The real action of the book, after the preliminaries, takes up only some
three days, and turns upon the attempt of a man named Butler to entice
Ellen away under his protection, then marry her, and secure the fortune
to which she is heiress. This scheme is partly frustrated by
circumstances, and Butler's purpose towards Ellen then becomes a much
more sinister one. From this she is rescued by Fanshawe; and, knowing
that he loves her, but is concealing his passion, she gives him the
opportunity and the right to claim her hand. For a moment, the rush of
desire and hope is so great that he hesitates; then he refuses to take
advantage of her generosity, and parts with her for the last time. Ellen
becomes engaged to Wolcott, who had won her heart from the first; and
Fanshawe, sinking into rapid consumption, dies before his class
graduates. It is easy to see how the sources of emotion thus opened
attracted Hawthorne. The noble and refined nature of Fanshawe, and the
mingled craftiness, remorse, and ferocity of Butler, are crude
embodiments of the same characteristics which he afterward treated in
modified forms. They are the two poles, the extremes,--both of them
remote and chilly,--of good and evil, from which the writer withdrew,
after exploring them, into more temperate regions. The movement of these
persons is visionary, and their personality faint. But I have marked a
few characteristic portions of the book which suggest its tone.

When the young lady's flight with the stranger actually takes place,
young Wolcott and President Melmoth ride together in the pursuit, and at
this point there occurs a dialogue which is certainly as laughable and
is better condensed than most similar passages in Scott, whom it
strongly recalls. A hint of Cervantes appears in it, too, which makes it
not out of place to mention that Hawthorne studied "Don Quixote" in the
original, soon after leaving college.