



Produced by David Widger.  HTML version by Al Haines.









                     MOSSES FROM AN OLD MANSE

                      By Nathaniel Hawthorne

                          THE OLD MANSE.


      The Author makes the Reader acquainted with his Abode.


Between two tall gate-posts of rough-hewn stone (the gate itself
having fallen from its hinges at some unknown epoch) we beheld the
gray front of the old parsonage, terminating the vista of an avenue of
black-ash trees.  It was now a twelvemonth since the funeral
procession of the venerable clergyman, its last inhabitant, had turned
from that gateway towards the village burying-ground.  The wheel-track
leading to the door, as well as the whole breadth of the avenue, was
almost overgrown with grass, affording dainty mouthfuls to two or
three vagrant cows and an old white horse who had his own living to
pick up