The House of the Seven Gables Page 7

  V May and November

  PHOEBE PYNCHEON slept, on the night of her arrival, in a chamber thatlooked down on the garden of the old house. It fronted towards theeast, so that at a very seasonable hour a glow of crimson light cameflooding through the window, and bathed the dingy ceiling andpaper-hangings in its own hue. There were curtains to Phoebe's bed; adark, antique canopy, and ponderous festoons of a stuff which had beenrich, and even magnificent, in its time; but which now brooded over thegirl like a cloud, making a night in that one corner, while elsewhereit was beginning to be day. The morning light, however, soon stoleinto the aperture at the foot of the bed, betwixt those faded curtains.Finding the new guest there,--with a bloom on her cheeks like themorning's own, and a gentle stir of departing slumber in her limbs, aswhen an early breeze moves the foliage,--the dawn kissed her brow. Itwas the caress which a dewy maiden--such as the Dawn is,immortally--gives to her sleeping sister, partly from the impulse ofirresistible fondness, and partly as a pretty hint that it is time nowto unclose her eyes.

  At the touch of those lips of light, Phoebe quietly awoke, and, for amoment, did not recognize where she was, nor how those heavy curtainschanced to be festooned around her. Nothing, indeed, was absolutelyplain to her, except that it was now early morning, and that, whatevermight happen next, it was proper, first of all, to get up and say herprayers. She was the more inclined to devotion from the grim aspect ofthe chamber and its furniture, especially the tall, stiff chairs; oneof which stood close by her bedside, and looked as if someold-fashioned personage had been sitting there all night, and hadvanished only just in season to escape discovery.

  When Phoebe was quite dressed, she peeped out of the window, and saw arosebush in the garden. Being a very tall one, and of luxuriantgrowth, it had been propped up against the side of the house, and wasliterally covered with a rare and very beautiful species of white rose.A large portion of them, as the girl afterwards discovered, had blightor mildew at their hearts; but, viewed at a fair distance, the wholerosebush looked as if it had been brought from Eden that very summer,together with the mould in which it grew. The truth was, nevertheless,that it had been planted by Alice Pyncheon,--she was Phoebe'sgreat-great-grand-aunt,--in soil which, reckoning only its cultivationas a garden-plat, was now unctuous with nearly two hundred years ofvegetable decay. Growing as they did, however, out of the old earth,the flowers still sent a fresh and sweet incense up to their Creator;nor could it have been the less pure and acceptable because Phoebe'syoung breath mingled with it, as the fragrance floated past the window.Hastening down the creaking and carpetless staircase, she found her wayinto the garden, gathered some of the most perfect of the roses, andbrought them to her chamber.

  Little Phoebe was one of those persons who possess, as their exclusivepatrimony, the gift of practical arrangement. It is a kind of naturalmagic that enables these favored ones to bring out the hiddencapabilities of things around them; and particularly to give a look ofcomfort and habitableness to any place which, for however brief aperiod, may happen to be their home. A wild hut of underbrush, tossedtogether by wayfarers through the primitive forest, would acquire thehome aspect by one night's lodging of such a woman, and would retain itlong after her quiet figure had disappeared into the surrounding shade.No less a portion of such homely witchcraft was requisite to reclaim,as it were, Phoebe's waste, cheerless, and dusky chamber, which hadbeen untenanted so long--except by spiders, and mice, and rats, andghosts--that it was all overgrown with the desolation which watches toobliterate every trace of man's happier hours. What was preciselyPhoebe's process we find it impossible to say. She appeared to have nopreliminary design, but gave a touch here and another there; broughtsome articles of furniture to light and dragged others into the shadow;looped up or let down a window-curtain; and, in the course of half anhour, had fully succeeded in throwing a kindly and hospitable smileover the apartment. No longer ago than the night before, it hadresembled nothing so much as the old maid's heart; for there wasneither sunshine nor household fire in one nor the other, and, save forghosts and ghostly reminiscences, not a guest, for many years gone by,had entered the heart or the chamber.

  There was still another peculiarity of this inscrutable charm. Thebedchamber, no doubt, was a chamber of very great and variedexperience, as a scene of human life: the joy of bridal nights hadthrobbed itself away here; new immortals had first drawn earthly breathhere; and here old people had died. But--whether it were the whiteroses, or whatever the subtile influence might be--a person of delicateinstinct would have known at once that it was now a maiden'sbedchamber, and had been purified of all former evil and sorrow by hersweet breath and happy thoughts. Her dreams of the past night, beingsuch cheerful ones, had exorcised the gloom, and now haunted thechamber in its stead.

