“Her cousin, and from the country?” said the gentleman, bowing and smiling.  “In that case we must be better acquainted, for you are my own little kinswoman likewise.  Let me see, you must be Phoebe, the only child of my dear Cousin Arthur.  I am your kinsman, my dear.  Surely you must have heard of Judge Pyncheon?”

Phoebe curtsied, and the judge bent forward to bestow a kiss on his young relative.  But Phoebe drew back; there was something repulsive to her in the judge’s demonstration, and on raising her eyes she was startled by the change in Judge Pyncheon’s face.  It had become cold, hard, and immitigable.

“Dear me!  What is to be done now?” thought the country girl to herself.  “He looks as if there were nothing softer in him than a rock, nor milder than the east wind.”

Then all at once it struck Phoebe that this very Judge Pyncheon was the original of a miniature which Mr. Holgrave—­who took portraits, and whose acquaintance she had made within a few hours of her arrival—­had shown her yesterday.  There was the same hard, stern, relentless look on the face.  In reality, the miniature was copied from an old portrait of Colonel Pyncheon which hung within the house.  Was it that the expression had been transmitted down as a precious heirloom, from that Puritan ancestor, in whose picture both the expression, and, to a singular degree, the features, of the modern judge were shown as by a kind of prophecy?

But as it happened, scarcely had Phoebe’s eyes rested again on the judge’s countenance than all its ugly sternness vanished, and she found herself almost overpowered by the warm benevolence of his look.  But the fantasy would not quit her that the original Puritan, of whom she had heard so many sombre traditions, had now stepped into the shop.

“You seem to be a little nervous this morning,” said the judge.  “Has anything happened to disturb you—­anything remarkable in Cousin Hepzibah’s family—­an arrival, eh?  I thought so!  To be an inmate with such a guest may well startle an innocent young girl!”

“You quite puzzle me, sir!” replied Phoebe.  “There is no frightful guest in the house, but only a poor, gentle, child-like man, whom I believe to be Cousin Hepzibah’s brother.  I am afraid that he is not quite in his sound senses; but so mild he seems to be that a mother might trust her baby with him.  He startle me?  Oh, no, indeed!”

“I rejoice to hear so favourable and so ingenious an account of my Cousin Clifford,” said the benevolent judge.  “It is possible that you have never heard of Clifford Pyncheon, and know nothing of his history.  But is Clifford in the parlour?  I will just step in and see him.  There is no need to announce me.  I know the house, and know my Cousin Hepzibah, and her brother Clifford likewise.  Ah, there is Hepzibah herself!”

Such was the case.  The vibrations of the judge’s voice had reached the old gentlewoman in the parlour, where Clifford sat slumbering in his chair.