Dimock, the tavern-keeper's son, returned to Greenfield, after years of
absence, a bold-faced, handsome man, well-dressed and "free-handed," as
the Greenfield vernacular hath it. Nobody knew where Abner Dimock had
spent the last fifteen years; neither did anybody know anything against
him; yet he had no good reputation in Greenfield. Everybody looked wise
and grave when his name was spoken, and no Greenfield girl cared to own
him for an acquaintance. His father welcomed him home with more surprise
than pleasure; and the whole household of the Greenfield Hotel, as
Dimock's Inn was new-named, learned to get out of Abner Dimock's way,
and obey his eye, as if he were more their master than his father.

Left quite alone, without occupation or amusement, Miss Hyde naturally
grasped at anything that came in her way to do or to see to; the lawyer
who had been executor of her father's will had settled the estate and
gone back to his home, and Miss Hyde went with him, the first journey of
her life, that she might select a monument for her father's grave. It
was now near a year since Judge Hyde's death, and the monument was on
its way from Boston; the elder Dimock monopolized the cartage of freight
as well as passengers to the next town, and to him Miss Hyde intrusted
the care of the great granite pillar she had purchased; and it was for
his father that Abner Dimock called on the young lady for directions as
to the disposal of the tombstone just arrived. Hitty was in the garden;
her white morning-dress shone among the roses, and the morning air had
flushed her pale cheek; she looked fair and delicate and gracious; but
her helpless ignorance of the world's ways and usages attracted the
world-hardened man more than her face. He had not spent a _roue_ life in
a great city for nothing; he had lived enough with gentlemen,
broken-down and lost, it is true, but well-bred, to be able to ape their
manners; and the devil's instinct that such people possess warned him of
Hitty Hyde's weakest points. So, too, he contrived to make that first