  After arranging matters to her satisfaction, Phoebe emerged from herchamber, with a purpose to descend again into the garden. Besides therosebush, she had observed several other species of flowers growingthere in a wilderness of neglect, and obstructing one another'sdevelopment (as is often the parallel case in human society) by theiruneducated entanglement and confusion. At the head of the stairs,however, she met Hepzibah, who, it being still early, invited her intoa room which she would probably have called her boudoir, had hereducation embraced any such French phrase. It was strewn about with afew old books, and a work-basket, and a dusty writing-desk; and had, onone side, a large black article of furniture, of very strangeappearance, which the old gentlewoman told Phoebe was a harpsichord.It looked more like a coffin than anything else; and, indeed,--nothaving been played upon, or opened, for years,--there must have been avast deal of dead music in it, stifled for want of air. Human fingerwas hardly known to have touched its chords since the days of AlicePyncheon, who had learned the sweet accomplishment of melody in Europe.

  Hepzibah bade her young guest sit down, and, herself taking a chairnear by, looked as earnestly at Phoebe's trim little figure as if sheexpected to see right into its springs and motive secrets.

  "Cousin Phoebe," said she, at last, "I really can't see my way clear tokeep you with me."

  These words, however, had not the inhospitable bluntness with whichthey may strike the reader; for the two relatives, in a talk beforebedtime, had arrived at a certain degree of mutual understanding.Hepzibah knew enough to enable her to appreciate the circumstances(resulting from the second marriage of the girl's mother) which made itdesirable for Phoebe to establish herself in another home. Nor did shemisinterpret Phoebe's character, and the genial activity pervadingit,--one of the most valuable traits of the true New Englandwoman,--which had impelled her forth, as might be said, to seek herfortune, but with a self-respecting purpose to confer as much benefitas she could anywise receive. As one of her nearest kindred, she hadnaturally betaken herself to Hepzibah, with no idea of forcing herselfon her cousin's protection, but only for a visit of a week or two,which might be indefinitely extended, should it prove for the happinessof both.

  To Hepzibah's blunt observation, therefore, Phoebe replied as frankly,and more cheerfully.

  "Dear cousin, I cannot tell how it will be," said she. "But I reallythink we may suit one another much better than you suppose."

  "You are a nice girl,--I see it plainly," continued Hepzibah; "and itis not any question as to that point which makes me hesitate. But,Phoebe, this house of mine is but a melancholy place for a young personto be in. It lets in the wind and rain, and the snow, too, in thegarret and upper chambers, in winter-time, but it never lets in thesunshine. And as for myself, you see what I am,--a dismal and lonesomeold woman (for I begin to call myself old, Phoebe), whose temper, I amafraid, is none of the best, and whose spirits are as bad as can be! Icannot make your life pleasant, Cousin Phoebe, neither can I so much asgive you bread to eat."

  "You will find me a cheerful little body" answered Phoebe, smiling, andyet with a kind of gentle dignity, "and I mean to earn my bread. Youknow I have not been brought up a Pync
heon. A girl learns many thingsin a New England village."

  "Ah! Phoebe," said Hepzibah, sighing, "your knowledge would do butlittle for you here! And then it is a wretched thought that you shouldfling away your young days in a place like this. Those cheeks wouldnot be so rosy after a month or two. Look at my face!" and, indeed,the contrast was very striking,--"you see how pale I am! It is my ideathat the dust and continual decay of these old houses are unwholesomefor the lungs."

  "There is the garden,--the flowers to be taken care of," observedPhoebe. "I should keep myself healthy with exercise in the open air."

  "And, after all, child," exclaimed Hepzibah, suddenly rising, as if todismiss the subject, "it is not for me to say who shall be a guest orinhabitant of the old Pyncheon House. Its master is coming."

  "Do you mean Judge Pyncheon?" asked Phoebe in surprise.

  "Judge Pyncheon!" answered her cousin angrily. "He will hardly crossthe threshold while I live! No, no! But, Phoebe, you shall see the faceof him I speak of."

