prompt:
Chapter: AFTER an early tea, the little country-girl strayed into the garden.
The enclosure had formerly been very extensive, but was now contracted
within small compass, and hemmed about, partly by high wooden fences,
       and partly by the outbuildings of houses that stood on another street.
       In its centre was a grass-plat, surrounding a ruinous little structure,
       which showed just enough of its original design to indicate that it had
       once been a summer-house.  A hop-vine, springing from last year's root,
       was beginning to clamber over it, but would be long in covering the
       roof with its green mantle.  Three of the seven gables either fronted
       or looked sideways, with a dark solemnity of aspect, down into the
       garden.

       The black, rich soil had fed itself with the decay of a long period of
       time; such as fallen leaves, the petals of flowers, and the stalks and
       seed--vessels of vagrant and lawless plants, more useful after their
       death than ever while flaunting in the sun.  The evil of these departed
       years would naturally have sprung up again, in such rank weeds
       (symbolic of the transmitted vices of society) as are always prone to
       root themselves about human dwellings.  Phoebe saw, however, that their
       growth must have been checked by a degree of careful labor, bestowed
       daily and systematically on the garden.  The white double rosebush had
       evidently been propped up anew against the house since the commencement
       of the season; and a pear-tree and three damson-trees, which, except a
       row of currant-bushes, constituted the only varieties of fruit, bore
       marks of the recent amputation of several superfluous or defective
       limbs.  There were also a few species of antique and hereditary
       flowers, in no very flourishing condition, but scrupulously weeded; as
       if some person, either out of love or curiosity, had been anxious to
       bring them to such perfection as they were capable of attaining.  The
       remainder of the garden presented a well-selected assortment of
       esculent vegetables, in a praiseworthy state of advancement.  Summer
       squashes almost in their golden blossom; cucumbers, now evincing a
       tendency to spread away from the main stock, and ramble far and wide;
       two or three rows of string-beans and as many more that were about to
       festoon themselves on poles; tomatoes, occupying a site so sheltered
       and sunny that the plants were already gigantic, and promised an early
       and abundant harvest.

       Phoebe wondered whose care and toil it could have been that had planted
       these vegetables, and kept the soil so clean and orderly.  Not surely
       her cousin Hepzibah's, who had no taste nor spirits for the lady-like
       employment of cultivating flowers, and--with her recluse habits, and
       tendency to shelter herself within the dismal shadow of the
       house--would hardly have come forth under the speck of open sky to weed
       and hoe among the fraternity of beans and squashes.

       It being her first day of complete estrangement from rural objects,
       Phoebe found an unexpected charm in this little nook of grass, and
       foliage, and aristocratic flowers, and plebeian vegetables.  The eye of
       Heaven seemed to look down into it pleasantly, and with a peculiar
       smile, as if glad to perceive that nature, elsewhere overwhelmed, and
       driven out of the dusty town, had here been able to retain a
       breathing-place.  The spot acquired a somewhat wilder grace, and yet a
       very gentle one, from the fact that a pair of robins had built their
       nest in the pear-tree, and were making themselves exceedingly busy and
       happy in the dark intricacy of its boughs.  Bees, too,--strange to
       say,--had thought it worth their while to come hither, possibly from
       the range of hives beside some farm-house miles away.  How many aerial
       voyages might they have made, in quest of honey, or honey-laden,
       betwixt dawn and sunset! Yet, late as it now was, there still arose a
       pleasant hum out of one or two of the squash-blossoms, in the depths of
       which these bees were plying their golden labor.  There was one other
       object in the garden which Nature might fairly claim as her inalienable
       property, in spite of whatever man could do to render it his own.  This
       was a fountain, set round with a rim of old mossy stones, and paved, in
       its bed, with what appeared to be a sort of mosaic-work of variously
       colored pebbles.  The play and slight agitation of the water, in its
       upward gush, wrought magically with these variegated pebbles, and made
       a continually shifting apparition of quaint figures, vanishing too
       suddenly to be definable.  Thence, swelling over the rim of moss-grown
       stones, the water stole away under the fence, through what we regret to
       call a gutter, rather than a channel.  Nor must we forget to mention a
       hen-coop of very reverend antiquity that stood in the farther corner of
       the garden, not a great way from the fountain.   It now contained only
       Chanticleer, his two wives, and a solitary chicken.  All of them were
       pure specimens of a breed which had been transmitted down as an
       heirloom in the Pyncheon family, and were said, while in their prime,
       to have attained almost the size of turkeys, and, on the score of
       delicate flesh, to be fit for a prince's table.  In proof of the
       authenticity of this legendary renown, Hepzibah could have exhibited
       the shell of a great egg, which an ostrich need hardly have been
       ashamed of.  Be that as it might, the hens were now scarcely larger
       than pigeons, and had a queer, rusty, withered aspect, and a gouty kind
       of movement, and a sleepy and melancholy tone throughout all the
       variations of their clucking and cackling.  It was evident that the
       race had degenerated, like many a noble race besides, in consequence of
       too strict a watchfulness to keep it pure.  These feathered people had
       existed too long in their distinct variety; a fact of which the present
       representatives, judging by their lugubrious deportment, seemed to be
       aware.  They kept themselves alive, unquestionably, and laid now and
       then an egg, and hatched a chicken; not for any pleasure of their own,
       but that the world might not absolutely lose what had once been so
       admirable a breed of fowls.  The distinguishing mark of the hens was a
       crest of lamentably scanty growth, in these latter days, but so oddly
       and wickedly analogous to Hepzibah's turban, that Phoebe--to the
       poignant distress of her conscience, but inevitably--was led to fancy a
       general resemblance betwixt these forlorn bipeds and her respectable
       relative.

       The girl ran into the house to get some crumbs of bread, cold potatoes,
       and other such scraps as were suitable to the accommodating appetite of
       fowls.  Returning, she gave a peculiar call, which they seemed to
       recognize.  The chicken crept through the pales of the coop and ran,
       with some show of liveliness, to her feet; while Chanticleer and the
       ladies of his household regarded her with queer, sidelong glances, and
       then croaked one to another, as if communicating their sage opinions of
       her character.  So wise, as well as antique, was their aspect, as to
       give color to the idea, not merely that they were the descendants of a
       time-honored race, but that they had existed, in their individual
       capacity, ever since the House of the Seven Gables was founded, and
       were somehow mixed up with its destiny.  They were a species of
       tutelary sprite, or Banshee; although winged and feathered differently
       from most other guardian angels.

