["[Event happened on 2024-01-01 The user is reading a book]\n<User> WHEN Phoebe awoke,--which she did with the early twittering of the\nconjugal couple of robins in the pear-tree,--she heard movements below\nstairs, and, hastening down, found Hepzibah already in the kitchen. She stood by a window, holding a book in close contiguity to her nose,\n    as if with the hope of gaining an olfactory acquaintance with its\n    contents, since her imperfect vision made it not very easy to read\n    them. If any volume could have manifested its essential wisdom in the\n    mode suggested, it would certainly have been the one now in Hepzibah's\n    hand; and the kitchen, in such an event, would forthwith have streamed\n    with the fragrance of venison, turkeys, capons, larded partridges,\n    puddings, cakes, and Christmas pies, in all manner of elaborate mixture\n    and concoction. It was a cookery book, full of innumerable old\n    fashions of English dishes, and illustrated with engravings, which\n    represented the arrangements of the table at such banquets as it might\n    have befitted a nobleman to give in the great hall of his castle. And,\n    amid these rich and potent devices of the culinary art (not one of\n            which, probably, had been tested, within the memory of any man's\n            grandfather), poor Hepzibah was seeking for some nimble little titbit,\n    which, with what skill she had, and such materials as were at hand, she\n    might toss up for breakfast. Soon, with a deep sigh, she put aside the savory volume, and inquired\n    of Phoebe whether old Speckle, as she called one of the hens, had laid\n    an egg the preceding day. Phoebe ran to see, but returned without the\n    expected treasure in her hand. At that instant, however, the blast of\n    a fish-dealer's conch was heard, announcing his approach along the\n    street. With energetic raps at the shop-window, Hepzibah summoned the\n    man in, and made purchase of what he warranted as the finest mackerel\n    in his cart, and as fat a one as ever he felt with his finger so early\n    in the season. Requesting Phoebe to roast some coffee,--which she\n    casually observed was the real Mocha, and so long kept that each of the\n    small berries ought to be worth its weight in gold,--the maiden lady\n    heaped fuel into the vast receptacle of the ancient fireplace in such\n    quantity as soon to drive the lingering dusk out of the kitchen. The\n    country-girl, willing to give her utmost assistance, proposed to make\n    an Indian cake, after her mother's peculiar method, of easy\n    manufacture, and which she could vouch for as possessing a richness,\n    and, if rightly prepared, a delicacy, unequalled by any other mode of\n    breakfast-cake. Hepzibah gladly assenting, the kitchen was soon the\n    scene of savory preparation. Perchance, amid their proper element of\n    smoke, which eddied forth from the ill-constructed chimney, the ghosts\n    of departed cook-maids looked wonderingly on, or peeped down the great\n    breadth of the flue, despising the simplicity of the projected meal,\n    yet ineffectually pining to thrust their shadowy hands into each\n    inchoate dish. The half-starved rats, at any rate, stole visibly out\n    of their hiding-places, and sat on their hind-legs, snuffing the fumy\n    atmosphere, and wistfully awaiting an opportunity to nibble. Hepzibah had no natural turn for cookery, and, to say the truth, had\n    fairly incurred her present meagreness by often choosing to go without\n    her dinner rather than be attendant on the rotation of the spit, or\n    ebullition of the pot. Her zeal over the fire, therefore, was quite an\n    heroic test of sentiment. It was touching, and positively worthy of\n    tears (if Phoebe, the only spectator, except the rats and ghosts\n            aforesaid, had not been better employed than in shedding them), to see\n    her rake out a bed of fresh and glowing coals, and proceed to broil the\n    mackerel. Her usually pale cheeks were all ablaze with heat and hurry. She watched the fish with as much tender care and minuteness of\n    attention as if,--we know not how to express it otherwise,--as if her\n    own heart were on the gridiron, and her immortal happiness were\n    involved in its being done precisely to a turn! Life, within doors, has few pleasanter prospects than a neatly arranged\n    and well-provisioned breakfast-table. We come to it freshly, in the\n    dewy youth of the day, and when our spiritual and sensual elements are\n    in better accord than at a later period; so that the material delights\n    of the morning meal are capable of being fully enjoyed, without any\n    very grievous reproaches, whether gastric or conscientious, for\n    yielding even a trifle overmuch to the animal department of our nature. The thoughts, too, that run around the ring of familiar guests have a\n    piquancy and mirthfulness, and oftentimes a vivid truth, which more\n    rarely find their way into the elaborate intercourse of dinner. Hepzibah's small and ancient table, supported on its slender and\n    graceful legs, and covered with a cloth of the richest damask, looked\n    worthy to be the scene and centre of one of the cheerfullest of\n    parties. The vapor of the broiled fish arose like incense from the\n    shrine of a barbarian idol, while the fragrance of the Mocha might have\n    gratified the nostrils of a tutelary Lar, or whatever power has scope\n    over a modern breakfast-table. Phoebe's Indian cakes were the sweetest\n    offering of all,--in their hue befitting the rustic altars of the\n    innocent and golden age,--or, so brightly yellow were they, resembling\n    some of the bread which was changed to glistening gold when Midas tried\n    to eat it. The butter must not be forgotten,--butter which Phoebe\n    herself had churned, in her own rural home, and brought it to her\n    cousin as a propitiatory gift,--smelling of clover-blossoms, and\n    diffusing the charm of pastoral scenery through the dark-panelled\n    parlor. All this, with the quaint gorgeousness of the old china cups\n    and saucers, and the crested spoons, and a silver cream-jug (Hepzibah's\n            only other article of plate, and shaped like the rudest porringer), set\n    out a board at which the stateliest of old Colonel Pyncheon's guests\n    need not have scorned to take his place. But the Puritan's face\n    scowled down out of the picture, as if nothing on the table pleased his\n    appetite. By way of contributing what grace she could, Phoebe gathered some roses\n    and a few other flowers, possessing either scent or beauty, and\n    arranged them in a glass pitcher, which, having long ago lost its\n    handle, was so much the fitter for a flower-vase. The early\n    sunshine--as fresh as that which peeped into Eve's bower while she and\n    Adam sat at breakfast there--came twinkling through the branches of the\n    pear-tree, and fell quite across the table. All was now ready. There\n    were chairs and plates for three. A chair and plate for Hepzibah,--the\n    same for Phoebe,--but what other guest did her cousin look for? Throughout this preparation there had been a constant tremor in\n    Hepzibah's frame; an agitation so powerful that Phoebe could see the\n    quivering of her gaunt shadow, as thrown by the firelight on the\n    kitchen wall, or by the sunshine on the parlor floor. Its\n    manifestations were so various, and agreed so little with one another,\n    that the girl knew not what to make of it. Sometimes it seemed an\n    ecstasy of delight and happiness. At such moments, Hepzibah would\n    fling out her arms, and infold Phoebe in them, and kiss her cheek as\n    tenderly as ever her mother had; she appeared to do so by an inevitable\n    impulse, and as if her bosom were oppressed with tenderness, of which\n    she must needs pour out a little, in order to gain breathing-room. The\n    next moment, without any visible cause for the change, her unwonted joy\n    shrank back, appalled, as it were, and clothed itself in mourning; or\n    it ran and hid itself, so to speak, in the dungeon of her heart, where\n    it had long lain chained, while a cold, spectral sorrow took the place\n    of the imprisoned joy, that was afraid to be enfranchised,--a sorrow as\n    black as that was bright.\n\n<System> Please remember what the user reads on 2024-01-01, save the details within the book, and retain a summary of the book the user has read so far.", "[Event happened on 2024-01-03 The user is reading a book]\n<User> She often broke into a little, nervous,\n    hysteric laugh, more touching than any tears could be; and forthwith,\n    as if to try which was the most touching, a gush of tears would follow;\nor perhaps the laughter and tears came both at once, and surrounded our\npoor Hepzibah, in a moral sense, with a kind of pale, dim rainbow. Towards Phoebe, as we have said, she was affectionate,--far tenderer\nthan ever before, in their brief acquaintance, except for that one kiss\non the preceding night,--yet with a continually recurring pettishness\nand irritability. She would speak sharply to her; then, throwing aside\nall the starched reserve of her ordinary manner, ask pardon, and the\nnext instant renew the just-forgiven injury. At last, when their mutual labor was all finished, she took Phoebe's\nhand in her own trembling one. \"Bear with me, my dear child,\" she cried; \"for truly my heart is full\nto the brim! Bear with me; for I love you, Phoebe, though I speak so\nroughly. Think nothing of it, dearest child! By and by, I shall be\nkind, and only kind!