The next morning Phoebe awakens, says her prayers, and visits the rose garden where she picks some of the prettiest blossoms. Returning to the house, she meets Hepzibah, who tells her that she has no financial means to keep her and that Phoebe must return home. As they talk, Phoebe enthusiastically maintains that she can earn her own way, and her youthful honesty impresses Hepzibah who then agrees to keep her on. After breakfast, which Phoebe prepares, the shop bell rings, and Phoebe volunteers to tend the shop for the day. Phoebe proves to have an excellent relationship with the customers, and Hepzibah is greatly impressed with the girl's honest and pleasing manner. Hepzibah thinks that Phoebe's practicality must come from her mother's side of the family because it is certainly not a Pyncheon trait. Hepzibah then shows the girl Alice Pyncheon's harpsichord, and she describes their roomer, Mr. Holgrave, the artist and a practitioner of mesmerism. She expresses her concern over some of his bearded companions but she still likes him well enough to keep him as a renter.
Phoebe enters the Pyncheon garden, with its rich old soil and its many plants, all apparently well-tended, its bees and birds, and its diminutive rooster with his two hens and a lone chick. Suddenly Holgrave, who has tended the garden, enters and compliments Phoebe's ability to feed the chickens. He introduces himself as a photographer and shows her a picture of Judge Pyncheon which Phoebe, with a shudder, mistakes for a photograph of Colonel Pyncheon's portrait. Holgrave bitterly criticizes the Judge and comments that a photograph does not lie. He offers to make a portrait of her, then he "yields control of the garden" to her; he will manage the vegetables. Before he leaves, he warns her against the "bewitched water" of Maule's well. When Phoebe goes into Hepzibah's parlor, she senses the presence of another person in a shadowy, withdrawn chair. She goes to the kitchen for matches, and when she returns, Hepzibah kisses her gently and suggests that she retire early. The girl's sleep is troubled.