       "Here, you odd little chicken!" said Phoebe; "here are some nice crumbs
       for you!"

       The chicken, hereupon, though almost as venerable in appearance as its
       mother--possessing, indeed, the whole antiquity of its progenitors in
       miniature,--mustered vivacity enough to flutter upward and alight on
       Phoebe's shoulder.

       "That little fowl pays you a high compliment!" said a voice behind
       Phoebe.

       Turning quickly, she was surprised at sight of a young man, who had
       found access into the garden by a door opening out of another gable
       than that whence she had emerged.  He held a hoe in his hand, and,
       while Phoebe was gone in quest of the crumbs, had begun to busy himself
       with drawing up fresh earth about the roots of the tomatoes.

       "The chicken really treats you like an old acquaintance," continued he
       in a quiet way, while a smile made his face pleasanter than Phoebe at
       first fancied it.  "Those venerable personages in the coop, too, seem
       very affably disposed.  You are lucky to be in their good graces so
       soon! They have known me much longer, but never honor me with any
       familiarity, though hardly a day passes without my bringing them food.
       Miss Hepzibah, I suppose, will interweave the fact with her other
       traditions, and set it down that the fowls know you to be a Pyncheon!"

       "The secret is," said Phoebe, smiling, "that I have learned how to talk
       with hens and chickens."

       "Ah, but these hens," answered the young man,--"these hens of
       aristocratic lineage would scorn to understand the vulgar language of a
       barn-yard fowl.  I prefer to think--and so would Miss Hepzibah--that
       they recognize the family tone.  For you are a Pyncheon?"

       "My name is Phoebe Pyncheon," said the girl, with  a manner of some
       reserve; for she was aware that her new acquaintance could be no other
       than the daguerreotypist, of whose lawless propensities the old maid
       had given her a disagreeable idea.  "I did not know that my cousin
       Hepzibah's garden was under another person's care."

       "Yes," said Holgrave, "I dig, and hoe, and weed, in this black old
       earth, for the sake of refreshing myself with what little nature and
       simplicity may be left in it, after men have so long sown and reaped
       here.  I turn up the earth by way of pastime.  My sober occupation, so
       far as I have any, is with a lighter material.  In short, I make
       pictures out of sunshine; and, not to be too much dazzled with my own
       trade, I have prevailed with Miss Hepzibah to let me lodge in one of
       these dusky gables.  It is like a bandage over one's eyes, to come into
       it.  But would you like to see a specimen of my productions?"

       "A daguerreotype likeness, do you mean?" asked Phoebe with less
       reserve; for, in spite of prejudice, her own youthfulness sprang
       forward to meet his.  "I don't much like pictures of that sort,--they
       are so hard and stern; besides dodging away from the eye, and trying to
       escape altogether.  They are conscious of looking very unamiable, I
       suppose, and therefore hate to be seen."

       "If you would permit me," said the artist, looking at Phoebe, "I should
       like to try whether the daguerreotype can bring out disagreeable traits
       on a perfectly amiable face.  But there certainly is truth in what you
       have said.  Most of my likenesses do look unamiable; but the very
       sufficient reason, I fancy, is, because the originals are so.  There is
       a wonderful insight in Heaven's broad and simple sunshine.  While we
       give it credit only for depicting the merest surface, it actually
       brings out the secret character with a truth that no painter would ever
       venture upon, even could he detect it.  There is, at least, no flattery
       in my humble line of art.  Now, here is a likeness which I have taken
       over and over again, and still with no better result.  Yet the original
       wears, to common eyes, a very different expression.  It would gratify
       me to have your judgment on this character."

       He exhibited a daguerreotype miniature in a morocco case.  Phoebe
       merely glanced at it, and gave it back.

       "I know the face," she replied; "for its stern eye has been following
       me about all day.  It is my Puritan ancestor, who hangs yonder in the
       parlor.  To be sure, you have found some way of copying the portrait
       without its black velvet cap and gray beard, and have given him a
       modern coat and satin cravat, instead of his cloak and band.  I don't
       think him improved by your alterations."

       "You would have seen other differences had you looked a little longer,"
       said Holgrave, laughing, yet apparently much struck.  "I can assure you
       that this is a modern face, and one which you will very probably meet.
       Now, the remarkable point is, that the original wears, to the world's
       eye,--and, for aught I know, to his most intimate friends,--an
       exceedingly pleasant countenance, indicative of benevolence, openness
       of heart, sunny good-humor, and other praiseworthy qualities of that
       cast.  The sun, as you see, tells quite another story, and will not be
       coaxed out of it, after half a dozen patient attempts on my part.  Here
       we have the man, sly, subtle, hard, imperious, and, withal, cold as
       ice.  Look at that eye! Would you like to be at its mercy? At that
       mouth! Could it ever smile? And yet, if you could only see the benign
       smile of the original! It is so much the more unfortunate, as he is a
       public character of some eminence, and the likeness was intended to be
       engraved."

       "Well, I don't wish to see it any more," observed Phoebe, turning away
       her eyes.  "It is certainly very like the old portrait.  But my cousin
       Hepzibah has another picture,--a miniature.  If the original is still
       in the world, I think he might defy the sun to make him look stern and
       hard."

       "You have seen that picture, then!" exclaimed the artist, with an
       expression of much interest.  "I never did, but have a great curiosity
       to do so.  And you judge favorably of the face?"

       "There never was a sweeter one," said Phoebe.  "It is almost too soft
       and gentle for a man's."

       "Is there nothing wild in the eye?" continued Holgrave, so earnestly
       that it embarrassed Phoebe, as did also the quiet freedom with which he
       presumed on their so recent acquaintance.  "Is there nothing dark or
       sinister anywhere? Could you not conceive the original to have been
       guilty of a great crime?"

       "It is nonsense," said Phoebe a little impatiently, "for us to talk
       about a picture which you have never seen.  You mistake it for some
       other.  A crime, indeed! Since you are a friend of my cousin
       Hepzibah's, you should ask her to show you the picture."

       "It will suit my purpose still better to see the original," replied the
       daguerreotypist coolly.  "As to his character, we need not discuss its
       points; they have already been settled by a competent tribunal, or one
       which called itself competent.  But, stay! Do not go yet, if you
       please! I have a proposition to make you."

