 was perhaps but a wizened little elf, gray and decrepit, with nothing
genuine about him, save the wicked expression of his grin. The fantasy of his
spectral character so wrought upon me, together with the contagion of his
strange mirth on my sympathies, that I soon began to laugh as loudly as himself.
    By-and-by, he paused, all at once; so suddenly, indeed, that my own
cachinnation lasted a moment longer.
    »Ah, excuse me!« said he. »Our interview seems to proceed more merrily than
it began.«
    »It ends here,« answered I. »And I take shame to myself, that my folly has
lost me the right of resenting your ridicule of a friend.«
    »Pray allow me,« said the stranger, approaching a step nearer, and laying
his gloved hand on my sleeve. »One other favor I must ask of you. You have a
young person, here at Blithedale, of whom I have heard - whom, perhaps, I have
known - and in whom, at all events, I take a peculiar interest. She is one of
those delicate, nervous young creatures, not uncommon in New England, and whom I
suppose to have become what we find them by the gradual refining away of the
physical system, among your women. Some philosophers choose to glorify this
habit of body by terming it spiritual; but, in my opinion, it is rather the
effect of unwholesome food, bad air, lack of out-door exercise, and neglect of
bathing, on the part of these damsels and their female progenitors; all
resulting in a kind of hereditary dyspepsia. Zenobia, even with her
uncomfortable surplus of vitality, is far the better model of womanhood. But -
to revert again to this young person - she goes among you by the name of
Priscilla. Could you possibly afford me the means of speaking with her?«
    »You have made so many inquiries of me,« I observed, »that I may at least
trouble you with one. What is your name?«
    He offered me a card, with Professor Westervelt engraved on it. At the same
time, as if to vindicate his claim to the professorial dignity, so often assumed
on very questionable grounds, he put on a pair of spectacles, which so altered
the character of his face that I hardly knew him again. But I liked the present
aspect no better than the former one.
    »I must decline any further connection with your affairs,« said I, drawing
back. »I have told you
