e with sensibility--Clifford and
Hepzibah bade a final farewell to the abode of their forefathers, with
hardly more emotion than if they had made it their arrangement to
return thither at tea-time. Several children were drawn to the spot by
so unusual a spectacle as the barouche and pair of gray horses.
Recognizing little Ned Higgins among them, Hepzibah put her hand into
her pocket, and presented the urchin, her earliest and staunchest
customer, with silver enough to people the Domdaniel cavern of his
interior with as various a procession of quadrupeds as passed into the
ark.

Two men were passing, just as the barouche drove off.

"Well, Dixey," said one of them, "what do you think of this? My wife
kept a cent-shop three months, and lost five dollars on her outlay.
Old Maid Pyncheon has been in trade just about as long, and rides off
in her carriage with a couple of hundred thousand,--reckoning her
share, and Clifford's, and Phoebe's,--and some say twice as much! If
you choose to call it luck, it is all very well; but if we are to take
it as the will of Providence, why, I can't exactly fathom it!"

"Pretty good business!" quoth the sagacious Dixey,--"pretty good
business!"

Maule's well, all this time, though left in solitude, was throwing up a
succession of kaleidoscopic pictures, in which a gifted eye might have
seen foreshadowed the coming fortunes of Hepzibah and Clifford, and the
descendant of the legendary wizard, and the village maiden, over whom
he had thrown love's web of sorcery. The Pyncheon Elm, moreover, with
what foliage the September gale had spared to it, whispered
unintelligible prophecies. And wise Uncle Venner, passing slowly from
the ruinous porch, seemed to hear a strain of music, and fancied that
sweet Alice Pyncheon--after witnessing these deeds, this bygone woe and
this present happiness, of her kindred mortals--had given one farewell
touch of a spirit's joy upon her harpsichord, as she floated heavenward
from the HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES!

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The House of the Seven Gables, by
Nathaniel Hawthorne

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