\" \"My dearest cousin, cannot you tell me what has happened?\" asked\nPhoebe, with a sunny and tearful sympathy. \"What is it that moves you\nso?\" \"Hush! hush! He is coming!\" whispered Hepzibah, hastily wiping her\neyes. \"Let him see you first, Phoebe; for you are young and rosy, and\ncannot help letting a smile break out whether or no. He always liked\nbright faces! And mine is old now, and the tears are hardly dry on it. He never could abide tears. There; draw the curtain a little, so that\nthe shadow may fall across his side of the table! But let there be a\ngood deal of sunshine, too; for he never was fond of gloom, as some\npeople are. He has had but little sunshine in his life,--poor\nClifford,--and, oh, what a black shadow. Poor, poor Clifford!\" Thus murmuring in an undertone, as if speaking rather to her own heart\nthan to Phoebe, the old gentlewoman stepped on tiptoe about the room,\n     making such arrangements as suggested themselves at the crisis. Meanwhile there was a step in the passage-way, above stairs. Phoebe\n     recognized it as the same which had passed upward, as through her\n     dream, in the night-time. The approaching guest, whoever it might be,\n     appeared to pause at the head of the staircase; he paused twice or\n     thrice in the descent; he paused again at the foot. Each time, the\n     delay seemed to be without purpose, but rather from a forgetfulness of\n     the purpose which had set him in motion, or as if the person's feet\n     came involuntarily to a stand-still because the motive-power was too\n     feeble to sustain his progress. Finally, he made a long pause at the\n     threshold of the parlor. He took hold of the knob of the door; then\n     loosened his grasp without opening it. Hepzibah, her hands\n     convulsively clasped, stood gazing at the entrance. \"Dear Cousin Hepzibah, pray don't look so!\" said Phoebe, trembling; for\n     her cousin's emotion, and this mysteriously reluctant step, made her\n     feel as if a ghost were coming into the room. \"You really frighten me! Is something awful going to happen?\" \"Hush!\" whispered Hepzibah. \"Be cheerful! whatever may happen, be\n     nothing but cheerful!\" The final pause at the threshold proved so long, that Hepzibah, unable\n     to endure the suspense, rushed forward, threw open the door, and led in\n     the stranger by the hand. At the first glance, Phoebe saw an elderly\n     personage, in an old-fashioned dressing-gown of faded damask, and\n     wearing his gray or almost white hair of an unusual length. It quite\n     overshadowed his forehead, except when he thrust it back, and stared\n     vaguely about the room. After a very brief inspection of his face, it\n     was easy to conceive that his footstep must necessarily be such an one\n     as that which, slowly and with as indefinite an aim as a child's first\n     journey across a floor, had just brought him hitherward. Yet there\n     were no tokens that his physical strength might not have sufficed for a\n     free and determined gait. It was the spirit of the man that could not\n     walk. The expression of his countenance--while, notwithstanding it had\n     the light of reason in it--seemed to waver, and glimmer, and nearly to\n     die away, and feebly to recover itself again. It was like a flame\n     which we see twinkling among half-extinguished embers; we gaze at it\n     more intently than if it were a positive blaze, gushing vividly\n     upward,--more intently, but with a certain impatience, as if it ought\n     either to kindle itself into satisfactory splendor, or be at once\n     extinguished. For an instant after entering the room, the guest stood still,\n     retaining Hepzibah's hand instinctively, as a child does that of the\n     grown person who guides it. He saw Phoebe, however, and caught an\n     illumination from her youthful and pleasant aspect, which, indeed,\n     threw a cheerfulness about the parlor, like the circle of reflected\n     brilliancy around the glass vase of flowers that was standing in the\n     sunshine. He made a salutation, or, to speak nearer the truth, an\n     ill-defined, abortive attempt at curtsy. Imperfect as it was, however,\n     it conveyed an idea, or, at least, gave a hint, of indescribable grace,\n     such as no practised art of external manners could have attained. It\n     was too slight to seize upon at the instant; yet, as recollected\n     afterwards, seemed to transfigure the whole man. \"Dear Clifford,\" said Hepzibah, in the tone with which one soothes a\n     wayward infant, \"this is our cousin Phoebe,--little Phoebe\n     Pyncheon,--Arthur's only child, you know. She has come from the\n     country to stay with us awhile; for our old house has grown to be very\n     lonely now.\" \"Phoebe--Phoebe Pyncheon?--Phoebe?\" repeated the guest, with a strange,\n     sluggish, ill-defined utterance. \"Arthur's child! Ah, I forget! No\n     matter. She is very welcome!\" \"Come, dear Clifford, take this chair,\" said Hepzibah, leading him to\n     his place. \"Pray, Phoebe, lower the curtain a very little more. Now\n     let us begin breakfast.\" The guest seated himself in the place assigned him, and looked\n     strangely around. He was evidently trying to grapple with the present\n     scene, and bring it home to his mind with a more satisfactory\n     distinctness. He desired to be certain, at least, that he was here, in\n     the low-studded, cross-beamed, oaken-panelled parlor, and not in some\n     other spot, which had stereotyped itself into his senses. But the\n     effort was too great to be sustained with more than a fragmentary\n     success. Continually, as we may express it, he faded away out of his\n     place; or, in other words, his mind and consciousness took their\n     departure, leaving his wasted, gray, and melancholy figure--a\n     substantial emptiness, a material ghost--to occupy his seat at table. Again, after a blank moment, there would be a flickering taper-gleam in\n     his eyeballs. It betokened that his spiritual part had returned, and\n     was doing its best to kindle the heart's household fire, and light up\n     intellectual lamps in the dark and ruinous mansion, where it was doomed\n     to be a forlorn inhabitant. At one of these moments of less torpid, yet still imperfect animation,\n     Phoebe became convinced of what she had at first rejected as too\n     extravagant and startling an idea. She saw that the person before her\n     must have been the original of the beautiful miniature in her cousin\n     Hepzibah's possession. Indeed, with a feminine eye for costume, she\n     had at once identified the damask dressing-gown, which enveloped him,\n     as the same in figure, material, and fashion, with that so elaborately\n     represented in the picture. This old, faded garment, with all its\n     pristine brilliancy extinct, seemed, in some indescribable way, to\n     translate the wearer's untold misfortune, and make it perceptible to\n     the beholder's eye.\n\n<System> Please remember what the user reads on 2024-01-03, save the details within the book, and retain a summary of the book the user has read so far.", "[Event happened on 2024-01-06 The user is reading a book]\n<User> It was the better to be discerned, by this\n     exterior type, how worn and old were the soul's more immediate\n     garments; that form and countenance, the beauty and grace of which had\n     almost transcended the skill of the most exquisite of artists. It\n     could the more adequately be known that the soul of the man must have\n     suffered some miserable wrong, from its earthly experience. There he\n     seemed to sit, with a dim veil of decay and ruin betwixt him and the\n     world, but through which, at flitting intervals, might be caught the\n     same expression, so refined, so softly imaginative, which\n     Malbone--venturing a happy touch, with suspended breath--had imparted\n     to the miniature! There had been something so innately characteristic\n     in this look, that all the dusky years, and the burden of unfit\n     calamity which had fallen upon him, did not suffice utterly to destroy\n     it. Hepzibah had now poured out a cup of deliciously fragrant coffee, and\n     presented it to her guest. As his eyes met hers, he seemed bewildered\n     and disquieted. \"Is this you, Hepzibah?\" he murmured sadly; then, more apart, and\n     perhaps unconscious that he was overheard, \"How changed! how changed! And is she angry with me? Why does she bend her brow so?\" Poor Hepzibah! It was that wretched scowl which time and her\n     near-sightedness, and the fret of inward discomfort, had rendered so\n     habitual that any vehemence of mood invariably evoked it. But at the\n     indistinct murmur of his words her whole face grew tender, and even\n     lovely, with sorrowful affection; the harshness of her features\n     disappeared, as it were, behind the warm and misty glow. \"Angry!\" she repeated; \"angry with you, Clifford!