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Nathaniel Hawthorne's Tales. Twice Told Tales, First and Second Series
Nathaniel Hawthorne's Tales Twice Told Tales First and Second Series Author:Nathaniel Hawthorne Subtitle: Snow Image, and Other Tales. (the House With the Seven Gables, and the Scarlet Letter). General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1866 Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this boo... more »k you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: II. -- THE LITTLE SHOP-WINDOW. It still lacked half an hour of sunrise, when Miss Hepzibah Pyncheon -- we will not say awoke; it being doubtful whether the poor lady had so much as closed her eyes, during the brief night of midsummer -- but, at all events, arose from her solitary pillow, and began what it would be mockery to term the adornment of her person. Far from us be the indecorum of assisting, even in imagination, at a maiden lady's toilet! Our story must therefore await Miss Hepzibah at the threshold of her chamber; only presuming, meanwhile to note some of the heavy sighs that labored from her bosom, with little restraint as to their lugubrious depth and volume of sound, inasmuch as they could be audible to nobody, save a disembodied listener like ourself. The Old Maid was alone in the old house. Alone, except for a certain respectable and orderly young man, an artist in the daguerreotype line, who, for about three months back, had been a lodger in a remote gable. -- quite a house by itself, indeed, -- with locks, bolts, and oaken bars, on all the intervening doors. Inaudible, consequently, were poor Miss Hepzibah's gusty sighs. Inaudible, the creaking joints of her stiffened knees, as she knelt down by the bedside. And inaudible, too, by mortal ear, but heard with all-comprehending love and pity in the furthest heaven, that almost agony of prayer -- now whispered, now a groan, now a struggling silence -- wherewith she besought the Divine assistance through the day! Evidently, this is to be a day...« less