bay. The neat weather-gray dwellings, shingled to the ground and
brightened with door-yard flowers and creepers, straggled off into the
boat-houses and fishing-huts on the shore, and the village seemed to get
afloat at last in the sloops and schooners riding in the harbor, whose
smooth plane rose higher to the eye than the town itself. The salt and
the sand were everywhere, but though there had been no positive
prosperity in Corbitant for a generation, the place had an impregnable
neatness, which defied decay; if there had been a dog in the street,
there would not have been a stick to throw at him.

One of the better, but not the best, of the village houses, which did not
differ from the others in any essential particular, and which stood flush
upon the street, bore a door-plate with the name Dr. Rufus Mulbridge, and
Libby drew up in front of it without having had to alarm the village with
inquiries. Grace forbade his help in dismounting, and ran to the door,
where she rang one of those bells which sharply respond at the back of
the panel to the turn of a crank in front; she observed, in a difference
of paint, that this modern improvement had displaced an old-fashioned
knocker. The door was opened by a tall and strikingly handsome old woman,
whose black eyes still kept their keen light under her white hair, and
whose dress showed none of the incongruity which was offensive in the
door-bell: it was in the perfection of an antiquated taste, which,
however, came just short of characterizing it with gentle womanliness.

"Is Dr. Mulbridge at home?" asked Grace.

"Yes," said the other, with a certain hesitation, and holding the door
ajar.

"I should like to see him," said Grace, mounting to the threshold.