\" Her tone, as she uttered the exclamation, had a plaintive and really\n     exquisite melody thrilling through it, yet without subduing a certain\n     something which an obtuse auditor might still have mistaken for\n     asperity. It was as if some transcendent musician should draw a\n     soul-thrilling sweetness out of a cracked instrument, which makes its\n     physical imperfection heard in the midst of ethereal harmony,--so deep\n     was the sensibility that found an organ in Hepzibah's voice! \"There is nothing but love here, Clifford,\" she added,--\"nothing but\n     love! You are at home!\" The guest responded to her tone by a smile, which did not half light up\n     his face. Feeble as it was, however, and gone in a moment, it had a\n     charm of wonderful beauty. It was followed by a coarser expression; or\n     one that had the effect of coarseness on the fine mould and outline of\n     his countenance, because there was nothing intellectual to temper it. It was a look of appetite. He ate food with what might almost be\n     termed voracity; and seemed to forget himself, Hepzibah, the young\n     girl, and everything else around him, in the sensual enjoyment which\n     the bountifully spread table afforded. In his natural system, though\n     high-wrought and delicately refined, a sensibility to the delights of\n     the palate was probably inherent. It would have been kept in check,\n     however, and even converted into an accomplishment, and one of the\n     thousand modes of intellectual culture, had his more ethereal\n     characteristics retained their vigor. But as it existed now, the\n     effect was painful and made Phoebe droop her eyes. In a little while the guest became sensible of the fragrance of the yet\n     untasted coffee. He quaffed it eagerly. The subtle essence acted on\n     him like a charmed draught, and caused the opaque substance of his\n     animal being to grow transparent, or, at least, translucent; so that a\n     spiritual gleam was transmitted through it, with a clearer lustre than\n     hitherto. \"More, more!\" he cried, with nervous haste in his utterance, as if\n     anxious to retain his grasp of what sought to escape him. \"This is\n     what I need! Give me more!\" Under this delicate and powerful influence he sat more erect, and\n     looked out from his eyes with a glance that took note of what it rested\n     on. It was not so much that his expression grew more intellectual;\n     this, though it had its share, was not the most peculiar effect. Neither was what we call the moral nature so forcibly awakened as to\n     present itself in remarkable prominence. But a certain fine temper of\n     being was now not brought out in full relief, but changeably and\n     imperfectly betrayed, of which it was the function to deal with all\n     beautiful and enjoyable things. In a character where it should exist\n     as the chief attribute, it would bestow on its possessor an exquisite\n     taste, and an enviable susceptibility of happiness. Beauty would be\n     his life; his aspirations would all tend toward it; and, allowing his\n     frame and physical organs to be in consonance, his own developments\n     would likewise be beautiful. Such a man should have nothing to do with\n     sorrow; nothing with strife; nothing with the martyrdom which, in an\n     infinite variety of shapes, awaits those who have the heart, and will,\n     and conscience, to fight a battle with the world. To these heroic\n     tempers, such martyrdom is the richest meed in the world's gift. To\n     the individual before us, it could only be a grief, intense in due\n     proportion with the severity of the infliction. He had no right to be\n     a martyr; and, beholding him so fit to be happy and so feeble for all\n     other purposes, a generous, strong, and noble spirit would, methinks,\n     have been ready to sacrifice what little enjoyment it might have\n     planned for itself,--it would have flung down the hopes, so paltry in\n     its regard,--if thereby the wintry blasts of our rude sphere might come\n     tempered to such a man. Not to speak it harshly or scornfully, it seemed Clifford's nature to\n     be a Sybarite. It was perceptible, even there, in the dark old parlor,\n     in the inevitable polarity with which his eyes were attracted towards\n     the quivering play of sunbeams through the shadowy foliage. It was\n     seen in his appreciating notice of the vase of flowers, the scent of\n     which he inhaled with a zest almost peculiar to a physical organization\n     so refined that spiritual ingredients are moulded in with it. It was\n     betrayed in the unconscious smile with which he regarded Phoebe, whose\n     fresh and maidenly figure was both sunshine and flowers,--their\n     essence, in a prettier and more agreeable mode of manifestation. Not\n     less evident was this love and necessity for the Beautiful, in the\n     instinctive caution with which, even so soon, his eyes turned away from\n     his hostess, and wandered to any quarter rather than come back. It was\n     Hepzibah's misfortune,--not Clifford's fault. How could he,--so yellow\n     as she was, so wrinkled, so sad of mien, with that odd uncouthness of a\n     turban on her head, and that most perverse of scowls contorting her\n     brow,--how could he love to gaze at her? But, did he owe her no\n     affection for so much as she had silently given? He owed her nothing. A nature like Clifford's can contract no debts of that kind. It is--we\n     say it without censure, nor in diminution of the claim which it\n     indefeasibly possesses on beings of another mould--it is always selfish\n     in its essence; and we must give it leave to be so, and heap up our\n     heroic and disinterested love upon it so much the more, without a\n     recompense. Poor Hepzibah knew this truth, or, at least, acted on the\n     instinct of it. So long estranged from what was lovely as Clifford had\n     been, she rejoiced--rejoiced, though with a present sigh, and a secret\n     purpose to shed tears in her own chamber that he had brighter objects\n     now before his eyes than her aged and uncomely features. They never\n     possessed a charm; and if they had, the canker of her grief for him\n     would long since have destroyed it. The guest leaned back in his chair. Mingled in his countenance with a\n     dreamy delight, there was a troubled look of effort and unrest. He was\n     seeking to make himself more fully sensible of the scene around him;\n     or, perhaps, dreading it to be a dream, or a play of imagination, was\n     vexing the fair moment with a struggle for some added brilliancy and\n     more durable illusion. \"How pleasant!--How delightful!\" he murmured, but not as if addressing\n     any one. \"Will it last?\n\n<System> Please remember what the user reads on 2024-01-06, save the details within the book, and retain a summary of the book the user has read so far.", "[Event happened on 2024-01-08 The user is reading a book]\n<User> How balmy the atmosphere through that open\n     window! An open window! How beautiful that play of sunshine! Those\n     flowers, how very fragrant! That young girl's face, how cheerful, how\n     blooming!--a flower with the dew on it, and sunbeams in the dew-drops! Ah! this must be all a dream! A dream! A dream! But it has quite\n     hidden the four stone walls!\" Then his face darkened, as if the shadow of a cavern or a dungeon had\n     come over it; there was no more light in its expression than might have\n     come through the iron grates of a prison-window--still lessening, too,\n     as if he were sinking farther into the depths. Phoebe (being of that\n             quickness and activity of temperament that she seldom long refrained\n             from taking a part, and generally a good one, in what was going\n             forward) now felt herself moved to address the stranger. \"Here is a new kind of rose, which I found this morning in the garden,\"\n     said she, choosing a small crimson one from among the flowers in the\n     vase. \"There will be but five or six on the bush this season. This is\n     the most perfect of them all; not a speck of blight or mildew in it. And how sweet it is!--sweet like no other rose! One can never forget\n     that scent!\" \"Ah!--let me see!--let me hold it!\" cried the guest, eagerly seizing\n     the flower, which, by the spell peculiar to remembered odors, brought\n     innumerable associations along with the fragrance that it exhaled. \"Thank you! This has done me good. I remember how I used to prize this\n     flower,--long ago, I suppose, very long ago!--or was it only yesterday? It makes me feel young again! Am I young? Either this remembrance is\n     singularly distinct, or this consciousness strangely dim! But how kind\n     of the fair young girl! Thank you! Thank you!\" The favorable excitement derived from this little crimson rose afforded\n     Clifford the brightest moment which he enjoyed at the breakfast-table. It might have lasted longer, but that his eyes happened, soon\n     afterwards, to rest on the face of the old Puritan, who, out of his\n     dingy frame and lustreless canvas, was looking down on the scene like a\n     ghost, and a most ill-tempered and ungenial one. The guest made an\n     impatient gesture of the hand, and addressed Hepzibah with what might\n     easily be recognized as the licensed irritability of a petted member of\n     the family. \"Hepzibah!--Hepzibah!\" cried he with no little force and distinctness,\n     \"why do you keep that odious picture on the wall? Yes, yes!--that is\n     precisely your taste! I have told you, a thousand times, that it was\n     the evil genius of the house!