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The House of the Seven Gables

By NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE Condensation by JOSEPHINE VAN TASSEL BRUORTON OF your courtesy, I beg you to call this tale a Romance, rather than a Novel; for it makes attempt to connect a bygone time with the present that is even now drifting away from us. It is a legend, brining with it the Mist of the Past floating round each character and event--even round the old house itself. Sometimes it drifts aside and you catch a glimpse of older days--days when Colonel Pyncheon, out of pure covetousness, despoiled old Wizard Maule of his house and little plot of land--days when Maule cursed the colonel for his sins and foretold, "God would give him blood to drink!"--days when Thomas Maule, son of the Wizard, built for Colonel Pyncheon, over his father's very threshold, the House of the Seven Gables.