  She went in quest of the miniature already described, and returned withit in her hand. Giving it to Phoebe, she watched her featuresnarrowly, and with a certain jealousy as to the mode in which the girlwould show herself affected by the picture.

  "How do you like the face?" asked Hepzibah.

  "It is handsome!--it is very beautiful!" said Phoebe admiringly. "Itis as sweet a face as a man's can be, or ought to be. It has somethingof a child's expression,--and yet not childish,--only one feels so verykindly towards him! He ought never to suffer anything. One would bearmuch for the sake of sparing him toil or sorrow. Who is it, CousinHepzibah?"

  "Did you never hear," whispered her cousin, bending towards her, "ofClifford Pyncheon?"

  "Never. I thought there were no Pyncheons left, except yourself andour cousin Jaffrey," answered Phoebe. "And yet I seem to have heardthe name of Clifford Pyncheon. Yes!--from my father or my mother; buthas he not been a long while dead?"

  "Well, well, child, perhaps he has!" said Hepzibah with a sad, hollowlaugh; "but, in old houses like this, you know, dead people are veryapt to come back again! We shall see. And, Cousin Phoebe, since, afterall that I have said, your courage does not fail you, we will not partso soon. You are welcome, my child, for the present, to such a home asyour kinswoman can offer you."

  With this measured, but not exactly cold assurance of a hospitablepurpose, Hepzibah kissed her cheek.

  They now went below stairs, where Phoebe--not so much assuming theoffice as attracting it to herself, by the magnetism of innatefitness--took the most active part in preparing breakfast. Themistress of the house, meanwhile, as is usual with persons of her stiffand unmalleable cast, stood mostly aside; willing to lend her aid, yetconscious that her natural inaptitude would be likely to impede thebusiness in hand. Phoebe and the fire that boiled the teakettle wereequally bright, cheerful, and efficient, in their respective offices.Hepzibah gazed forth from her habitual sluggishness, the necessaryresult of long solitude, as from another sphere. She could not helpbeing interested, however, and even amused, at the readiness with whichher new inmate adapted herself to the circumstances, and brought thehouse, moreover, and all its rusty old appliances, into a suitablenessfor her purposes. Whatever she did, too, was done without consciouseffort, and with frequent outbreaks of song, which were exceedinglypleasant to the ear. This natural tunefulness made Phoebe seem like abird in a shadowy tree; or conveyed the idea that the stream of lifewarbled through her heart as a brook sometimes warbles through apleasant little dell. It betokened the cheeriness of an activetemperament, finding joy in its activity, and, therefore, rendering itbeautiful; it was a New England trait,--the stern old stuff ofPuritanism with a gold thread in the web.

  Hepzibah brought out some old silver spoons with the family crest uponthem, and a china tea-set painted over with grotesque figures of man,bird, and beast, in as grotesque a landscape. These pictured peoplewere odd humorists, in a world of their own,--a world of vividbrilliancy, so far as color went, and still unfaded, although theteapot and small cups were as ancient as the custom itself oftea-drinking.

  "Your great-great-great-great-grandmother had these cups, when she wasmarried," said Hepzibah to Phoebe. "She was a Davenport, of a goodfamily. They were almost the first teacups ever seen in the colony;and if one of them were to be broken, my heart would break with it.But it is nonsense to speak so about a brittle teacup, when I rememberwhat my heart has gone through without breaking."

  The cups--not having been used, perhaps, since Hepzibah's youth--hadcontracted no small burden of dust, which Phoebe washed away with somuch care and delicacy as to satisfy even the proprietor of thisinvaluable china.

  "What a nice little housewife you are!" exclaimed the latter, smiling,and at the same time frowning so prodigiously that the smile wassunshine under a thunder-cloud. "Do you do other things as well? Areyou as good at your book as you are at washing teacups?"

  "Not quite, I am afraid," said Phoebe, laughing at the form ofHepzibah's question. "But I was schoolmistress for the little childrenin our district last summer, and might have been so still."

  "Ah! 'tis all very well!" observed the maiden lady, drawing herself up."But these things must have come to you with your mother's blood. Inever knew a Pyncheon that had any turn for them."

  It is very queer, but not the less true, that people are generallyquite as vain, or even more so, of their deficiencies than of theiravailable gifts; as was Hepzibah of this native inapplicability, so tospeak, of the Pyncheons to any useful purpose. She regarded it as anhereditary trait; and so, perhaps, it was, but unfortunately a morbidone, such as is often generated in families that remain long above thesurface of society.