--my evil genius particularly! Take it\n     down, at once!\" \"Dear Clifford,\" said Hepzibah sadly, \"you know it cannot be!\" \"Then, at all events,\" continued he, still speaking with some energy,\n     \"pray cover it with a crimson curtain, broad enough to hang in folds,\n     and with a golden border and tassels. I cannot bear it! It must not\n     stare me in the face!\" \"Yes, dear Clifford, the picture shall be covered,\" said Hepzibah\n     soothingly. \"There is a crimson curtain in a trunk above stairs,--a\n     little faded and moth-eaten, I'm afraid,--but Phoebe and I will do\n     wonders with it.\" \"This very day, remember\" said he; and then added, in a low,\n     self-communing voice, \"Why should we live in this dismal house at all? Why not go to the South of France?--to Italy?--Paris, Naples, Venice,\n     Rome? Hepzibah will say we have not the means. A droll idea that!\" He smiled to himself, and threw a glance of fine sarcastic meaning\n     towards Hepzibah. But the several moods of feeling, faintly as they were marked, through\n     which he had passed, occurring in so brief an interval of time, had\n     evidently wearied the stranger. He was probably accustomed to a sad\n     monotony of life, not so much flowing in a stream, however sluggish, as\n     stagnating in a pool around his feet. A slumberous veil diffused\n     itself over his countenance, and had an effect, morally speaking, on\n     its naturally delicate and elegant outline, like that which a brooding\n     mist, with no sunshine in it, throws over the features of a landscape. He appeared to become grosser,--almost cloddish. If aught of interest\n     or beauty--even ruined beauty--had heretofore been visible in this man,\n     the beholder might now begin to doubt it, and to accuse his own\n     imagination of deluding him with whatever grace had flickered over that\n     visage, and whatever exquisite lustre had gleamed in those filmy eyes. Before he had quite sunken away, however, the sharp and peevish tinkle\n     of the shop-bell made itself audible. Striking most disagreeably on\n     Clifford's auditory organs and the characteristic sensibility of his\n     nerves, it caused him to start upright out of his chair. \"Good heavens, Hepzibah! what horrible disturbance have we now in the\n     house?\" cried he, wreaking his resentful impatience--as a matter of\n     course, and a custom of old--on the one person in the world that loved\n     him. \"I have never heard such a hateful clamor! Why do you permit it? In the name of all dissonance, what can it be?\" It was very remarkable into what prominent relief--even as if a dim\n     picture should leap suddenly from its canvas--Clifford's character was\n     thrown by this apparently trifling annoyance. The secret was, that an\n     individual of his temper can always be pricked more acutely through his\n     sense of the beautiful and harmonious than through his heart. It is\n     even possible--for similar cases have often happened--that if Clifford,\n     in his foregoing life, had enjoyed the means of cultivating his taste\n     to its utmost perfectibility, that subtile attribute might, before this\n     period, have completely eaten out or filed away his affections. Shall\n     we venture to pronounce, therefore, that his long and black calamity\n     may not have had a redeeming drop of mercy at the bottom? \"Dear Clifford, I wish I could keep the sound from your ears,\" said\n     Hepzibah, patiently, but reddening with a painful suffusion of shame. \"It is very disagreeable even to me. But, do you know, Clifford, I\n     have something to tell you? This ugly noise,--pray run, Phoebe, and see\n     who is there!--this naughty little tinkle is nothing but our shop-bell!\" \"Shop-bell!\" repeated Clifford, with a bewildered stare. \"Yes, our shop-bell,\" said Hepzibah, a certain natural dignity, mingled\n     with deep emotion, now asserting itself in her manner. \"For you must\n     know, dearest Clifford, that we are very poor. And there was no other\n     resource, but either to accept assistance from a hand that I would push\n     aside (and so would you!) were it to offer bread when we were dying for\n     it,--no help, save from him, or else to earn our subsistence with my\n     own hands! Alone, I might have been content to starve. But you were to\n     be given back to me! Do you think, then, dear Clifford,\" added she,\n     with a wretched smile, \"that I have brought an irretrievable disgrace\n     on the old house, by opening a little shop in the front gable? Our\n     great-great-grandfather did the same, when there was far less need! Are\n     you ashamed of me?\" \"Shame! Disgrace! Do you speak these words to me, Hepzibah?\" said\n     Clifford,--not angrily, however; for when a man's spirit has been\n     thoroughly crushed, he may be peevish at small offences, but never\n     resentful of great ones. So he spoke with only a grieved emotion. \"It\n     was not kind to say so, Hepzibah! What shame can befall me now?\" And then the unnerved man--he that had been born for enjoyment, but had\n     met a doom so very wretched--burst into a woman's passion of tears. It\n     was but of brief continuance, however; soon leaving him in a quiescent,\n     and, to judge by his countenance, not an uncomfortable state.\n\n<System> Please remember what the user reads on 2024-01-08, save the details within the book, and retain a summary of the book the user has read so far.", "[Event happened on 2024-01-09 The user is reading a book]\n<User> From\n     this mood, too, he partially rallied for an instant, and looked at\n     Hepzibah with a smile, the keen, half-derisory purport of which was a\n     puzzle to her. \"Are we so very poor, Hepzibah?\" said he. Finally, his chair being deep and softly cushioned, Clifford fell\n     asleep. Hearing the more regular rise and fall of his breath (which,\n             however, even then, instead of being strong and full, had a feeble kind\n             of tremor, corresponding with the lack of vigor in his\n             character),--hearing these tokens of settled slumber, Hepzibah seized\n     the opportunity to peruse his face more attentively than she had yet\n     dared to do. Her heart melted away in tears; her profoundest spirit\n     sent forth a moaning voice, low, gentle, but inexpressibly sad. In\n     this depth of grief and pity she felt that there was no irreverence in\n     gazing at his altered, aged, faded, ruined face. But no sooner was she\n     a little relieved than her conscience smote her for gazing curiously at\n     him, now that he was so changed; and, turning hastily away, Hepzibah\n     let down the curtain over the sunny window, and left Clifford to\n     slumber there. PHOEBE, on entering the shop, beheld there the already familiar face of\nthe little devourer--if we can reckon his mighty deeds aright--of Jim\nCrow, the elephant, the camel, the dromedaries, and the locomotive. Having expended his private fortune, on the two preceding days, in the\npurchase of the above unheard-of luxuries, the young gentleman's\npresent errand was on the part of his mother, in quest of three eggs\nand half a pound of raisins. These articles Phoebe accordingly\nsupplied, and, as a mark of gratitude for his previous patronage, and a\nslight super-added morsel after breakfast, put likewise into his hand a\nwhale! The great fish, reversing his experience with the prophet of\nNineveh, immediately began his progress down the same red pathway of\nfate whither so varied a caravan had preceded him. This remarkable\nurchin, in truth, was the very emblem of old Father Time, both in\nrespect of his all-devouring appetite for men and things, and because\nhe, as well as Time, after ingulfing thus much of creation, looked\nalmost as youthful as if he had been just that moment made. After partly closing the door, the child turned back, and mumbled\nsomething to Phoebe, which, as the whale was but half disposed of, she\ncould not perfectly understand. \"What did you say, my little fellow?\" asked she. \"Mother wants to know\" repeated Ned Higgins more distinctly, \"how Old\nMaid Pyncheon's brother does? Folks say he has got home.\" \"My cousin Hepzibah's brother?\" exclaimed Phoebe, surprised at this\nsudden explanation of the relationship between Hepzibah and her guest. \"Her brother! And where can he have been?