This eBook was produced by David Widger                        THE SNOWIMAGE                             AND                     OTHER TWICETOLD TALES                        SYLPH ETHEREGE                              By                      Nathaniel HawthorneOn a bright summer evening two persons stood among the shrubbery of agarden stealthily watching a young girl who sat in the window seat of aneighboring mansion  One of these unseen observers a gentleman wasyouthful and had an air of high breeding and refinement and a facemarked with intellect though otherwise of unprepossessing aspect  Hisfeatures wore even an ominous though somewhat mirthful expression whilehe pointed his long forefinger at the girl and seemed to regard her as acreature completely within the scope of his influenceThe charm works said he in a low but emphatic whisperDo you know Edward Hamiltonsince so you choose to be nameddo youknow said the lady beside him that I have almost a mind to break thespell at once  What if the lesson should prove too severe  True if myward could be thus laughed out of her fantastic nonsense she might bethe better for it through life  But then she is such a delicatecreature  And besides are you not ruining your own chance by puttingforward this shadow of a rivalBut will he not vanish into thin air at my bidding  rejoined EdwardHamilton  Let the charm workThe girls slender and sylphlike figure tinged with radiance from thesunset clouds and overhung with the rich drapery of the silken curtainsand set within the deep frame of the window was a perfect picture orrather it was like the original loveliness in a painters fancy fromwhich the most finished picture is but an imperfect copy  Though heroccupation excited so much interest in the two spectators she was merelygazing at a miniature which she held in her hand encased in white satinand red morocco nor did there appear to be any other cause for the smileof mockery and malice with which Hamilton regarded herThe charm works muttered he again  Our pretty Sylvias scorn willhave a dear retributionAt this moment the girl raised her eyes and instead of a lifelikesemblance of the miniature beheld the illomened shape of EdwardHamilton who now stepped forth from his concealment in the shrubberySylvia Etherege was an orphan girl who had spent her life till within afew months past under the guardianship and in the secluded dwelling ofan old bachelor uncle  While yet in her cradle she had been thedestined bride of a cousin who was no less passive in the betrothal thanherself  Their future union had been projected as the means of unitingtwo rich estates and was rendered highly expedient if notindispensable by the testamentary dispositions of the parents on bothsides  Edgar Vaughan the promised bridegroom had been bred frominfancy in Europe and had never seen the beautiful girl whose heart hewas to claim as his inheritance  But already for several years acorrespondence had been kept up between tine cousins and had produced anintellectual intimacy though it could but imperfectly acquaint them witheach others characterSylvia was shy sensitive and fanciful and her guardians secludedhabits had shut her out from even so much of the world as is generallyopen to maidens of her age  She had been left to seek associates andfriends for herself in the haunts of imagination and to converse withthem sometimes in the language of dead poets oftener in the poetry ofher own mind  The companion whom she chiefly summoned up was the cousinwith whose idea her earliest thoughts had been connected  She made avision of Edgar Vaughan and tinted it with stronger hues than a merefancypicture yet graced it with so many bright and delicateperfections that her cousin could nowhere have encountered so dangerousa rival  To this shadow she cherished a romantic fidelity  With itsairy presence sitting by her side or gliding along her favorite pathsthe loneliness of her young life was blissful her heart was satisfiedwith love while yet its virgin purity was untainted by the earthlinessthat the touch of a real lover would have left there  Edgar Vaughanseemed to be conscious of her character for in his letters he gave hera name that was happily appropriate to the sensitiveness of herdisposition the delicate peculiarity of her manners and the etherealbeauty both of her mind and person  Instead of Sylvia he called herSylphwith the prerogative of a cousin and a loverhis dear SylphEtheregeWhen Sylvia was seventeen her guardian died and she passed under thecare of Mrs Grosvenor a lady of wealth and fashion and Sylviasnearest relative though a distant one  While an inmate of MrsGrosvenors family she still preserved somewhat of her lifelong habitsof seclusion and shrank from a too familiar intercourse with thosearound her  Still too she was faithful to her cousin or to the shadowwhich bore his nameThe time now drew near when Edgar Vaughan whose education had beencompleted by an extensive range of travel was to revisit the soil of hisnativity  Edward Hamilton a young gentleman who had been Vaughanscompanion both in his studies and rambles had already recrossed theAtlantic bringing letters to Mrs Grosvenor and Sylvia Etherege  Thesecredentials insured him an earnest welcome which