UNCLE VENNER, trundling a wheelbarrow, was the ear-
liest person stirring in the neighborhood the day after the
storm.

Pyncheon Street, in front of the House of the Seven
Gables, was a far pleasanter scene than a by-lane, con-
fined by shabby fences, and bordered with wooden dwel-
lings of the meaner class, could reasonably be expected to
present. Nature made sweet amends, that morning, for
the five unkindly days which had preceded it. It would
have been enough to live for, merely to look up at the wide
benediction of the sky, of as much of it as was visible be-
tween the houses, genial once more with sunshine. Every
object was agreeable, whether to be gazed at in the
breadth, or examined more minutely. Such, for example,
were the well-washed pebbles and gravel of the sidewalk;
even the sky-reflecting pools in the centre of the street;
and the grass, now freshly verdant, that crept along the
base of the fences, on the other side of which, if one peeped
over, was seen the multifarious growth of gardens. Vege-
table productions, of whatever kind, seemed more than
negatively happy, in the juicy warmth and abundance of
their life. The Pyncheon Elm, throughout its great cir-
cumference, was all alive, and full of the morning sun and
a sweet-tempered little breeze, which lingered within this
verdant sphere, and set a thousand leafy tongues a-whis-

-320-