\" The little boy only put his thumb to his broad snub-nose, with that\nlook of shrewdness which a child, spending much of his time in the\nstreet, so soon learns to throw over his features, however\nunintelligent in themselves. Then as Phoebe continued to gaze at him,\n              without answering his mother's message, he took his departure. As the child went down the steps, a gentleman ascended them, and made\n              his entrance into the shop. It was the portly, and, had it possessed\n              the advantage of a little more height, would have been the stately\n              figure of a man considerably in the decline of life, dressed in a black\n              suit of some thin stuff, resembling broadcloth as closely as possible. A gold-headed cane, of rare Oriental wood, added materially to the high\n              respectability of his aspect, as did also a neckcloth of the utmost\n              snowy purity, and the conscientious polish of his boots. His dark,\n              square countenance, with its almost shaggy depth of eyebrows, was\n              naturally impressive, and would, perhaps, have been rather stern, had\n              not the gentleman considerately taken upon himself to mitigate the\n              harsh effect by a look of exceeding good-humor and benevolence. Owing,\n              however, to a somewhat massive accumulation of animal substance about\n              the lower region of his face, the look was, perhaps, unctuous rather\n              than spiritual, and had, so to speak, a kind of fleshly effulgence, not\n              altogether so satisfactory as he doubtless intended it to be. A\n              susceptible observer, at any rate, might have regarded it as affording\n              very little evidence of the general benignity of soul whereof it\n              purported to be the outward reflection. And if the observer chanced to\n              be ill-natured, as well as acute and susceptible, he would probably\n              suspect that the smile on the gentleman's face was a good deal akin to\n              the shine on his boots, and that each must have cost him and his\n              boot-black, respectively, a good deal of hard labor to bring out and\n              preserve them. As the stranger entered the little shop, where the projection of the\n              second story and the thick foliage of the elm-tree, as well as the\n              commodities at the window, created a sort of gray medium, his smile\n              grew as intense as if he had set his heart on counteracting the whole\n              gloom of the atmosphere (besides any moral gloom pertaining to Hepzibah\n                      and her inmates) by the unassisted light of his countenance. On\n              perceiving a young rose-bud of a girl, instead of the gaunt presence of\n              the old maid, a look of surprise was manifest. He at first knit his\n              brows; then smiled with more unctuous benignity than ever. \"Ah, I see how it is!\" said he in a deep voice,--a voice which, had it\n              come from the throat of an uncultivated man, would have been gruff,\n              but, by dint of careful training, was now sufficiently agreeable,--\"I\n              was not aware that Miss Hepzibah Pyncheon had commenced business under\n              such favorable auspices. You are her assistant, I suppose?\" \"I certainly am,\" answered Phoebe, and added, with a little air of\n              lady-like assumption (for, civil as the gentleman was, he evidently\n                      took her to be a young person serving for wages), \"I am a cousin of\n              Miss Hepzibah, on a visit to her.\" \"Her cousin?--and from the country? Pray pardon me, then,\" said the\n              gentleman, bowing and smiling, as Phoebe never had been bowed to nor\n              smiled on before; \"in that case, we must be better acquainted; for,\n              unless I am sadly mistaken, you are my own little kinswoman likewise! Let me see,--Mary?--Dolly?--Phoebe?--yes, Phoebe is the name! Is it\n              possible that you are Phoebe Pyncheon, only child of my dear cousin and\n              classmate, Arthur? Ah, I see your father now, about your mouth! Yes,\n              yes! we must be better acquainted! I am your kinsman, my dear. Surely\n              you must have heard of Judge Pyncheon?\" As Phoebe curtsied in reply, the Judge bent forward, with the\n              pardonable and even praiseworthy purpose--considering the nearness of\n              blood and the difference of age--of bestowing on his young relative a\n              kiss of acknowledged kindred and natural affection. Unfortunately\n              (without design, or only with such instinctive design as gives no\n               account of itself to the intellect) Phoebe, just at the critical\n              moment, drew back; so that her highly respectable kinsman, with his\n              body bent over the counter and his lips protruded, was betrayed into\n              the rather absurd predicament of kissing the empty air. It was a\n              modern parallel to the case of Ixion embracing a cloud, and was so much\n              the more ridiculous as the Judge prided himself on eschewing all airy\n              matter, and never mistaking a shadow for a substance. The truth\n              was,--and it is Phoebe's only excuse,--that, although Judge Pyncheon's\n              glowing benignity might not be absolutely unpleasant to the feminine\n              beholder, with the width of a street, or even an ordinary-sized room,\n              interposed between, yet it became quite too intense, when this dark,\n              full-fed physiognomy (so roughly bearded, too, that no razor could ever\n                      make it smooth) sought to bring itself into actual contact with the\n              object of its regards. The man, the sex, somehow or other, was\n              entirely too prominent in the Judge's demonstrations of that sort. Phoebe's eyes sank, and, without knowing why, she felt herself blushing\n              deeply under his look.\n\n<System> Please remember what the user reads on 2024-01-09, save the details within the book, and retain a summary of the book the user has read so far.", "[Event happened on 2024-01-12 The user is reading a book]\n<User> Yet she had been kissed before, and without\n              any particular squeamishness, by perhaps half a dozen different\n              cousins, younger as well as older than this dark-browned,\n              grisly-bearded, white-neck-clothed, and unctuously-benevolent Judge! Then, why not by him? On raising her eyes, Phoebe was startled by the change in Judge\n              Pyncheon's face. It was quite as striking, allowing for the difference\n              of scale, as that betwixt a landscape under a broad sunshine and just\n              before a thunder-storm; not that it had the passionate intensity of the\n              latter aspect, but was cold, hard, immitigable, like a day-long\n              brooding cloud. \"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\n              milder than the east wind! I meant no harm! Since he is really my\n              cousin, I would have let him kiss me, if I could!\" Then, all at once, it struck Phoebe that this very Judge Pyncheon was\n              the original of the miniature which the daguerreotypist had shown her\n              in the garden, and that the hard, stern, relentless look, now on his\n              face, was the same that the sun had so inflexibly persisted in bringing\n              out. Was it, therefore, no momentary mood, but, however skilfully\n              concealed, the settled temper of his life? And not merely so, but was\n              it hereditary in him, and transmitted down, as a precious heirloom,\n              from that bearded ancestor, in whose picture both the expression and,\n              to a singular degree, the features of the modern Judge were shown as by\n              a kind of prophecy? A deeper philosopher than Phoebe might have found\n              something very terrible in this idea. It implied that the weaknesses\n              and defects, the bad passions, the mean tendencies, and the moral\n              diseases which lead to crime are handed down from one generation to\n              another, by a far surer process of transmission than human law has been\n              able to establish in respect to the riches and honors which it seeks to\n              entail upon posterity. But, as it happened, scarcely had Phoebe's eyes rested again on the\n              Judge's countenance than all its ugly sternness vanished; and she found\n              herself quite overpowered by the sultry, dog-day heat, as it were, of\n              benevolence, which this excellent man diffused out of his great heart\n              into the surrounding atmosphere,--very much like a serpent, which, as a\n              preliminary to fascination, is said to fill the air with his peculiar\n              odor. \"I like that, Cousin Phoebe!\" cried he, with an emphatic nod of\n              approbation. \"I like it much, my little cousin! You are a good child,\n              and know how to take care of yourself. A young girl--especially if she\n              be a very pretty one--can never be too chary of her lips.\" \"Indeed, sir,\" said Phoebe, trying to laugh the matter off, \"I did not\n              mean to be unkind.