dark
eyes, and around the voluptuous mouth, there played a look made up of
pride, coquetry, and a gleam of mirthfulness, which impressed Copley
with the idea that the image was secretly enjoying the perplexing
admiration of himself and other beholders.

"And will you," said he to the carver, "permit this masterpiece to
become the figure-head of a vessel? Give the honest captain yonder
figure of Britannia--it will answer his purpose far better--and send
this fairy queen to England, where, for aught I know, it may bring you
a thousand pounds."

"I have not wrought it for money," said Drowne.

"What sort of a fellow is this!" thought Copley. "A Yankee, and throw
away the chance of making his fortune! He has gone mad; and thence has
come this gleam of genius."

There was still further proof of Drowne's lunacy, if credit were due to
the rumor that he had been seen kneeling at the feet of the oaken lady,
and gazing with a lover's passionate ardor into the face that his own
hands had created. The bigots of the day hinted that it would be no
matter of surprise if an evil spirit were allowed to enter this
beautiful form, and seduce the carver to destruction.

The fame of the image spread far and wide. The inhabitants visited it
so universally, that after a few days of exhibition there was hardly an
old man or a child who had not become minutely familiar with its
aspect. Even had the story of Drowne's wooden image ended here, its
celebrity might have been prolonged for many years by the reminiscences
of those who looked upon it in their childhood, and saw nothing else so
beautiful in after life. But the town was now astounded by an event,
the narrative of which has formed itself into one of the most singular
legends that are yet to be met with in the traditionary chimney corners
of the New England metropolis, where old men and women sit dreaming of
the past, and wag their heads at the dreamers of the present and the
future.

One fine morning, just before the departure of the Cynosure on her
second voyage to Fayal, the commander of that gallant vessel was seen
to issue from his residence in Hanover Street. He was stylishly dressed
in a blue broadcloth coat, with gold lace at the seams and
button-holes, an embroidered scarlet waistcoat, a triangular hat, with
a loop and broad binding of gold, and wore a silver-hilted hanger at
his side. But the good captain might have been arrayed in the robes of
a prince or the rags of a b