       Phoebe was on the point of retreating, but turned back, with some
       hesitation; for she did not exactly comprehend his manner, although, on
       better observation, its feature seemed rather to be lack of ceremony
       than any approach to offensive rudeness.  There was an odd kind of
       authority, too, in what he now proceeded to say, rather as if the
       garden were his own than a place to which he was admitted merely by
       Hepzibah's courtesy.

       "If agreeable to you," he observed, "it would give me pleasure to turn
       over these flowers, and those ancient and respectable fowls, to your
       care.  Coming fresh from country air and occupations, you will soon
       feel the need of some such out-of-door employment.  My own sphere does
       not so much lie among flowers.  You can trim and tend them, therefore,
       as you please; and I will ask only the least trifle of a blossom, now
       and then, in exchange for all the good, honest kitchen vegetables with
       which I propose to enrich Miss Hepzibah's table.  So we will be
       fellow-laborers, somewhat on the community system."

       Silently, and rather surprised at her own compliance, Phoebe
       accordingly betook herself to weeding a flower-bed, but busied herself
       still more with cogitations respecting this young man, with whom she so
       unexpectedly found herself on terms approaching to familiarity.  She
       did not altogether like him.  His character perplexed the little
       country-girl, as it might a more practised observer; for, while the
       tone of his conversation had generally been playful, the impression
       left on her mind was that of gravity, and, except as his youth modified
       it, almost sternness.  She rebelled, as it were, against a certain
       magnetic element in the artist's nature, which he exercised towards
       her, possibly without being conscious of it.

       After a little while, the twilight, deepened by the shadows of the
       fruit-trees and the surrounding buildings, threw an obscurity over the
       garden.

       "There," said Holgrave, "it is time to give over work! That last stroke
       of the hoe has cut off a beanstalk.  Good-night, Miss Phoebe Pyncheon!
       Any bright day, if you will put one of those rosebuds in your hair, and
       come to my rooms in Central Street, I will seize the purest ray of
       sunshine, and make a picture of the flower and its wearer."  He retired
       towards his own solitary gable, but turned his head, on reaching the
       door, and called to Phoebe, with a tone which certainly had laughter in
       it, yet which seemed to be more than half in earnest.

       "Be careful not to drink at Maule's well!" said he.  "Neither drink nor
       bathe your face in it!"

       "Maule's well!" answered Phoebe.  "Is that it with the rim of mossy
       stones? I have no thought of drinking there,--but why not?"

       "Oh," rejoined the daguerreotypist, "because, like an old lady's cup of
       tea, it is water bewitched!"

       He vanished; and Phoebe, lingering a moment, saw a glimmering light,
       and then the steady beam of a lamp, in a chamber of the gable.  On
       returning into Hepzibah's apartment of the house, she found the
       low-studded parlor so dim and dusky that her eyes could not penetrate
       the interior.  She was indistinctly aware, however, that the gaunt
       figure of the old gentlewoman was sitting in one of the straight-backed
       chairs, a little withdrawn from the window, the faint gleam of which
       showed the blanched paleness of her cheek, turned sideways towards a
       corner.

       "Shall I light a lamp, Cousin Hepzibah?" she asked.

       "Do, if you please, my dear child," answered Hepzibah.  "But put it on
       the table in the corner of the passage.  My eyes are weak; and I can
       seldom bear the lamplight on them."

       What an instrument is the human voice! How wonderfully responsive to
       every emotion of the human soul! In Hepzibah's tone, at that moment,
       there was a certain rich depth and moisture, as if the words,
       commonplace as they were, had been steeped in the warmth of her heart.
       Again, while lighting the lamp in the kitchen, Phoebe fancied that her
       cousin spoke to her.

       "In a moment, cousin!" answered the girl.  "These matches just glimmer,
       and go out."

       But, instead of a response from Hepzibah, she seemed to hear the murmur
       of an unknown voice.  It was strangely indistinct, however, and less
       like articulate words than an unshaped sound, such as would be the
       utterance of feeling and sympathy, rather than of the intellect.  So
       vague was it, that its impression or echo in Phoebe's mind was that of
       unreality.  She concluded that she must have mistaken some other sound
       for that of the human voice; or else that it was altogether in her
       fancy.

       She set the lighted lamp in the passage, and again entered the parlor.
       Hepzibah's form, though its sable outline mingled with the dusk, was
       now less imperfectly visible.  In the remoter parts of the room,
       however, its walls being so ill adapted to reflect light, there was
       nearly the same obscurity as before.

       "Cousin," said Phoebe, "did you speak to me just now?"

       "No, child!" replied Hepzibah.

       Fewer words than before, but with the same mysterious music in them!
       Mellow, melancholy, yet not mournful, the tone seemed to gush up out of
       the deep well of Hepzibah's heart, all steeped in its profoundest
       emotion.  There was a tremor in it, too, that--as all strong feeling is
       electric--partly communicated itself to Phoebe.  The girl sat silently
       for a moment.  But soon, her senses being very acute, she became
       conscious of an irregular respiration in an obscure corner of the room.
       Her physical organization, moreover, being at once delicate and
       healthy, gave her a perception, operating with almost the effect of a
       spiritual medium, that somebody was near at hand.

       "My dear cousin," asked she, overcoming an indefinable reluctance, "is
       there not some one in the room with us?"

       "Phoebe, my dear little girl," said Hepzibah, after a moment's pause,
       "you were up betimes, and have been busy all day.  Pray go to bed; for
       I am sure you must need rest.  I will sit in the parlor awhile, and
       collect my thoughts.  It has been my custom for more years, child, than
       you have lived!"  While thus dismissing her, the maiden lady stept
       forward, kissed Phoebe, and pressed her to her heart, which beat
       against the girl's bosom with a strong, high, and tumultuous swell.
       How came there to be so much love in this desolate old heart, that it
       could afford to well over thus abundantly?

       "Goodnight, cousin," said Phoebe, strangely affected by Hepzibah's
       manner.  "If you begin to love me, I am glad!"

