e house; they alone did not share the excitement.

The sound of wheels was heard.

"They are coming," whispered Cynthia.

As for Edith, she was voiceless.

And then the carriage emerged from the trees.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

STORIES IN AMERICAN LITERATURE.

BY HENRIETTA CHRISTIAN WRIGHT.

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.

In the old seaport town of Salem, with its quaint houses with their
carved doorways and many windows, with its pretty rose gardens, its
beautiful overshadowing elms, its dingy court-house and celebrated town
pump, Hawthorne passed his early life, his picturesque surroundings
forming a suitable setting to the picture we may call up of the handsome
imaginative boy whose early impressions were afterward to crystallize
into the most beautiful art that America has yet known. Behind the town
stood old Witch Hill, grim and ghastly with the memories of the witches
who had been hanged there in colonial times. In front spread the sea, a
golden argosy of promise, whose wharves and store-rooms held priceless
stores of merchandise.

[Illustration: ONE OF THE BOY'S FAVORITE OCCUPATIONS.]

Hawthorne's boyhood was much like that of any other boy in Salem town.
He went to school and to church, loved the sea, and prophesied that he
would go away on it some day and never return, was fond of reading, and
was not averse to a good fight with any of his school-fellows who had,
as he expressed it, "a quarrelsome disposition." He was a healthy,
robust lad, and life seemed a very good thing to him, whether he was
roaming the streets of Salem, sitting idly on the wharves, or at home
stretched on the floor reading one of his favorite authors. As a rule
all boys who have become writers have liked the same books, and
Hawthorne was no exception. When reading, he was living in the magic
world of Shakespeare and Milton, Spenser, Froissart, and _Pilgrim's
Progress_. This last was a great and special favorite with him, its
lofty and beautiful spirit carrying his soul with it into those
spiritual regions which the child mind reverences without understanding.

For one year of his boyhood he was supremely happy in the life of the
wild regions of Sebago Lake, Maine, where the family moved for a time.
Here, he says, he lived the life of a bird of the air, with no
restraint, and in absolute supreme freedom. In the summer he would take
his gun and spend days in the forest, shooting, fishing, and doing
whatever prompted his vagabond sp