  Before they left the breakfast-table, the shop-bell rang sharply, andHepzibah set down the remnant of her final cup of tea, with a look ofsallow despair that was truly piteous to behold. In cases ofdistasteful occupation, the second day is generally worse than thefirst. We return to the rack with all the soreness of the precedingtorture in our limbs. At all events, Hepzibah had fully satisfiedherself of the impossibility of ever becoming wonted to this peevishlyobstreperous little bell. Ring as often as it might, the sound alwayssmote upon her nervous system rudely and suddenly. And especially now,while, with her crested teaspoons and antique china, she was flatteringherself with ideas of gentility, she felt an unspeakable disinclinationto confront a customer.

  "Do not trouble yourself, dear cousin!" cried Phoebe, starting lightlyup. "I am shop-keeper to-day."

  "You, child!" exclaimed Hepzibah. "What can a little country girl knowof such matters?"

  "Oh, I have done all the shopping for the family at our village store,"said Phoebe. "And I have had a table at a fancy fair, and made bettersales than anybody. These things are not to be learnt; they dependupon a knack that comes, I suppose," added she, smiling, "with one'smother's blood. You shall see that I am as nice a little saleswoman asI am a housewife!"

  The old gentlewoman stole behind Phoebe, and peeped from the passagewayinto the shop, to note how she would manage her undertaking. It was acase of some intricacy. A very ancient woman, in a white short gownand a green petticoat, with a string of gold beads about her neck, andwhat looked like a nightcap on her head, had brought a quantity of yarnto barter for the commodities of the shop. She was probably the verylast person in town who still kept the time-honored spinning-wheel inconstant revolution. It was worth while to hear the croaking andhollow tones of the old lady, and the pleasant voice of Phoebe,mingling in one twisted thread of talk; and still better to contrasttheir figures,--so light and bloomy,--so decrepit and dusky,--with onlythe counter betwixt them, in one sense, but more than threescore years,in another. As for the bargain, it was wrinkled slyness and craftpitted against native truth and sagacity.

  "Was not that well done?" asked Phoebe, laughing, when the customer wasgone.

  "Nicely done, indeed, child!" answered Hepzibah. "I could not havegone through with it near
ly so well. As you say, it must be a knackthat belongs to you on the mother's side."

  It is a very genuine admiration, that with which persons too shy or tooawkward to take a due part in the bustling world regard the real actorsin life's stirring scenes; so genuine, in fact, that the former areusually fain to make it palatable to their self-love, by assuming thatthese active and forcible qualities are incompatible with others, whichthey choose to deem higher and more important. Thus, Hepzibah was wellcontent to acknowledge Phoebe's vastly superior gifts as ashop-keeper'--she listened, with compliant ear, to her suggestion ofvarious methods whereby the influx of trade might be increased, andrendered profitable, without a hazardous outlay of capital. Sheconsented that the village maiden should manufacture yeast, both liquidand in cakes; and should brew a certain kind of beer, nectareous to thepalate, and of rare stomachic virtues; and, moreover, should bake andexhibit for sale some little spice-cakes, which whosoever tasted wouldlongingly desire to taste again. All such proofs of a ready mind andskilful handiwork were highly acceptable to the aristocratichucksteress, so long as she could murmur to herself with a grim smile,and a half-natural sigh, and a sentiment of mixed wonder, pity, andgrowing affection:--

  "What a nice little body she is! If she only could be a lady; too--butthat's impossible! Phoebe is no Pyncheon. She takes everything fromher mother!"

  As to Phoebe's not being a lady, or whether she were a lady or no, itwas a point, perhaps, difficult to decide, but which could hardly havecome up for judgment at all in any fair and healthy mind. Out of NewEngland, it would be impossible to meet with a person combining so manyladylike attributes with so many others that form no necessary (ifcompatible) part of the character. She shocked no canon of taste; shewas admirably in keeping with herself, and never jarred againstsurrounding circumstances. Her figure, to be sure,--so small as to bealmost childlike, and so elastic that motion seemed as easy or easierto it than rest, would hardly have suited one's idea of a countess.Neither did her face--with the brown ringlets on either side, and theslightly piquant nose, and the wholesome bloom, and the clear shade oftan, and the half dozen freckles, friendly remembrances of the Aprilsun and breeze--precisely give us a right to call her beautiful. Butthere was both lustre and depth in her eyes. She was very pretty; asgraceful as a bird, and graceful much in the same way; as pleasantabout the house as a gleam of sunshine falling on the floor through ashadow of twinkling leaves, or as a ray of firelight that dances on thewall while evening is drawing nigh. Instead of discussing her claimto rank among ladies, it would be preferable to regard Phoebe as theexample of feminine grace and availability combined, in a state ofsociety, if there were any such, where ladies did not exist. There itshould be woman's office to move in the midst of practical affairs, andto gild them all, the very homeliest,--were it even the scouring ofpots and kettles,--with an atmosphere of loveliness and joy.