       She retired to her chamber, but did not soon fall asleep, nor then very
       profoundly.  At some uncertain period in the depths of night, and, as
       it were, through the thin veil of a dream, she was conscious of a
       footstep mounting the stairs heavily, but not with force and decision.
       The voice of Hepzibah, with a hush through it, was going up along with
       the footsteps; and, again, responsive to her cousin's voice, Phoebe
       heard that strange, vague murmur, which might be likened to an
       indistinct shadow of human utterance.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Maule's Well: After an early tea, Phoebe goes into the garden, which had fallen into decay. There are vegetables which make Phoebe wonder who had planted them, for it was surely not Hepzibah. She looks at the hen-coop, where the only hens remaining are no larger than pigeons and move oddly. Their race had degenerated. Holgrave enters the garden as Phoebe is feeding the hens. He tells Phoebe that he makes pictures out of sunshine, and says that daguerreotypes bring out the secret character of a person that no painting could ever detect. There is no flattery in his art. He shows her a daguerreotype that she thinks is Colonel Pyncheon in modern dress. Phoebe mentions the miniature that Hepzibah showed her, and Holgrave asks Phoebe whether the person in that picture looks capable of committing a great crime. That night, Phoebe finds Hepzibah awake in the parlor. Phoebe hears Hepzibah murmur, a sound that is so vague that it seems to come from pure emotion. Hepzibah asks Phoebe to go to sleep, while she will stay awake to collect her thoughts.


prompt:
Chapter: WHEN Phoebe awoke,--which she did with the early twittering of the
conjugal couple of robins in the pear-tree,--she heard movements below
stairs, and, hastening down, found Hepzibah already in the kitchen.
She stood by a window, holding a book in close contiguity to her nose,
    as if with the hope of gaining an olfactory acquaintance with its
    contents, since her imperfect vision made it not very easy to read
    them.  If any volume could have manifested its essential wisdom in the
    mode suggested, it would certainly have been the one now in Hepzibah's
    hand; and the kitchen, in such an event, would forthwith have streamed
    with the fragrance of venison, turkeys, capons, larded partridges,
    puddings, cakes, and Christmas pies, in all manner of elaborate mixture
    and concoction.  It was a cookery book, full of innumerable old
    fashions of English dishes, and illustrated with engravings, which
    represented the arrangements of the table at such banquets as it might
    have befitted a nobleman to give in the great hall of his castle.  And,
    amid these rich and potent devices of the culinary art (not one of
            which, probably, had been tested, within the memory of any man's
            grandfather), poor Hepzibah was seeking for some nimble little titbit,
    which, with what skill she had, and such materials as were at hand, she
    might toss up for breakfast.

    Soon, with a deep sigh, she put aside the savory volume, and inquired
    of Phoebe whether old Speckle, as she called one of the hens, had laid
    an egg the preceding day.  Phoebe ran to see, but returned without the
    expected treasure in her hand.  At that instant, however, the blast of
    a fish-dealer's conch was heard, announcing his approach along the
    street.  With energetic raps at the shop-window, Hepzibah summoned the
    man in, and made purchase of what he warranted as the finest mackerel
    in his cart, and as fat a one as ever he felt with his finger so early
    in the season.  Requesting Phoebe to roast some coffee,--which she
    casually observed was the real Mocha, and so long kept that each of the
    small berries ought to be worth its weight in gold,--the maiden lady
    heaped fuel into the vast receptacle of the ancient fireplace in such
    quantity as soon to drive the lingering dusk out of the kitchen.  The
    country-girl, willing to give her utmost assistance, proposed to make
    an Indian cake, after her mother's peculiar method, of easy
    manufacture, and which she could vouch for as possessing a richness,
    and, if rightly prepared, a delicacy, unequalled by any other mode of
    breakfast-cake.  Hepzibah gladly assenting, the kitchen was soon the
    scene of savory preparation.  Perchance, amid their proper element of
    smoke, which eddied forth from the ill-constructed chimney, the ghosts
    of departed cook-maids looked wonderingly on, or peeped down the great
    breadth of the flue, despising the simplicity of the projected meal,
    yet ineffectually pining to thrust their shadowy hands into each
    inchoate dish.  The half-starved rats, at any rate, stole visibly out
    of their hiding-places, and sat on their hind-legs, snuffing the fumy
    atmosphere, and wistfully awaiting an opportunity to nibble.

    Hepzibah had no natural turn for cookery, and, to say the truth, had
    fairly incurred her present meagreness by often choosing to go without
    her dinner rather than be attendant on the rotation of the spit, or
    ebullition of the pot.  Her zeal over the fire, therefore, was quite an
    heroic test of sentiment.  It was touching, and positively worthy of
    tears (if Phoebe, the only spectator, except the rats and ghosts
            aforesaid, had not been better employed than in shedding them), to see
    her rake out a bed of fresh and glowing coals, and proceed to broil the
    mackerel.  Her usually pale cheeks were all ablaze with heat and hurry.
    She watched the fish with as much tender care and minuteness of
    attention as if,--we know not how to express it otherwise,--as if her
    own heart were on the gridiron, and her immortal happiness were
    involved in its being done precisely to a turn!

    Life, within doors, has few pleasanter prospects than a neatly arranged
    and well-provisioned breakfast-table.  We come to it freshly, in the
    dewy youth of the day, and when our spiritual and sensual elements are
    in better accord than at a later period; so that the material delights
    of the morning meal are capable of being fully enjoyed, without any
    very grievous reproaches, whether gastric or conscientious, for
    yielding even a trifle overmuch to the animal department of our nature.
    The thoughts, too, that run around the ring of familiar guests have a
    piquancy and mirthfulness, and oftentimes a vivid truth, which more
    rarely find their way into the elaborate intercourse of dinner.
    Hepzibah's small and ancient table, supported on its slender and
    graceful legs, and covered with a cloth of the richest damask, looked
    worthy to be the scene and centre of one of the cheerfullest of
    parties.  The vapor of the broiled fish arose like incense from the
    shrine of a barbarian idol, while the fragrance of the Mocha might have
    gratified the nostrils of a tutelary Lar, or whatever power has scope
    over a modern breakfast-table.  Phoebe's Indian cakes were the sweetest
    offering of all,--in their hue befitting the rustic altars of the
    innocent and golden age,--or, so brightly yellow were they, resembling
    some of the bread which was changed to glistening gold when Midas tried
    to eat it.  The butter must not be forgotten,--butter which Phoebe
    herself had churned, in her own rural home, and brought it to her
    cousin as a propitiatory gift,--smelling of clover-blossoms, and
    diffusing the charm of pastoral scenery through the dark-panelled
    parlor.  All this, with the quaint gorgeousness of the old china cups
    and saucers, and the crested spoons, and a silver cream-jug (Hepzibah's
            only other article of plate, and shaped like the rudest porringer), set
    out a board at which the stateliest of old Colonel Pyncheon's guests
    need not have scorned to take his place.  But the Puritan's face
    scowled down out of the picture, as if nothing on the table pleased his
    appetite.

