“Perhaps, sir, I had better call my cousin Hepzibah,” said Phœbe; hardly knowing, however, whether she ought to obstruct the entrance of so affectionate a kinsman into the private regions of the house. “Her brother seemed to be just falling asleep after breakfast; and I am sure she would not like him to be disturbed. Pray, sir, let me give her notice!”
But the Judge showed a singular determination to enter unannounced; and as Phœbe, with the vivacity of a person whose movements unconsciously answer to her thoughts, had stepped towards the door, he used little or no ceremony in putting her aside.
“No, no, Miss Phœbe!” said Judge Pyncheon in a voice as deep as a thunder-growl, and with a frown as black as the cloud whence it issues. “Stay you here! I know the house, and know my cousin Hepzibah, and know her brother Clifford likewise.—nor need my little country cousin put herself to the trouble of announcing me!”—in these latter words, by the bye, there were symptoms of a change from his sudden harshness into his previous benignity of manner. “I am at home here, Phœbe, you must recollect, and you are the stranger. I will just step in, therefore, and see for myself how Clifford is, and assure him and Hepzibah of my kindly feelings and best wishes. It is right, at this juncture, that they should both hear from my own lips how much I desire to serve them. Ha! here is Hepzibah herself!”
Such was the case. The vibrations of the Judge’s voice had reached the old gentlewoman in the parlor, where she sat, with face averted, waiting on her brother’s slumber. She now issued forth, as would appear, to defend the entrance, looking, we must needs say, amazingly like the dragon which, in fairy tales, is wont to be the guardian over an enchanted beauty. The habitual scowl of her brow was undeniably too fierce, at this moment, to pass itself off on the innocent score of near-sightedness; and it was bent on Judge Pyncheon in a way that seemed to confound, if not alarm him, so inadequately had he estimated the moral force of a deeply grounded antipathy. She made a repelling gesture with her hand, and stood a perfect picture of prohibition, at full length, in the dark frame of the doorway. But we must betray Hepzibah’s secret, and confess that the native timorousness of her character even now developed itself in a quick tremor, which, to her own perception, set each of her joints at variance with its fellows.