert, or, by some
spell, was made invisible to those who dwelt around, or passed beside
it; so that any mode of misfortune, miserable accident, or crime might
happen in it without the possibility of aid. In her grief and wounded
pride, Hepzibah had spent her life in divesting herself of friends; she
had wilfully cast off the support which God has ordained his creatures
to need from one another; and it was now her punishment, that Clifford
and herself would fall the easier victims to their kindred enemy.

Returning to the arched window, she lifted her eyes,--scowling, poor,
dim-sighted Hepzibah, in the face of Heaven!--and strove hard to send
up a prayer through the d