  Such was the sphere of Phoebe. To find the born and educated lady, onthe other hand, we need look no farther than Hepzibah, our forlorn oldmaid, in her rustling and rusty silks, with her deeply cherished andridiculous consciousness of long descent, her shadowy claims toprincely territory, and, in the way of accomplishment, herrecollections, it may be, of having formerly thrummed on a harpsichord,and walked a minuet, and worked an antique tapestry-stitch on hersampler. It was a fair parallel between new Plebeianism and oldGentility.

  It really seemed as if the battered visage of the House of the SevenGables, black and heavy-browed as it still certainly looked, must haveshown a kind of cheerfulness glimmering through its dusky windows asPhoebe passed to and fro in the interior. Otherwise, it is impossibleto explain how the people of the neighborhood so soon became aware ofthe girl's presence. There was a great run of custom, setting steadilyin, from about ten o' clock until towards noon,--relaxing, somewhat, atdinner-time, but recommencing in the afternoon, and, finally, dyingaway a half an hour or so before the long day's sunset. One of thestanchest patrons was little Ned Higgins, the devourer of Jim Crow andthe elephant, who to-day signalized his omnivorous prowess byswallowing two dromedaries and a locomotive. Phoebe laughed, as shesummed up her aggregate of sales upon the slate; while Hepzibah, firstdrawing on a pair of silk gloves, reckoned over the sordid accumulationof copper coin, not without silver intermixed, that had jingled intothe till.

  "We must renew our stock, Cousin Hepzibah!" cried the littlesaleswoman. "The gingerbread figures are all gone, and so are thoseDutch wooden milkmaids, and most of our other playthings. There hasbeen constant inquiry for cheap raisins, and a great cry for whistles,and trumpets, and jew's-harps; and at least a dozen little boys haveasked for molasses-candy. And we must contrive to get a peck of russetapples, late in the season as it is. But, dear cousin, what anenormous heap of copper! Positively a copper mountain!"

  "Well done! well done! well done!" quoth Uncle Venner, who had takenoccasion to shuffle in and out of the shop several times in the courseof the day. "Here's a girl that will never end her days at my farm!Bless my eyes, what a brisk little soul!"

  "Yes, Phoebe is a nice girl!" said Hepzibah, with a scowl of austereapprobation. "But, Uncle Venner, you have known the family a greatmany years. Can you tell me whether there ever was a Pyncheon whom shetakes after?"

  "I don't believe there ever was," answered the venerable man. "At anyrate, it never was my luck to see her like among them, nor, for thatmatter, anywhere else. I've seen a great deal of the world, not onlyin people's kitchens and back-yards but at the street-corners, and onthe wharves, and in other places where my business calls me; and I'mfree to say, Miss Hepzibah, that I never knew a human creature do herwork so much like one of God's angels as this child Phoebe does!"

  Uncle Venner's eulogium, if it appear rather too high-strained for theperson and occasion, had, nevertheless, a sense in which it was bothsubtile and true. There was a spiritual quality in Phoebe's activity.The life of the long and busy day--spent in occupations that might soeasily have taken a squalid and ugly aspect--had been made pleasant,and even lovely, by the spontaneous grace with which these homelyduties seemed to bloom out of her character; so that labor, while shedealt with it, had the easy and flexible charm of play. Angels do nottoil, but let their good works grow out of them; and so did Phoebe.

  The two relatives--the young maid and the old one--found time beforenightfall, in the intervals of trade, to make rapid advances towardsaffection and confidence. A recluse, like Hepzibah, usually displaysremarkable frankness, and at least temporary affability, on beingabsolutely cornered, and brought to the point of personal intercourse;like the angel whom Jacob wrestled with, she is ready to bless you whenonce overcome.

