The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-09-22

GnRland.
 Hawthorne drew largely on traditions concerning his own family for this story. His great grandfather had been a magistrate in Salem at the time of the witchcraft craze, and curse had been pronounced on his family by one of the victims who suffered on Witches Hill Altogether "The House of the Eleven Gables" is a weird story full of ghosts, hereditary curses and sudden deaths Phoebe furnishes all the sum- shine in the tale, which, like most of Hawthorne's, Is almost too full of som- bre shades. And yet who would light en single shadow?
 TOR an ordinary person to open shop is no great matter. It is ! merely a business venture. which may or may not succeed. But when person with a pedigree, a coat Of arms and gentle bringing up opens shop In the corner of his or her ancestral mansion, it is a revolution, shatter- ing of traditions a toppling of pre- judces and violent assassination of family pride So when Miss Hepzibah Pyncheon inaugurated her little shop In corner of the House of the Seven Gables she arrayed herself in her best black silk and stalked behind the counter, fully believing that she real
  trod the path to execution. As=--s
 Already Miss Hepzibah had suffered the humiliation of letting a room in one of the gables of her great and gloomy old house. old Maid Pyncheon, as the neighbors called her, opened her little shop because she was cruelty poor ana as her brother was coming home rom state prison where he had been for thirty years she had to have money to buy food for him.
 Clifford Pyncheon had been impris- med for the murder of his uncle Jafrey. He might have been hanged, but as the evidence was purely cireumstantial, ne was simply told to immure himsef TOT life in a capacious stone coffin called state prison And now he had been par doned out and was coming nome asain to the only creature in the whole world who believed in him.
 She had taken from her writing desk that morning miniature oone III N,on na bone's best style, with those strokes which make one imagine the artist holding his breath as he put them oh' It was the picture of young man In silk dressing gown or an ola iasilloli the soft richness of which Was wei edapted to the countenanee or reFeIie, with it's full, tender lips and beautllu LII a,as that seemed to indicate not so n.,ch capacity of thought as gentle ana yoluptuous emotion.
 Door Clifford. with his overWhelmlhg love for the beautiful-the Worlo n"-i been rude to him indeed! But then there was q curse over the Pyncheons ana over inc House of the Seven Gables especlaiY' old Colonel Pyncheon, whose grim DOT .rai+ with a sword in one hand and the pihIa in the other hung in the oak parior' had broueht it on the family when ne nrosecuted Mathew Maule for Wlzalu and seized his little Naboth vineyard to build his grand house on 200 years pe- Core As Maule stood on the scaffoid ne had nointed his finger at the stern colonel sitting there on horseback, ana oried ont: God shall give them blood .o drink" Ever since when a Pyncheoh was deeply stirred by emotion he had d certain curious gurgle in his throat ana people whispered and said: He IS ariiih- ing blood.' .,o,,s o,,rs1a l.. her throat now as she sank into the nraat arm chair beneath the colonel DOT trait In that very chair where the oid yaid sat. Colonel Pyncheoh had oeeii found sitting stone dead by the great company which came to the house"ai % ln- ing on the completion of the House oi .sie Seven Gables. In that char, too' nai . been found dead the Pyncheon whom hls nenhew Clifford had been accused or siay ing. . ,,4uo he,l on inc shop door told old Maid Pyncheoil that the crisis was upon her Sne staiheu frowningly into the "store. hepzipdii had the softest, kndest heart In the world but she was near-sighted and 1t made her scrowl frightfully, so that peo- ple called her cross, grabbed and sour. But the shop bell had only announced the entrance of Miss Hepzibah's lodger, young Holgrave, the photographer.
 50, my dear Miss Pyncheon,' said the
 1ad tn have not shrunk from your good purp ose. I merely looked in to offer my best wishes and ask if I can assist you in any way"
 Coming in from the morning sunshine os he did young Holgrave seemed to hrinp some of the freshness and cheerful ness of it with him. He was a slender youth of about two and twenty, with rather grave face and thoughtful ex- nression for his years, but also of snringv aIacrity and vigor that showed not only physically but made themselves felt in his character.
 uenzibah broke forth into a hysterical eirgle and then began to sob. "Oh, MT. Holgrave," she cried as soon as she could sneak 'I can never go through with It. Never. Never! I wish l were dead and in the old family tomb with all my fore tothers. The world is too chill and hard a,d am too old too feeble and too hopeless
 wan these feelings will not trouble you after you are once fairly in the midst of vour enterprise. Standing as you do on the outer verge of your long seclusion, vou people the world with shapes which y,ll prove as unreal as the giants of q child's fairy book. I find nothing so singular in life as that everything aD-