    By way of contributing what grace she could, Phoebe gathered some roses
    and a few other flowers, possessing either scent or beauty, and
    arranged them in a glass pitcher, which, having long ago lost its
    handle, was so much the fitter for a flower-vase.  The early
    sunshine--as fresh as that which peeped into Eve's bower while she and
    Adam sat at breakfast there--came twinkling through the branches of the
    pear-tree, and fell quite across the table.  All was now ready.  There
    were chairs and plates for three.  A chair and plate for Hepzibah,--the
    same for Phoebe,--but what other guest did her cousin look for?

    Throughout this preparation there had been a constant tremor in
    Hepzibah's frame; an agitation so powerful that Phoebe could see the
    quivering of her gaunt shadow, as thrown by the firelight on the
    kitchen wall, or by the sunshine on the parlor floor.  Its
    manifestations were so various, and agreed so little with one another,
    that the girl knew not what to make of it.  Sometimes it seemed an
    ecstasy of delight and happiness.  At such moments, Hepzibah would
    fling out her arms, and infold Phoebe in them, and kiss her cheek as
    tenderly as ever her mother had; she appeared to do so by an inevitable
    impulse, and as if her bosom were oppressed with tenderness, of which
    she must needs pour out a little, in order to gain breathing-room.  The
    next moment, without any visible cause for the change, her unwonted joy
    shrank back, appalled, as it were, and clothed itself in mourning; or
    it ran and hid itself, so to speak, in the dungeon of her heart, where
    it had long lain chained, while a cold, spectral sorrow took the place
    of the imprisoned joy, that was afraid to be enfranchised,--a sorrow as
    black as that was bright.  She often broke into a little, nervous,
    hysteric laugh, more touching than any tears could be; and forthwith,
    as if to try which was the most touching, a gush of tears would follow;
or perhaps the laughter and tears came both at once, and surrounded our
poor Hepzibah, in a moral sense, with a kind of pale, dim rainbow.
Towards Phoebe, as we have said, she was affectionate,--far tenderer
than ever before, in their brief acquaintance, except for that one kiss
on the preceding night,--yet with a continually recurring pettishness
and irritability.  She would speak sharply to her; then, throwing aside
all the starched reserve of her ordinary manner, ask pardon, and the
next instant renew the just-forgiven injury.

At last, when their mutual labor was all finished, she took Phoebe's
hand in her own trembling one.

"Bear with me, my dear child," she cried; "for truly my heart is full
to the brim! Bear with me; for I love you, Phoebe, though I speak so
roughly.  Think nothing of it, dearest child! By and by, I shall be
kind, and only kind!"

"My dearest cousin, cannot you tell me what has happened?" asked
Phoebe, with a sunny and tearful sympathy.  "What is it that moves you
so?"

"Hush! hush! He is coming!" whispered Hepzibah, hastily wiping her
eyes. "Let him see you first, Phoebe; for you are young and rosy, and
cannot help letting a smile break out whether or no.  He always liked
bright faces! And mine is old now, and the tears are hardly dry on it.
He never could abide tears.  There; draw the curtain a little, so that
the shadow may fall across his side of the table! But let there be a
good deal of sunshine, too; for he never was fond of gloom, as some
people are.  He has had but little sunshine in his life,--poor
Clifford,--and, oh, what a black shadow.  Poor, poor Clifford!"

Thus murmuring in an undertone, as if speaking rather to her own heart
than to Phoebe, the old gentlewoman stepped on tiptoe about the room,
     making such arrangements as suggested themselves at the crisis.

     Meanwhile there was a step in the passage-way, above stairs.  Phoebe
     recognized it as the same which had passed upward, as through her
     dream, in the night-time.  The approaching guest, whoever it might be,
     appeared to pause at the head of the staircase; he paused twice or
     thrice in the descent; he paused again at the foot.  Each time, the
     delay seemed to be without purpose, but rather from a forgetfulness of
     the purpose which had set him in motion, or as if the person's feet
     came involuntarily to a stand-still because the motive-power was too
     feeble to sustain his progress.  Finally, he made a long pause at the
     threshold of the parlor.  He took hold of the knob of the door; then
     loosened his grasp without opening it.  Hepzibah, her hands
     convulsively clasped, stood gazing at the entrance.

     "Dear Cousin Hepzibah, pray don't look so!" said Phoebe, trembling; for
     her cousin's emotion, and this mysteriously reluctant step, made her
     feel as if a ghost were coming into the room.  "You really frighten me!
     Is something awful going to happen?"

     "Hush!" whispered Hepzibah.  "Be cheerful! whatever may happen, be
     nothing but cheerful!"

     The final pause at the threshold proved so long, that Hepzibah, unable
     to endure the suspense, rushed forward, threw open the door, and led in
     the stranger by the hand.  At the first glance, Phoebe saw an elderly
     personage, in an old-fashioned dressing-gown of faded damask, and
     wearing his gray or almost white hair of an unusual length.  It quite
     overshadowed his forehead, except when he thrust it back, and stared
     vaguely about the room.  After a very brief inspection of his face, it
     was easy to conceive that his footstep must necessarily be such an one
     as that which, slowly and with as indefinite an aim as a child's first
     journey across a floor, had just brought him hitherward.  Yet there
     were no tokens that his physical strength might not have sufficed for a
     free and determined gait.  It was the spirit of the man that could not
     walk.  The expression of his countenance--while, notwithstanding it had
     the light of reason in it--seemed to waver, and glimmer, and nearly to
     die away, and feebly to recover itself again.  It was like a flame
     which we see twinkling among half-extinguished embers; we gaze at it
     more intently than if it were a positive blaze, gushing vividly
     upward,--more intently, but with a certain impatience, as if it ought
     either to kindle itself into satisfactory splendor, or be at once
     extinguished.

     For an instant after entering the room, the guest stood still,
     retaining Hepzibah's hand instinctively, as a child does that of the
     grown person who guides it.  He saw Phoebe, however, and caught an
     illumination from her youthful and pleasant aspect, which, indeed,
     threw a cheerfulness about the parlor, like the circle of reflected
     brilliancy around the glass vase of flowers that was standing in the
     sunshine.  He made a salutation, or, to speak nearer the truth, an
     ill-defined, abortive attempt at curtsy.  Imperfect as it was, however,
     it conveyed an idea, or, at least, gave a hint, of indescribable grace,
     such as no practised art of external manners could have attained.  It
     was too slight to seize upon at the instant; yet, as recollected
     afterwards, seemed to transfigure the whole man.

