The House of the Seven Gables Chapter 2 - The Little Shop Window

In which we behold the solitary Miss Hepzibah Pyncheon at the quiet dawn of a new day, preparing with tender reverence and rueful humility to reanimate the dusty and forsaken shop of her ancestors within the ancient House of the Seven Gables. Amidst the mingling of melancholy and strange comedy, she steps forth from secluded gentility into the harsh light of practical commerce, her heart heavy with the weight of faded rank and the unyielding need to face the world afresh.