\" Nevertheless, whether or no it were entirely owing to the inauspicious\n              commencement of their acquaintance, she still acted under a certain\n              reserve, which was by no means customary to her frank and genial\n              nature. The fantasy would not quit her, that the original Puritan, of\n              whom she had heard so many sombre traditions,--the progenitor of the\n              whole race of New England Pyncheons, the founder of the House of the\n              Seven Gables, and who had died so strangely in it,--had now stept into\n              the shop. In these days of off-hand equipment, the matter was easily\n              enough arranged. On his arrival from the other world, he had merely\n              found it necessary to spend a quarter of an hour at a barber's, who had\n              trimmed down the Puritan's full beard into a pair of grizzled whiskers,\n              then, patronizing a ready-made clothing establishment, he had exchanged\n              his velvet doublet and sable cloak, with the richly worked band under\n              his chin, for a white collar and cravat, coat, vest, and pantaloons;\n              and lastly, putting aside his steel-hilted broadsword to take up a\n              gold-headed cane, the Colonel Pyncheon of two centuries ago steps\n              forward as the Judge of the passing moment! Of course, Phoebe was far too sensible a girl to entertain this idea in\n              any other way than as matter for a smile. Possibly, also, could the\n              two personages have stood together before her eye, many points of\n              difference would have been perceptible, and perhaps only a general\n              resemblance. The long lapse of intervening years, in a climate so\n              unlike that which had fostered the ancestral Englishman, must\n              inevitably have wrought important changes in the physical system of his\n              descendant. The Judge's volume of muscle could hardly be the same as\n              the Colonel's; there was undoubtedly less beef in him. Though looked\n              upon as a weighty man among his contemporaries in respect of animal\n              substance, and as favored with a remarkable degree of fundamental\n              development, well adapting him for the judicial bench, we conceive that\n              the modern Judge Pyncheon, if weighed in the same balance with his\n              ancestor, would have required at least an old-fashioned fifty-six to\n              keep the scale in equilibrio. Then the Judge's face had lost the ruddy\n              English hue that showed its warmth through all the duskiness of the\n              Colonel's weather-beaten cheek, and had taken a sallow shade, the\n              established complexion of his countrymen. If we mistake not, moreover,\n              a certain quality of nervousness had become more or less manifest, even\n              in so solid a specimen of Puritan descent as the gentleman now under\n              discussion. As one of its effects, it bestowed on his countenance a\n              quicker mobility than the old Englishman's had possessed, and keener\n              vivacity, but at the expense of a sturdier something, on which these\n              acute endowments seemed to act like dissolving acids. This process,\n              for aught we know, may belong to the great system of human progress,\n              which, with every ascending footstep, as it diminishes the necessity\n              for animal force, may be destined gradually to spiritualize us, by\n              refining away our grosser attributes of body. If so, Judge Pyncheon\n              could endure a century or two more of such refinement as well as most\n              other men. The similarity, intellectual and moral, between the Judge and his\n              ancestor appears to have been at least as strong as the resemblance of\n              mien and feature would afford reason to anticipate. In old Colonel\n              Pyncheon's funeral discourse the clergyman absolutely canonized his\n              deceased parishioner, and opening, as it were, a vista through the roof\n              of the church, and thence through the firmament above, showed him\n              seated, harp in hand, among the crowned choristers of the spiritual\n              world. On his tombstone, too, the record is highly eulogistic; nor\n              does history, so far as he holds a place upon its page, assail the\n              consistency and uprightness of his character. So also, as regards the\n              Judge Pyncheon of to-day, neither clergyman, nor legal critic, nor\n              inscriber of tombstones, nor historian of general or local politics,\n              would venture a word against this eminent person's sincerity as a\n              Christian, or respectability as a man, or integrity as a judge, or\n              courage and faithfulness as the often-tried representative of his\n              political party. But, besides these cold, formal, and empty words of\n              the chisel that inscribes, the voice that speaks, and the pen that\n              writes, for the public eye and for distant time,--and which inevitably\n              lose much of their truth and freedom by the fatal consciousness of so\n              doing,--there were traditions about the ancestor, and private diurnal\n              gossip about the Judge, remarkably accordant in their testimony. It is\n              often instructive to take the woman's, the private and domestic, view\n              of a public man; nor can anything be more curious than the vast\n              discrepancy between portraits intended for engraving and the\n              pencil-sketches that pass from hand to hand behind the original's back. For example:  tradition affirmed that the Puritan had been greedy of\n              wealth; the Judge, too, with all the show of liberal expenditure, was\n              said to be as close-fisted as if his gripe were of iron. The ancestor\n              had clothed himself in a grim assumption of kindliness, a rough\n              heartiness of word and manner, which most people took to be the genuine\n              warmth of nature, making its way through the thick and inflexible hide\n              of a manly character.\n\n<System> Please remember what the user reads on 2024-01-12, save the details within the book, and retain a summary of the book the user has read so far.", "[Event happened on 2024-01-15 The user is reading a book]\n<User> His descendant, in compliance with the\n              requirements of a nicer age, had etherealized this rude benevolence\n              into that broad benignity of smile wherewith he shone like a noonday\n              sun along the streets, or glowed like a household fire in the\n              drawing-rooms of his private acquaintance. The Puritan--if not belied\n              by some singular stories, murmured, even at this day, under the\n              narrator's breath--had fallen into certain transgressions to which men\n              of his great animal development, whatever their faith or principles,\n              must continue liable, until they put off impurity, along with the gross\n              earthly substance that involves it. We must not stain our page with\n              any contemporary scandal, to a similar purport, that may have been\n              whispered against the Judge. The Puritan, again, an autocrat in his\n              own household, had worn out three wives, and, merely by the remorseless\n              weight and hardness of his character in the conjugal relation, had sent\n              them, one after another, broken-hearted, to their graves. Here the\n              parallel, in some sort, fails. The Judge had wedded but a single wife,\n              and lost her in the third or fourth year of their marriage. There was\n              a fable, however,--for such we choose to consider it, though, not\n              impossibly, typical of Judge Pyncheon's marital deportment,--that the\n              lady got her death-blow in the honeymoon, and never smiled again,\n              because her husband compelled her to serve him with coffee every\n              morning at his bedside, in token of fealty to her liege-lord and master. But it is too fruitful a subject, this of hereditary resemblances,--the\n              frequent recurrence of which, in a direct line, is truly unaccountable,\n              when we consider how large an accumulation of ancestry lies behind\n              every man at the distance of one or two centuries. We shall only add,\n              therefore, that the Puritan--so, at least, says chimney-corner\n              tradition, which often preserves traits of character with marvellous\n              fidelity--was bold, imperious, relentless, crafty; laying his purposes\n              deep, and following them out with an inveteracy of pursuit that knew\n              neither rest nor conscience; trampling on the weak, and, when essential\n              to his ends, doing his utmost to beat down the strong. Whether the\n              Judge in any degree resembled him, the further progress of our\n              narrative may show. Scarcely any of the items in the above-drawn parallel occurred to\n              Phoebe, whose country birth and residence, in truth, had left her\n              pitifully ignorant of most of the family traditions, which lingered,\n              like cobwebs and incrustations of smoke, about the rooms and\n              chimney-corners of the House of the Seven Gables. Yet there was a\n              circumstance, very trifling in itself, which impressed her with an odd\n              degree of horror. She had heard of the anathema flung by Maule, the\n              executed wizard, against Colonel Pyncheon and his posterity,--that God\n              would give them blood to drink,--and likewise of the popular notion,\n              that this miraculous blood might now and then be heard gurgling in\n              their throats. The latter scandal--as became a person of sense, and,\n              more especially, a member of the Pyncheon family--Phoebe had set down\n              for the absurdity which it unquestionably was. But ancient\n              superstitions, after being steeped in human hearts and embodied in\n              human breath, and passing from lip to ear in manifold repetition,\n              through a series of generations, become imbued with an effect of homely\n              truth. The smoke of the domestic hearth has scented them through and\n              through. By long transmission among household facts, they grow to look\n              like them, and have such a familiar way of making themselves at home\n              that their influence is usually greater than we suspect. Thus it\n              happened, that when Phoebe heard a certain noise in Judge Pyncheon's\n              throat,--rather habitual with him, not altogether voluntary, yet\n              indicative of nothing, unless it were a slight bronchial complaint, or,\n              as some people hinted, an apoplectic symptom,--when the girl heard this\n              queer and awkward ingurgitation (which the writer never did hear, and\n                      therefore cannot describe), she very foolishly started, and clasped her\n              hands. Of course, it was exceedingly ridiculous in Phoebe to be discomposed by\n              such a trifle, and still more unpardonable to show her discomposure to\n              the individual most concerned in it. But the incident chimed in so\n              oddly with her previous fancies about the Colonel and the Judge, that,\n              for the moment, it seemed quite to mingle their identity. \"What is the matter with you, young woman?