  The old gentlewoman took a dreary and proud satisfaction in leadingPhoebe from room to room of the house, and recounting the traditionswith which, as we may say, the walls were lugubriously frescoed. Sheshowed the indentations made by the lieutenant-governor's sword-hilt inthe door-panels of the apartment where old Colonel Pyncheon, a deadhost, had received his affrighted visitors with an awful frown. Thedusky terror of that frown, Hepzibah observed, was thought to belingering ever since in the passageway. She bade Phoebe step into oneof the tall chairs, and inspect the ancient map of the Pyncheonterritory at the eastward. In a tract of land on which she laid herfinger, there existed a silver mine, the locality of which wasprecisely pointed out in some memoranda of Colonel Pyncheon himself,but only to be made known when the family claim should be recognized bygovernment. Thus it was for the interest of all New England that thePyncheons should have justice done them. She told, too, how that therewas undoubtedly an immense treasure of English guineas hidden somewhereabout the house, or in the cellar, or possibly in the garden.

  "If you should happen to find it, Phoebe," said Hepzibah, glancingaside at her with a grim yet kindly smile, "we will tie up theshop-bell for good and all!"

  "Yes, dear cousin," answered Phoebe; "but, in the mean time, I hearsomebody ringing it!"

  When the customer was gone, Hepzibah
talked rather vaguely, and atgreat length, about a certain Alice Pyncheon, who had been exceedinglybeautiful and accomplished in her lifetime, a hundred years ago. Thefragrance of her rich and delightful character still lingered about theplace where she had lived, as a dried rose-bud scents the drawer whereit has withered and perished. This lovely Alice had met with somegreat and mysterious calamity, and had grown thin and white, andgradually faded out of the world. But, even now, she was supposed tohaunt the House of the Seven Gables, and, a great many times,--especiallywhen one of the Pyncheons was to die,--she had been heard playing sadlyand beautifully on the harpsichord. One of these tunes, just as it hadsounded from her spiritual touch, had been written down by an amateur ofmusic; it was so exquisitely mournful that nobody, to this day, couldbear to hear it played, unless when a great sorrow had made them knowthe still profounder sweetness of it.

  "Was it the same harpsichord that you showed me?" inquired Phoebe.

  "The very same," said Hepzibah. "It was Alice Pyncheon's harpsichord.When I was learning music, my father would never let me open it. So,as I could only play on my teacher's instrument, I have forgotten allmy music long ago."

  Leaving these antique themes, the old lady began to talk about thedaguerreotypist, whom, as he seemed to be a well-meaning and orderlyyoung man, and in narrow circumstances, she had permitted to take uphis residence in one of the seven gables. But, on seeing more of Mr.Holgrave, she hardly knew what to make of him. He had the strangestcompanions imaginable; men with long beards, and dressed in linenblouses, and other such new-fangled and ill-fitting garments;reformers, temperance lecturers, and all manner of cross-lookingphilanthropists; community-men, and come-outers, as Hepzibah believed,who acknowledged no law, and ate no solid food, but lived on the scentof other people's cookery, and turned up their noses at the fare. Asfor the daguerreotypist, she had read a paragraph in a penny paper, theother day, accusing him of making a speech full of wild anddisorganizing matter, at a meeting of his banditti-like associates.For her own part, she had reason to believe that he practised animalmagnetism, and, if such things were in fashion nowadays, should be aptto suspect him of studying the Black Art up there in his lonesomechamber.

  "But, dear cousin," said Phoebe, "if the young man is so dangerous, whydo you let him stay? If he does nothing worse, he may set the house onfire!"

  "Why, sometimes," answered Hepzibah, "I have seriously made it aquestion, whether I ought not to send him away. But, with all hisoddities, he is a quiet kind of a person, and has such a way of takinghold of one's mind, that, without exactly liking him (for I don't knowenough of the young man), I should be sorry to lose sight of himentirely. A woman clings to slight acquaintances when she lives somuch alone as I do."

  "But if Mr. Holgrave is a lawless person!" remonstrated Phoebe, a partof whose essence it was to keep within the limits of law.

  "Oh!" said Hepzibah carelessly,--for, formal as she was, still, in herlife's experience, she had gnashed her teeth against human law,--"Isuppose he has a law of his own!"