eggar, without in either case attracting
notice, while obscured by such a companion as now leaned on his arm.
The people in the street started, rubbed their eyes, and either leaped
aside from their path, or stood as if transfixed to wood or marble in
astonishment.

"Do you see it?--do you see it?" cried one, with tremulous eagerness.
"It is the very same!"

"The same?" answered another, who had arrived in town only the night
before. "Who do you mean? I see only a sea-captain in his shoregoing
clothes, and a young lady in a foreign habit, with a bunch of beautiful
flowers in her hat. On my word, she is as fair and bright a damsel as
my eyes have looked on this many a day!"

"Yes; the same!--the very same!" repeated the other. "Drowne's wooden
image has come to life!"

Here was a miracle indeed! Yet, illuminated by the sunshine, or
darkened by the alternate shade of the houses, and with its garments
fluttering lightly in the morning breeze, there passed the image along
the street. It was exactly and minutely the shape, the garb, and the
face which the towns-people had so recently thronged to see and admire.
Not a rich flower upon her head, not a single leaf, but had had its
prototype in Drowne's wooden workmanship, although now their fragile
grace had become flexible, and was shaken by every footstep that the
wearer made. The broad gold chain upon the neck was identical with the
one represented on the image, and glistened with the motion imparted by
the rise and fall of the bosom which it decorated. A real diamond
sparkled on her finger. In her right hand she bore a pearl and ebony
fan, which she flourished with a fantastic and bewitching coquetry,
that was likewise expressed in all her movements as well as in the
style of her beauty and the attire that so well harmonized with it. The
face with its brilliant depth of complexion had the same piquancy of
mirthful mischief that was fixed upon the countenance of the image, but
which was here varied and continually shifting, yet always essentially
the same, like the sunny gleam upon a bubbling fountain. On the whole,
there was something so airy and yet so real in the figure, and withal
so perfectly did it represent Drowne's image, that people knew not
whether to suppose the magic wood etherealized into a spirit or warmed
and softened into an actual woman.

"One thing is certain," muttered a Puritan of the old stamp, "Drowne
has sold himself to the devil; and doubtless th