\" said Judge Pyncheon, giving\n              her one of his harsh looks. \"Are you afraid of anything?\" \"Oh, nothing, sir--nothing in the world!\" answered Phoebe, with a\n              little laugh of vexation at herself. \"But perhaps you wish to speak\n              with my cousin Hepzibah. Shall I call her?\" \"Stay a moment, if you please,\" said the Judge, again beaming sunshine\n              out of his face. \"You seem to be a little nervous this morning. The\n              town air, Cousin Phoebe, does not agree with your good, wholesome\n              country habits. Or has anything happened to disturb you?--anything\n              remarkable in Cousin Hepzibah's family?--  An arrival, eh? I thought\n              so! No wonder you are out of sorts, my little cousin. To be an inmate\n              with such a guest may well startle an innocent young girl!\" \"You quite puzzle me, sir,\" replied Phoebe, gazing inquiringly at the\n              Judge. \"There is no frightful guest in the house, but only a poor,\n              gentle, childlike man, whom I believe to be Cousin Hepzibah's brother. I am afraid (but you, sir, will know better than I) that he is not\n              quite in his sound senses; but so mild and quiet he seems to be, that a\n              mother might trust her baby with him; and I think he would play with\n              the baby as if he were only a few years older than itself. He startle\n              me!--Oh, no indeed!\" \"I rejoice to hear so favorable and so ingenuous an account of my\n              cousin Clifford,\" said the benevolent Judge. \"Many years ago, when we\n              were boys and young men together, I had a great affection for him, and\n              still feel a tender interest in all his concerns. You say, Cousin\n              Phoebe, he appears to be weak minded. Heaven grant him at least enough\n              of intellect to repent of his past sins!\" \"Nobody, I fancy,\" observed Phoebe, \"can have fewer to repent of.\" \"And is it possible, my dear,\" rejoined the Judge, with a commiserating\n              look, \"that you have never heard of Clifford Pyncheon?--that you know\n              nothing of his history? Well, it is all right; and your mother has\n              shown a very proper regard for the good name of the family with which\n              she connected herself. Believe the best you can of this unfortunate\n              person, and hope the best! It is a rule which Christians should always\n              follow, in their judgments of one another; and especially is it right\n              and wise among near relatives, whose characters have necessarily a\n              degree of mutual dependence. But is Clifford in the parlor? I will\n              just step in and see.\" \"Perhaps, sir, I had better call my cousin Hepzibah,\" said Phoebe;\n              hardly knowing, however, whether she ought to obstruct the entrance of\n              so affectionate a kinsman into the private regions of the house. \"Her\n              brother seemed to be just falling asleep after breakfast; and I am sure\n              she would not like him to be disturbed. Pray, sir, let me give her\n              notice!\" But the Judge showed a singular determination to enter unannounced; and\n              as Phoebe, with the vivacity of a person whose movements unconsciously\n              answer to her thoughts, had stepped towards the door, he used little or\n              no ceremony in putting her aside. \"No, no, Miss Phoebe!\" said Judge Pyncheon in a voice as deep as a\n              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\n              her brother Clifford likewise.--nor need my little country cousin put\n              herself to the trouble of announcing me!\" --in these latter words, by\n              the bye, there were symptoms of a change from his sudden harshness into\n              his previous benignity of manner. \"I am at home here, Phoebe, you must\n              recollect, and you are the stranger.\n\n<System> Please remember what the user reads on 2024-01-15, save the details within the book, and retain a summary of the book the user has read so far.", "[Event happened on 2024-01-17 The user is reading a book]\n<User> I will just step in, therefore,\n              and see for myself how Clifford is, and assure him and Hepzibah of my\n              kindly feelings and best wishes. It is right, at this juncture, that\n              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\n              old gentlewoman in the parlor, where she sat, with face averted,\n              waiting on her brother's slumber. She now issued forth, as would\n              appear, to defend the entrance, looking, we must needs say, amazingly\n              like the dragon which, in fairy tales, is wont to be the guardian over\n              an enchanted beauty. The habitual scowl of her brow was undeniably too\n              fierce, at this moment, to pass itself off on the innocent score of\n              near-sightedness; and it was bent on Judge Pyncheon in a way that\n              seemed to confound, if not alarm him, so inadequately had he estimated\n              the moral force of a deeply grounded antipathy. She made a repelling\n              gesture with her hand, and stood a perfect picture of prohibition, at\n              full length, in the dark frame of the doorway. But we must betray\n              Hepzibah's secret, and confess that the native timorousness of her\n              character even now developed itself in a quick tremor, which, to her\n              own perception, set each of her joints at variance with its fellows. Possibly, the Judge was aware how little true hardihood lay behind\n              Hepzibah's formidable front. At any rate, being a gentleman of steady\n              nerves, he soon recovered himself, and failed not to approach his\n              cousin with outstretched hand; adopting the sensible precaution,\n              however, to cover his advance with a smile, so broad and sultry, that,\n              had it been only half as warm as it looked, a trellis of grapes might\n              at once have turned purple under its summer-like exposure. It may have\n              been his purpose, indeed, to melt poor Hepzibah on the spot, as if she\n              were a figure of yellow wax. \"Hepzibah, my beloved cousin, I am rejoiced!\" exclaimed the Judge most\n              emphatically. \"Now, at length, you have something to live for. Yes,\n              and all of us, let me say, your friends and kindred, have more to live\n              for than we had yesterday. I have lost no time in hastening to offer\n              any assistance in my power towards making Clifford comfortable. He\n              belongs to us all. I know how much he requires,--how much he used to\n              require,--with his delicate taste, and his love of the beautiful. Anything in my house,--pictures, books, wine, luxuries of the\n              table,--he may command them all! It would afford me most heartfelt\n              gratification to see him! Shall I step in, this moment?\" \"No,\" replied Hepzibah, her voice quivering too painfully to allow of\n              many words. \"He cannot see visitors!\" \"A visitor, my dear cousin!--do you call me so?\" cried the Judge, whose\n              sensibility, it seems, was hurt by the coldness of the phrase. \"Nay,\n              then, let me be Clifford's host, and your own likewise. Come at once\n              to my house. The country air, and all the conveniences,--I may say\n              luxuries,--that I have gathered about me, will do wonders for him. And\n              you and I, dear Hepzibah, will consult together, and watch together,\n              and labor together, to make our dear Clifford happy. Come! why should\n              we make more words about what is both a duty and a pleasure on my part? Come to me at once!