Never had Peter beheld a livelier scene than was constituted by all these accessories—­the bright sun, the flashing water-drops, the gleaming snow, the cheerful multitude, the variety of rapid vehicles and the jingle-jangle of merry bells which made the heart dance to their music.  Nothing dismal was to be seen except that peaked piece of antiquity Peter Goldthwaite’s house, which might well look sad externally, since such a terrible consumption was preying on its insides.  And Peter’s gaunt figure, half visible in the projecting second story, was worthy of his house.

“Peter!  How goes it, friend Peter?” cried a voice across the street as Peter was drawing in his head.  “Look out here, Peter!”

Peter looked, and saw his old partner, Mr. John Brown, on the opposite sidewalk, portly and comfortable, with his furred cloak thrown open, disclosing a handsome surtout beneath.  His voice had directed the attention of the whole town to Peter Goldthwaite’s window, and to the dusty scarecrow which appeared at it.

“I say, Peter!” cried Mr. Brown, again; “what the devil are you about there, that I hear such a racket whenever I pass by?  You are repairing the old house, I suppose, making a new one of it?  Eh?”

“Too late for that, I am afraid, Mr. Brown,” replied Peter.  “If I make it new, it will be new inside and out, from the cellar upward.”

“Had not you better let me take the job?” said Mr. Brown, significantly.

“Not yet,” answered Peter, hastily shutting the window; for ever since he had been in search of the treasure he hated to have people stare at him.

As he drew back, ashamed of his outward poverty, yet proud of the secret wealth within his grasp, a haughty smile shone out on Peter’s visage with precisely the effect of the dim sunbeams in the squalid chamber.  He endeavored to assume such a mien as his ancestor had probably worn when he gloried in the building of a strong house for a home to many generations of his posterity.  But the chamber was very dark to his snow-dazzled eyes, and very dismal, too, in contrast with the living scene that he had just looked upon.  His brief glimpse into the street had given him a forcible impression of the manner in which the world kept itself cheerful and prosperous by social pleasures and an intercourse of business, while he in seclusion was pursuing an object that might possibly be a phantasm by a method which most people would call madness.  It is one great advantage of a gregarious mode of life that each person rectifies his mind by other minds and squares his conduct to that of his neighbors, so as seldom to be lost in eccentricity.  Peter Goldthwaite had exposed himself to this influence by merely looking out of the window.  For a while he doubted whether there were any hidden chest of gold, and in that case whether it was so exceedingly wise to tear the house down only to be convinced of its non-existence.