to the study of the law, and having a natural tendency towards office,
he had attained, many years ago, to a judicial situation in some
inferior court, which gave him for life the very desirable and
imposing title of judge. Later, he had engaged in politics, and
served a part of two terms in Congress, besides making a considerable
figure in both branches of the State legislature. Judge Pyncheon
was unquestionably an honor to his race. He had built himself a
country-seat within a few miles of his native town, and there spent
such portions of his time as could be spared from public service in
the display of every grace and virtue--as a newspaper phrased it,
on the eve of an election--befitting the Christian, the good citizen,
the horticulturist, and the gentleman.

There were few of the Pyncheons left to sun themselves in the
glow of the Judge's prosperity. In respect to natural increase,
the breed had not thriven; it appeared rather to be dying out.
The only members of the family known to be extant were, first,
the Judge himself, and a single surviving son, who was now travelling
in Europe; next, the thirty years' prisoner, already alluded to,
and a sister of the latter, who occupied, in an extremely retired
manner, the House of the Seven Gables, in which she had a life-estate
by the will of the old bachelor. She was understood to be wretchedly
poor, and seemed to make it her choice to remain so; inasmuch as
her affluent cousin, the Judge, had repeatedly offered her all the
comforts of life, either in the old mansion or his own modern
residence. The last and youngest Pyncheon was a little country-girl
of seventeen, the daughter of another of the Judge's cousins,
who had married a young woman of no family or property, and died
early and in poor circumstances. His widow had recently taken
another husband.