so well, would let the dinner hour pass? You surely remember, too, that this dinner was to be a vcry spccial one. Several im-portant public men, officials of the town and state, were meet-ing to decide who was to be the next governor of the state. What better man could they find than Judge Pyncheon! He was known to everyone, honest, rich—a man of great influeııce in j both the town and the state. Yes, they had almost decided that he was to be their party representative. Stili, now it is growing late. The dinner is över. The wine has been drunk. The judge has not appeared. What is more, he could not possibly appear at such a meeting with blood on his beard and collar. The men can wait no longer. They finally decide upon someone else to be the party representative and to become the next governor of the state.

 

Up, therefore, Judge Pyncheon! Up! You have already lost this day—but tomorrovv will soon be here. Will you rise and make the best of it or will you let it pass as you did today?

 

Now comes the night. It grows dark outside. The house, too, is soon dark as a grave. The wind blows. It seems to blow with a strange haunting sound through every room of the old house.

 

Or perhaps these sounds come, not from the wind, but from the many dead spirits who, after two hundred years, come each night to visit the family home. Is Judge Pyncheon afraid? Not at ali.

 

He does not believe ali the stories that are told about the old House of the Seven Gables. He continues to sit there calmly, without moving. He looks at his watch—but now his watch has stopped.

 

It has run down and no longer telis the hour. How strange that for the first time in many years Judge Pyncheon, who is so exact in everything, has let his watch run down. At exactly ten o’clock each night, just a half hour before going to bed, he has always wound his watch. But tonight the judge is clearly not himself. So many strange things have happened. Everything has been so greatly changed.