There is one other feature, very essential to be noticed, but
which, we greatly fear, may damage any picturesque and romantic
impression which we have been willing to throw over our sketch of
this respectable edifice. In the front gable, under the impending
brow of the second story, and contiguous to the street, was a
shop-door, divided horizontally in the midst, and with a window
for its upper segment, such as is often seen in dwellings of a
somewhat ancient date. This same shop-door had been a subject
of No slight mortification to the present occupant of the august
Pyncheon House, as well as to some of her predecessors. The matter
is disagreeably delicate to handle; but, since the reader must
needs be let into the secret, he will please to understand, that,
about a century ago, the head of the Pyncheons found himself
involved in serious financial difficulties. The fellow (gentleman,
as he styled himself) can hardly have been other than a spurious
interloper; for, instead of seeking office from the king or the
royal governor, or urging his hereditary claim to Eastern lands,
he bethought himself of no better avenue to wealth than by cutting
a shop-door through the side of his ancestral residence. It was
the custom of the time, indeed, for merchants to store their goods
and transact business in their own dwellings. But there was
something pitifully small in this old Pyncheon's mode of setting
about his commercial operations; it was whispered, that, with his
own hands, all beruffled as they were, he used to give change for
a shilling, and would turn a half-penny twice over, to make sure
that it was a good one. Beyond all question, he had the blood of
a petty huckster in his veins, through whatever channel it may have
found its way there.

Immediately on his death, the shop-door had been locked, bolted,