Entirely to her surprise,
they came. She herself opened the door, and there before her, between
his sisters, stood a splendidly handsome youth, tall and strong, with no
appearance whatever of timidity, but, instead, an almost fierce
determination making his face stern. This was his resource for carrying
off the extreme inward tremor which he really felt. His hostess brought
out Plaxmau's designs for Dante, just received from Professor Felton of
Harvard, [Footnote: The book may have been Felton's Homer with Flaxman's
drawings, issued in 1833.] and the party made an evening's entertainment
out of them.
The news of this triumph, imparted to a friend of Miss Peabody's, led to
an immediate invitation of Hawthorne to dinner at another house, for the
next day. He accepted this, also, and on returning homeward, stopped at
the "Salem Gazette" office, full of the excitement of his new
experiences, announcing to Mr. Foote, the editor, that he was getting
dissipated. He told of the evening with Miss Peabody, where he said he
had had a delightful time, and of the dinner just achieved. "And I've
had a delightful time there, too!" he added. Mr. Foote, perceiving an
emergency, at once asked the young writer to come to his own house for
an evening. Hawthorne, thoroughly aroused, consented. When the evening
came, several ladies who had been invited assembled before the author
arrived; and among them Miss Peabody. When he reached the place he
stopped short at the drawing-room threshold, startled by the presence of
strangers, and stood perfectly motionless, but with the look of a sylvan
creature on the point of fleeing away.
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