The Blithedale Romance

ter of the farm - sat under a clump of maples, eating our eleven o'clock lunch, when we saw a stranger approaching along the edg

f these longing proselytes. In their view, we were as poetical as Arcadians, besides being as practical as the hardest-fisted husbandmen in Massachusetts. We did not, it is true, spend much time in piping to our sheep, or warbling our innocent loves to the sisterhood. But they gave us credit for imbuing the ordinary rustic occupations with a kind of religious poetry, insomuch that our very cow-yards and pig-sties were as delightfully fragrant as a flower garden. Nothing used to please me more than to see one of these lay e

it; his nose, though it had a scarlet tip, by no means indicated the jollity of which a red nose is the generally admitted symbol. He was a subdued, undemonstrative old man, who would doubtless drink a glass of liquor, now and then, and probably more than was good for him - not, however, with a purpose of undue exhilaration, but in the hope of bri

efore he came to be what he is. He haunts restaurants and such places, and has an odd way of lurking in corners or getting behind a door whenever practicable, and holding out his hand with

thing of his history?

onest one; but his manners, being so furtive, remind me of those of a rat - a rat without the mischief, the fierce eye, the teeth to bite wit

on the grass, indicating that he had ar

nger as an acquaintance; "you must have had a hot and tiresome walk

or did he come forth from this retirement during the whole of the interview that followed. We handed him such food as we had, together with a brown jug of molasses and water (would that it had been brandy, or some thing better, for the

very pretty little silk purses, of which you seem to have a m

es, Mr. Coverdale, I used to sell a

tly swelling slopes of our farm, descending towards the wide meadows, through which sluggishly circled the brimful tide of the Charles, bathing the long sedges on its hither and farther shores; the broad, sunny gleam over the winding water; that peculiar picturesqueness of the scene where capes and headlands put themselves boldly forth upon the perfect level of the meadow, as into a green lake, with inlets between the promontories; the shadowy woodland, with twinkling showers of light fa

le to myself, the inte

said I, "to telling me who

s well as I can. I am a man of few words; and if gentlemen were to be told one thing, they would be very apt, I suppose, to ask me an

it was Priscilla. And so, my good friend, you have come to see her? Well, I am glad of it. You will find her altered very m

d of slow wonder. "Priscilla with a bloom in her cheeks! Ah,

s a bird," answe

er than to creep back again. If she were to see this old face of mine, the child would remember some very sad times which we have spent together. Some very sad times, indeed! She has forgotten them, I know - them and

peaks of you; and if there lacks anything to make her cheeks bloom like two damask roses

said the old man in

swered Hol

as hidden from us, his tone gave a sure indication of the mysterious nod and

worth; "nobody, to my knowledge, has called for Priscilla, except yourself. But

ingsworth!" re

my friend rather im

chanced to know this lady when she was but a little child. If I am rightly informed, she has grown to be a very fine woman, and makes a brilliant figure in the worl

ks of Zenobia!" I whispered to Hollingsworth. "But how can there

d Hollingsworth, "has been a little out

odie, "is whether this beautiful l

," said Ho

ove her?" a

nswered my friend. "Th

her maid-servant, I fanc

to turn quite round, so as to catch a glimpse of his face, almost imagining that I should see

nger sister, rather,"

it would gladden my old heart to witness that. If one thing would make me happier than another

Hollingsworth, "a

s really beside himself, but only that his mind needed screwing up, like an instrument long out of tune, the strings of which have ceased to vibrate smartly and sharply. Methought it would be profitable for us, projectors of a happy life, to welcome this old gray shadow, and cherish him as one of us, and let him creep about our domain, in order that he might be a little merrier for our sakes, and we, sometimes, a li

us, only not, by many degrees, so well advanced towards her noon. I was convinced that this pretty sight must have been purposely arranged by Priscilla for the old man to see. But either the girl held her too long, or her fondness was resented as too great a freedom; for Zenobia suddenl