     "Dear Clifford," said Hepzibah, in the tone with which one soothes a
     wayward infant, "this is our cousin Phoebe,--little Phoebe
     Pyncheon,--Arthur's only child, you know.  She has come from the
     country to stay with us awhile; for our old house has grown to be very
     lonely now."

     "Phoebe--Phoebe Pyncheon?--Phoebe?" repeated the guest, with a strange,
     sluggish, ill-defined utterance.  "Arthur's child! Ah, I forget! No
     matter.  She is very welcome!"

     "Come, dear Clifford, take this chair," said Hepzibah, leading him to
     his place.  "Pray, Phoebe, lower the curtain a very little more.  Now
     let us begin breakfast."

     The guest seated himself in the place assigned him, and looked
     strangely around.  He was evidently trying to grapple with the present
     scene, and bring it home to his mind with a more satisfactory
     distinctness.  He desired to be certain, at least, that he was here, in
     the low-studded, cross-beamed, oaken-panelled parlor, and not in some
     other spot, which had stereotyped itself into his senses.  But the
     effort was too great to be sustained with more than a fragmentary
     success.  Continually, as we may express it, he faded away out of his
     place; or, in other words, his mind and consciousness took their
     departure, leaving his wasted, gray, and melancholy figure--a
     substantial emptiness, a material ghost--to occupy his seat at table.
     Again, after a blank moment, there would be a flickering taper-gleam in
     his eyeballs.  It betokened that his spiritual part had returned, and
     was doing its best to kindle the heart's household fire, and light up
     intellectual lamps in the dark and ruinous mansion, where it was doomed
     to be a forlorn inhabitant.

     At one of these moments of less torpid, yet still imperfect animation,
     Phoebe became convinced of what she had at first rejected as too
     extravagant and startling an idea.  She saw that the person before her
     must have been the original of the beautiful miniature in her cousin
     Hepzibah's possession.  Indeed, with a feminine eye for costume, she
     had at once identified the damask dressing-gown, which enveloped him,
     as the same in figure, material, and fashion, with that so elaborately
     represented in the picture.  This old, faded garment, with all its
     pristine brilliancy extinct, seemed, in some indescribable way, to
     translate the wearer's untold misfortune, and make it perceptible to
     the beholder's eye.  It was the better to be discerned, by this
     exterior type, how worn and old were the soul's more immediate
     garments; that form and countenance, the beauty and grace of which had
     almost transcended the skill of the most exquisite of artists.  It
     could the more adequately be known that the soul of the man must have
     suffered some miserable wrong, from its earthly experience.  There he
     seemed to sit, with a dim veil of decay and ruin betwixt him and the
     world, but through which, at flitting intervals, might be caught the
     same expression, so refined, so softly imaginative, which
     Malbone--venturing a happy touch, with suspended breath--had imparted
     to the miniature! There had been something so innately characteristic
     in this look, that all the dusky years, and the burden of unfit
     calamity which had fallen upon him, did not suffice utterly to destroy
     it.

     Hepzibah had now poured out a cup of deliciously fragrant coffee, and
     presented it to her guest.  As his eyes met hers, he seemed bewildered
     and disquieted.

     "Is this you, Hepzibah?" he murmured sadly; then, more apart, and
     perhaps unconscious that he was overheard, "How changed!  how changed!
     And is she angry with me? Why does she bend her brow so?"

     Poor Hepzibah! It was that wretched scowl which time and her
     near-sightedness, and the fret of inward discomfort, had rendered so
     habitual that any vehemence of mood invariably evoked it.  But at the
     indistinct murmur of his words her whole face grew tender, and even
     lovely, with sorrowful affection; the harshness of her features
     disappeared, as it were, behind the warm and misty glow.

     "Angry!" she repeated; "angry with you, Clifford!"

     Her tone, as she uttered the exclamation, had a plaintive and really
     exquisite melody thrilling through it, yet without subduing a certain
     something which an obtuse auditor might still have mistaken for
     asperity. It was as if some transcendent musician should draw a
     soul-thrilling sweetness out of a cracked instrument, which makes its
     physical imperfection heard in the midst of ethereal harmony,--so deep
     was the sensibility that found an organ in Hepzibah's voice!

     "There is nothing but love here, Clifford," she added,--"nothing but
     love! You are at home!"

     The guest responded to her tone by a smile, which did not half light up
     his face.  Feeble as it was, however, and gone in a moment, it had a
     charm of wonderful beauty.  It was followed by a coarser expression; or
     one that had the effect of coarseness on the fine mould and outline of
     his countenance, because there was nothing intellectual to temper it.
     It was a look of appetite.  He ate food with what might almost be
     termed voracity; and seemed to forget himself, Hepzibah, the young
     girl, and everything else around him, in the sensual enjoyment which
     the bountifully spread table afforded.  In his natural system, though
     high-wrought and delicately refined, a sensibility to the delights of
     the palate was probably inherent.  It would have been kept in check,
     however, and even converted into an accomplishment, and one of the
     thousand modes of intellectual culture, had his more ethereal
     characteristics retained their vigor.  But as it existed now, the
     effect was painful and made Phoebe droop her eyes.

     In a little while the guest became sensible of the fragrance of the yet
     untasted coffee.  He quaffed it eagerly.  The subtle essence acted on
     him like a charmed draught, and caused the opaque substance of his
     animal being to grow transparent, or, at least, translucent; so that a
     spiritual gleam was transmitted through it, with a clearer lustre than
     hitherto.

     "More, more!" he cried, with nervous haste in his utterance, as if
     anxious to retain his grasp of what sought to escape him.  "This is
     what I need! Give me more!"

