the gossip of the Community set them down as a pair of lovers.
They took walks together, and were not seldom encountered in the wood-paths;
Hollingsworth deeply discoursing, in tones solemn and sternly pathetic. Zenobia,
with a rich glow on her cheeks, and her eyes softened from their ordinary
brightness, looked so beautiful, that, had her companion been ten times a
philanthropist, it seemed impossible but that one glance should melt him back
into a man. Oftener than anywhere else, they went to a certain point on the
slope of a pasture, commanding nearly the whole of our own domain, besides a
view of the river and an airy prospect of many distant hills. The bond of our
Community was such, that the members had the privilege of building cottages for
their own residence, within our precincts, thus laying a hearth-stone and
fencing in a home, private and peculiar, to all desirable extent; while yet the
inhabitants should continue to share the advantages of an associated life. It
was inferred, that Hollingsworth and Zenobia intended to rear their dwelling on
this favorite spot.
    I mentioned these rumors to Hollingsworth in a playful way.
    »Had you consulted me,« I went on to observe, »I should have recommended a
site further to the left, just a little withdrawn into the wood, with two or
three peeps at the prospect, among the trees. You will be in the shady vale of
years, long before you can raise any better kind of shade around your cottage,
if you build it on this bare slope.«
    »But I offer my edifice as a spectacle to the world,« said Hollingsworth,
»that it may take example and build many another like it. Therefore I mean to
set it on the open hill-side.«
    Twist these words how I might, they offered no very satisfactory import. It
seemed hardly probable that Hollingsworth should care about educating the public
taste in the department of cottage-architecture, desirable as such improvement
certainly was.
 

                             X. A Visitor from Town

Hollingsworth and I - we had been hoeing potatoes, that forenoon, while the rest
of the fraternity were engaged in a distant quarter of the farm - sat under a
clump of maples, eating our eleven o'clock lunch, when we saw a stranger
approaching along the edge of the field. He had admitted himself from the
road-side, through a turnstile, and seemed to have a purpose of speaking with
us.
    And, by-the-by, we were favored with many visits at Blithedale; especially
from people who sympathized with