sigh, like a gust of chill, damp wind out of a long-closed vault,
the door of which has accidentally been set, ajar--here comes Miss
Hepzibah Pyncheon! Forth she steps into the dusky, time-darkened
passage; a tall figure, clad in black silk, with a long and shrunken
waist, feeling her way towards the stairs like a near-sighted person,
as in truth she is.

The sun, meanwhile, if not already above the horizon, was
ascending nearer and nearer to its verge. A few clouds, floating
high upward, caught some of the earliest light, and threw down its
golden gleam on the windows of all the houses in the street, not
forgetting the House of the Seven Gables, which--many such sunrises
as it had witnessed--looked cheerfully at the present one. The
reflected radiance served to show, pretty distinctly, the aspect
and arrangement of the room which Hepzibah entered, after
descending the stairs. It was a low-studded room, with a beam
across the ceiling, panelled with dark wood, and having a large
chimney-piece, set round with pictured tiles, but now closed by
an iron fire-board, through which ran the funnel of a modern stove.
There was a carpet on the floor, originally of rich texture,
but so worn and faded in these latter years that its once brilliant
figure had quite vanished into one indistinguishable hue. In the
way of furniture, there were two tables: one, constructed with
perplexing intricacy and exhibiting as many feet as a centipede;
the other, most delicately wrought, with four long and slender
legs, so apparently frail that it was almost incredible what a
length of time the ancient tea-table had stood upon them. Half a
dozen chairs stood about the room, straight and stiff, and so
ingeniously contrived for the discomfort of the human person
that they were irksome even to sight, and conveyed the ugliest