might have been. It seemed as if the whole fortune or failure of
her shop might depend on the display of a different set of articles,
or substituting a fairer apple for one which appeared to be specked.
So she made the change, and straightway fancied that everything was
spoiled by it; not recognizing that it was the nervousness of the
juncture, and her own native squeamishness as an old maid, that
wrought all the seeming mischief.

Anon, there was an encounter, just at the door-step, betwixt two
laboring men, as their rough voices denoted them to be. After
some slight talk about their own affairs, one of them chanced to
notice the shop-window, and directed the other's attention to it.

"See here!" cried he; "what do you think of this? Trade seems to
be looking up in Pyncheon Street!"

"Well, well, this is a sight, to be sure!" exclaimed the other.
"In the old Pyncheon House, and underneath the Pyncheon Elm! Who
would have thought it? Old Maid Pyncheon is setting up a cent-shop!"

"Will she make it go, think you, Dixey;" said his friend. "I don't
call it a very good stand. There's another shop just round the
corner."

"Make it go!" cried Dixey, with a most contemptuous expression,
as if the very idea were impossible to be conceived. "Not a bit
of it! Why, her face--I've seen it, for I dug her garden for her
one year--her face is enough to frighten the Old Nick himself, if
he had ever so great a mind to trade with her. People can't stand
it, I tell you! She scowls dreadfully, reason or none, out of pure