     Under this delicate and powerful influence he sat more erect, and
     looked out from his eyes with a glance that took note of what it rested
     on.  It was not so much that his expression grew more intellectual;
     this, though it had its share, was not the most peculiar effect.
     Neither was what we call the moral nature so forcibly awakened as to
     present itself in remarkable prominence.  But a certain fine temper of
     being was now not brought out in full relief, but changeably and
     imperfectly betrayed, of which it was the function to deal with all
     beautiful and enjoyable things.  In a character where it should exist
     as the chief attribute, it would bestow on its possessor an exquisite
     taste, and an enviable susceptibility of happiness.  Beauty would be
     his life; his aspirations would all tend toward it; and, allowing his
     frame and physical organs to be in consonance, his own developments
     would likewise be beautiful.  Such a man should have nothing to do with
     sorrow; nothing with strife; nothing with the martyrdom which, in an
     infinite variety of shapes, awaits those who have the heart, and will,
     and conscience, to fight a battle with the world.  To these heroic
     tempers, such martyrdom is the richest meed in the world's gift.  To
     the individual before us, it could only be a grief, intense in due
     proportion with the severity of the infliction.  He had no right to be
     a martyr; and, beholding him so fit to be happy and so feeble for all
     other purposes, a generous, strong, and noble spirit would, methinks,
     have been ready to sacrifice what little enjoyment it might have
     planned for itself,--it would have flung down the hopes, so paltry in
     its regard,--if thereby the wintry blasts of our rude sphere might come
     tempered to such a man.

     Not to speak it harshly or scornfully, it seemed Clifford's nature to
     be a Sybarite.  It was perceptible, even there, in the dark old parlor,
     in the inevitable polarity with which his eyes were attracted towards
     the quivering play of sunbeams through the shadowy foliage.  It was
     seen in his appreciating notice of the vase of flowers, the scent of
     which he inhaled with a zest almost peculiar to a physical organization
     so refined that spiritual ingredients are moulded in with it.  It was
     betrayed in the unconscious smile with which he regarded Phoebe, whose
     fresh and maidenly figure was both sunshine and flowers,--their
     essence, in a prettier and more agreeable mode of manifestation.  Not
     less evident was this love and necessity for the Beautiful, in the
     instinctive caution with which, even so soon, his eyes turned away from
     his hostess, and wandered to any quarter rather than come back.  It was
     Hepzibah's misfortune,--not Clifford's fault.  How could he,--so yellow
     as she was, so wrinkled, so sad of mien, with that odd uncouthness of a
     turban on her head, and that most perverse of scowls contorting her
     brow,--how could he love to gaze at her? But, did he owe her no
     affection for so much as she had silently given? He owed her nothing.
     A nature like Clifford's can contract no debts of that kind.  It is--we
     say it without censure, nor in diminution of the claim which it
     indefeasibly possesses on beings of another mould--it is always selfish
     in its essence; and we must give it leave to be so, and heap up our
     heroic and disinterested love upon it so much the more, without a
     recompense.  Poor Hepzibah knew this truth, or, at least, acted on the
     instinct of it.  So long estranged from what was lovely as Clifford had
     been, she rejoiced--rejoiced, though with a present sigh, and a secret
     purpose to shed tears in her own chamber that he had brighter objects
     now before his eyes than her aged and uncomely features.  They never
     possessed a charm; and if they had, the canker of her grief for him
     would long since have destroyed it.

     The guest leaned back in his chair.  Mingled in his countenance with a
     dreamy delight, there was a troubled look of effort and unrest.  He was
     seeking to make himself more fully sensible of the scene around him;
     or, perhaps, dreading it to be a dream, or a play of imagination, was
     vexing the fair moment with a struggle for some added brilliancy and
     more durable illusion.

     "How pleasant!--How delightful!" he murmured, but not as if addressing
     any one.  "Will it last? How balmy the atmosphere through that open
     window! An open window! How beautiful that play of sunshine! Those
     flowers, how very fragrant! That young girl's face, how cheerful, how
     blooming!--a flower with the dew on it, and sunbeams in the dew-drops!
     Ah! this must be all a dream!  A dream! A dream! But it has quite
     hidden the four stone walls!"

     Then his face darkened, as if the shadow of a cavern or a dungeon had
     come over it; there was no more light in its expression than might have
     come through the iron grates of a prison-window--still lessening, too,
     as if he were sinking farther into the depths.  Phoebe (being of that
             quickness and activity of temperament that she seldom long refrained
             from taking a part, and generally a good one, in what was going
             forward) now felt herself moved to address the stranger.

     "Here is a new kind of rose, which I found this morning in the garden,"
     said she, choosing a small crimson one from among the flowers in the
     vase.  "There will be but five or six on the bush this season.  This is
     the most perfect of them all; not a speck of blight or mildew in it.
     And how sweet it is!--sweet like no other rose! One can never forget
     that scent!"

     "Ah!--let me see!--let me hold it!" cried the guest, eagerly seizing
     the flower, which, by the spell peculiar to remembered odors, brought
     innumerable associations along with the fragrance that it exhaled.
     "Thank you! This has done me good.  I remember how I used to prize this
     flower,--long ago, I suppose, very long ago!--or was it only yesterday?
     It makes me feel young again!  Am I young? Either this remembrance is
     singularly distinct, or this consciousness strangely dim! But how kind
     of the fair young girl! Thank you! Thank you!"

     The favorable excitement derived from this little crimson rose afforded
     Clifford the brightest moment which he enjoyed at the breakfast-table.
     It might have lasted longer, but that his eyes happened, soon
     afterwards, to rest on the face of the old Puritan, who, out of his
     dingy frame and lustreless canvas, was looking down on the scene like a
     ghost, and a most ill-tempered and ungenial one.  The guest made an
     impatient gesture of the hand, and addressed Hepzibah with what might
     easily be recognized as the licensed irritability of a petted member of
     the family.

     "Hepzibah!--Hepzibah!" cried he with no little force and distinctness,
     "why do you keep that odious picture on the wall?  Yes, yes!--that is
     precisely your taste! I have told you, a thousand times, that it was
     the evil genius of the house!--my evil genius particularly! Take it
     down, at once!"

     "Dear Clifford," said Hepzibah sadly, "you know it cannot be!"

     "Then, at all events," continued he, still speaking with some energy,
     "pray cover it with a crimson curtain, broad enough to hang in folds,
     and with a golden border and tassels.  I cannot bear it! It must not
     stare me in the face!"

     "Yes, dear Clifford, the picture shall be covered," said Hepzibah
     soothingly.  "There is a crimson curtain in a trunk above stairs,--a
     little faded and moth-eaten, I'm afraid,--but Phoebe and I will do
     wonders with it."

     "This very day, remember" said he; and then added, in a low,
     self-communing voice, "Why should we live in this dismal house at all?
     Why not go to the South of France?--to Italy?--Paris, Naples, Venice,
     Rome? Hepzibah will say we have not the means.  A droll idea that!"

