men avoided me and women shown no pity and children screamed and fled
only for my black veil? What but the mystery which it obscurely
typifies has made this piece of crape so awful? When the friend shows
his inmost heart to his friend, the lover to his best-beloved; when
man does not vainly shrink from the eye of his Creator, loathsomely
treasuring up the secret of his sin,--then deem me a monster for the
symbol beneath which I have lived and die. I look around me, and, lo!
on every visage a black veil!"

While his auditors shrank from one another in mutual affright, Father
Hooper fell back upon his pillow, a veiled corpse with a faint smile
lingering on the lips. Still veiled, they laid him in his coffin, and
a veiled corpse they bore him to the grave. The grass of many years
has sprung up and withered on that grave, the burial-stone is
moss-grown, and good Mr. Hooper's face is dust; but awful is still the
thought that it mouldered beneath the black veil.




THE MAYPOLE OF MERRY MOUNT.


There is an admirable foundation for a philosophic romance in
the curious history of the early settlement of Mount Wollaston,
or Merry Mount. In the slight sketch here attempted the facts
recorded on the grave pages of our New England annalists have
wrought themselves almost spontaneously into a sort of allegory.
The masques, mummeries and festive customs described in the text
are in accordance with the manners of the age. Authority on these