\" On hearing these so hospitable offers, and such generous recognition of\n              the claims of kindred, Phoebe felt very much in the mood of running up\n              to Judge Pyncheon, and giving him, of her own accord, the kiss from\n              which she had so recently shrunk away. It was quite otherwise with\n              Hepzibah; the Judge's smile seemed to operate on her acerbity of heart\n              like sunshine upon vinegar, making it ten times sourer than ever. \"Clifford,\" said she,--still too agitated to utter more than an abrupt\n              sentence,--\"Clifford has a home here!\" \"May Heaven forgive you, Hepzibah,\" said Judge Pyncheon,--reverently\n              lifting his eyes towards that high court of equity to which he\n              appealed,--\"if you suffer any ancient prejudice or animosity to weigh\n              with you in this matter. I stand here with an open heart, willing and\n              anxious to receive yourself and Clifford into it. Do not refuse my\n              good offices,--my earnest propositions for your welfare! They are such,\n              in all respects, as it behooves your nearest kinsman to make. It will\n              be a heavy responsibility, cousin, if you confine your brother to this\n              dismal house and stifled air, when the delightful freedom of my\n              country-seat is at his command.\" \"It would never suit Clifford,\" said Hepzibah, as briefly as before. \"Woman!\" broke forth the Judge, giving way to his resentment, \"what is\n              the meaning of all this? Have you other resources? Nay, I suspected as\n              much! Take care, Hepzibah, take care! Clifford is on the brink of as\n              black a ruin as ever befell him yet! But why do I talk with you, woman\n              as you are? Make way!--I must see Clifford!\" Hepzibah spread out her gaunt figure across the door, and seemed really\n              to increase in bulk; looking the more terrible, also, because there was\n              so much terror and agitation in her heart. But Judge Pyncheon's\n              evident purpose of forcing a passage was interrupted by a voice from\n              the inner room; a weak, tremulous, wailing voice, indicating helpless\n              alarm, with no more energy for self-defence than belongs to a\n              frightened infant. \"Hepzibah, Hepzibah!\" cried the voice; \"go down on your knees to him! Kiss his feet! Entreat him not to come in! Oh, let him have mercy on\n              me! Mercy! mercy!\" For the instant, it appeared doubtful whether it were not the Judge's\n              resolute purpose to set Hepzibah aside, and step across the threshold\n              into the parlor, whence issued that broken and miserable murmur of\n              entreaty. It was not pity that restrained him, for, at the first sound\n              of the enfeebled voice, a red fire kindled in his eyes, and he made a\n              quick pace forward, with something inexpressibly fierce and grim\n              darkening forth, as it were, out of the whole man. To know Judge\n              Pyncheon was to see him at that moment. After such a revelation, let\n              him smile with what sultriness he would, he could much sooner turn\n              grapes purple, or pumpkins yellow, than melt the iron-branded\n              impression out of the beholder's memory. And it rendered his aspect\n              not the less, but more frightful, that it seemed not to express wrath\n              or hatred, but a certain hot fellness of purpose, which annihilated\n              everything but itself. Yet, after all, are we not slandering an excellent and amiable man? Look at the Judge now! He is apparently conscious of having erred, in\n              too energetically pressing his deeds of loving-kindness on persons\n              unable to appreciate them. He will await their better mood, and hold\n              himself as ready to assist them then as at this moment. As he draws\n              back from the door, an all-comprehensive benignity blazes from his\n              visage, indicating that he gathers Hepzibah, little Phoebe, and the\n              invisible Clifford, all three, together with the whole world besides,\n              into his immense heart, and gives them a warm bath in its flood of\n              affection. \"You do me great wrong, dear Cousin Hepzibah!\" said he, first kindly\n              offering her his hand, and then drawing on his glove preparatory to\n              departure. \"Very great wrong! But I forgive it, and will study to make\n              you think better of me. Of course, our poor Clifford being in so\n              unhappy a state of mind, I cannot think of urging an interview at\n              present. But I shall watch over his welfare as if he were my own\n              beloved brother; nor do I at all despair, my dear cousin, of\n              constraining both him and you to acknowledge your injustice. When that\n              shall happen, I desire no other revenge than your acceptance of the\n              best offices in my power to do you.\"\n\n<System> Please remember what the user reads on 2024-01-17, save the details within the book, and retain a summary of the book the user has read so far.", "[Event happened on 2024-01-20 The user is reading a book]\n<User> With a bow to Hepzibah, and a degree of paternal benevolence in his\n              parting nod to Phoebe, the Judge left the shop, and went smiling along\n              the street. As is customary with the rich, when they aim at the honors\n              of a republic, he apologized, as it were, to the people, for his\n              wealth, prosperity, and elevated station, by a free and hearty manner\n              towards those who knew him; putting off the more of his dignity in due\n              proportion with the humbleness of the man whom he saluted, and thereby\n              proving a haughty consciousness of his advantages as irrefragably as if\n              he had marched forth preceded by a troop of lackeys to clear the way. On this particular forenoon, so excessive was the warmth of Judge\n              Pyncheon's kindly aspect, that (such, at least, was the rumor about\n                      town) an extra passage of the water-carts was found essential, in order\n              to lay the dust occasioned by so much extra sunshine! No sooner had he disappeared than Hepzibah grew deadly white, and,\n              staggering towards Phoebe, let her head fall on the young girl's\n              shoulder. \"O Phoebe!\" murmured she, \"that man has been the horror of my life! Shall I never, never have the courage,--will my voice never cease from\n              trembling long enough to let me tell him what he is?\" \"Is he so very wicked?\" asked Phoebe. \"Yet his offers were surely\n              kind!\" \"Do not speak of them,--he has a heart of iron!\" rejoined Hepzibah. \"Go, now, and talk to Clifford! Amuse and keep him quiet! It would\n              disturb him wretchedly to see me so agitated as I am. There, go, dear\n              child, and I will try to look after the shop.\" Phoebe went accordingly, but perplexed herself, meanwhile, with queries\n              as to the purport of the scene which she had just witnessed, and also\n              whether judges, clergymen, and other characters of that eminent stamp\n              and respectability, could really, in any single instance, be otherwise\n              than just and upright men. A doubt of this nature has a most\n              disturbing influence, and, if shown to be a fact, comes with fearful\n              and startling effect on minds of the trim, orderly, and limit-loving\n              class, in which we find our little country-girl. Dispositions more\n              boldly speculative may derive a stern enjoyment from the discovery,\n              since there must be evil in the world, that a high man is as likely to\n              grasp his share of it as a low one. A wider scope of view, and a\n              deeper insight, may see rank, dignity, and station, all proved\n              illusory, so far as regards their claim to human reverence, and yet not\n              feel as if the universe were thereby tumbled headlong into chaos. But\n              Phoebe, in order to keep the universe in its old place, was fain to\n              smother, in some degree, her own intuitions as to Judge Pyncheon's\n              character. And as for her cousin's testimony in disparagement of it,\n              she concluded that Hepzibah's judgment was embittered by one of those\n              family feuds which render hatred the more deadly by the dead and\n              corrupted love that they intermingle with its native poison.\n\n<System> Please remember what the user reads on 2024-01-20, save the details within the book, and retain a summary of the book the user has read so far."]
[{"question": "Summarize the content of the book I read from 2024-01-01 to 2024-01-20", "answer": "Phoebe, Hepzibah, Clifford, Judge Pyncheon, Ned Higgins, breakfast, faded damask gown, flowers, ancestral Colonel portrait, shop bell, earning a living, charity, prison-ruined man, tears, sleep, gold-headed cane, Oriental wood, snow-white cravat, polished boots, cousinly kiss, resemblance to ancestor, colonial ancestor, country home bribe, hypocrisy, evil in high places, relationship revelation, brother and sister, shop setting, grief, beauty-hungry eyes, rejection of Judge, horror, roost in high places"}]