     He smiled to himself, and threw a glance of fine sarcastic meaning
     towards Hepzibah.

     But the several moods of feeling, faintly as they were marked, through
     which he had passed, occurring in so brief an interval of time, had
     evidently wearied the stranger.  He was probably accustomed to a sad
     monotony of life, not so much flowing in a stream, however sluggish, as
     stagnating in a pool around his feet.  A slumberous veil diffused
     itself over his countenance, and had an effect, morally speaking, on
     its naturally delicate and elegant outline, like that which a brooding
     mist, with no sunshine in it, throws over the features of a landscape.
     He appeared to become grosser,--almost cloddish.  If aught of interest
     or beauty--even ruined beauty--had heretofore been visible in this man,
     the beholder might now begin to doubt it, and to accuse his own
     imagination of deluding him with whatever grace had flickered over that
     visage, and whatever exquisite lustre had gleamed in those filmy eyes.

     Before he had quite sunken away, however, the sharp and peevish tinkle
     of the shop-bell made itself audible.  Striking most disagreeably on
     Clifford's auditory organs and the characteristic sensibility of his
     nerves, it caused him to start upright out of his chair.

     "Good heavens, Hepzibah! what horrible disturbance have we now in the
     house?" cried he, wreaking his resentful impatience--as a matter of
     course, and a custom of old--on the one person in the world that loved
     him.  "I have never heard such a hateful clamor! Why do you permit it?
     In the name of all dissonance, what can it be?"

     It was very remarkable into what prominent relief--even as if a dim
     picture should leap suddenly from its canvas--Clifford's character was
     thrown by this apparently trifling annoyance.  The secret was, that an
     individual of his temper can always be pricked more acutely through his
     sense of the beautiful and harmonious than through his heart.  It is
     even possible--for similar cases have often happened--that if Clifford,
     in his foregoing life, had enjoyed the means of cultivating his taste
     to its utmost perfectibility, that subtile attribute might, before this
     period, have completely eaten out or filed away his affections.  Shall
     we venture to pronounce, therefore, that his long and black calamity
     may not have had a redeeming drop of mercy at the bottom?

     "Dear Clifford, I wish I could keep the sound from your ears," said
     Hepzibah, patiently, but reddening with a painful suffusion of shame.
     "It is very disagreeable even to me.  But, do you know, Clifford, I
     have something to tell you? This ugly noise,--pray run, Phoebe, and see
     who is there!--this naughty little tinkle is nothing but our shop-bell!"

     "Shop-bell!" repeated Clifford, with a bewildered stare.

     "Yes, our shop-bell," said Hepzibah, a certain natural dignity, mingled
     with deep emotion, now asserting itself in her manner.  "For you must
     know, dearest Clifford, that we are very poor.  And there was no other
     resource, but either to accept assistance from a hand that I would push
     aside (and so would you!) were it to offer bread when we were dying for
     it,--no help, save from him, or else to earn our subsistence with my
     own hands! Alone, I might have been content to starve.  But you were to
     be given back to me! Do you think, then, dear Clifford," added she,
     with a wretched smile, "that I have brought an irretrievable disgrace
     on the old house, by opening a little shop in the front gable?  Our
     great-great-grandfather did the same, when there was far less need! Are
     you ashamed of me?"

     "Shame! Disgrace! Do you speak these words to me, Hepzibah?" said
     Clifford,--not angrily, however; for when a man's spirit has been
     thoroughly crushed, he may be peevish at small offences, but never
     resentful of great ones.  So he spoke with only a grieved emotion.  "It
     was not kind to say so, Hepzibah! What shame can befall me now?"

     And then the unnerved man--he that had been born for enjoyment, but had
     met a doom so very wretched--burst into a woman's passion of tears.  It
     was but of brief continuance, however; soon leaving him in a quiescent,
     and, to judge by his countenance, not an uncomfortable state.  From
     this mood, too, he partially rallied for an instant, and looked at
     Hepzibah with a smile, the keen, half-derisory purport of which was a
     puzzle to her.

     "Are we so very poor, Hepzibah?" said he.

     Finally, his chair being deep and softly cushioned, Clifford fell
     asleep.  Hearing the more regular rise and fall of his breath (which,
             however, even then, instead of being strong and full, had a feeble kind
             of tremor, corresponding with the lack of vigor in his
             character),--hearing these tokens of settled slumber, Hepzibah seized
     the opportunity to peruse his face more attentively than she had yet
     dared to do.  Her heart melted away in tears; her profoundest spirit
     sent forth a moaning voice, low, gentle, but inexpressibly sad.  In
     this depth of grief and pity she felt that there was no irreverence in
     gazing at his altered, aged, faded, ruined face.  But no sooner was she
     a little relieved than her conscience smote her for gazing curiously at
     him, now that he was so changed; and, turning hastily away, Hepzibah
     let down the curtain over the sunny window, and left Clifford to
     slumber there.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: The Guest: Phoebe awoke and found Hepzibah already in the kitchen, preparing breakfast. She and Phoebe prepare food, despite Hepzibah's lack of a natural inclination for cookery. While they prepare food, there is a constant tremor in Hepzibah's frame, a powerful agitation that seemed an ecstasy of delight, but Hepzibah also shrank into sorrow at times. Hepzibah tells Phoebe that Clifford is coming, and that he will need the great joy that Phoebe can provide. That night, Clifford arrives at the house. He approaches it with the gait of a man who can barely walk. Hepzibah leads him into the house by the hand, and when Clifford sees Phoebe he becomes more cheerful. Phoebe realizes that this must be the person in Hepzibah's miniature. Clifford notices Hepzibah's furrowed brow and wonders whether she is angry at him, but when he hears her voice he realizes that she has nothing but love for him. To Hepzibah Clifford seemed to be by his nature a Sybarite. He had a love and a need for the beautiful, and having been jailed for so long, he rejoiced at any opportunity for beauty, such as visage of Phoebe. Clifford panics upon seeing the portrait of Colonel Pyncheon, and begs Hepzibah to cover it. He suggests to Hepzibah that they not live in the dismal house, but go to Europe. When Clifford learns that Hepzibah has opened a shop, he bursts into tears. He finally falls asleep in his chair. While he sleeps, Hepzibah peruses his face, but soon feels guilty for doing so.