favorable light, and the reader is given a hint as to the content of his soul. The narrator is so brutal in his assessment of Judge Pyncheon's appearance that he asserts that one "awould probably suspect that the smile on the gentlemen's face was a good deal akin to the shine on his boots, and that each must have cost him and his bootblack, respectively, a good deal of hard labor to bring outa" (Hawthorne 106).
It does not take long for Hawthorne to reveal that the reader's early suspicions about Judge Pyncheon are well founded. Upon her first meeting with the Judge, Phoebe, a character that often seems to be the voice of reason and goodness within the novel, pulls away when he attempts to kiss her. Hawthorne implies that Phoebe's instincts tell her to beware of the Judge, who in turn is not pleased by h
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