d to have
been made by the butts of the Continental militia's firelocks, but this
was the cause to which the story told me in childhood laid them. That
military consultations were held in that room when the house was General
Ward's headquarters, that the Provincial generals and colonels and other
men of war there planned the movement which ended in the fortifying
of Bunker's Hill, that Warren slept in the house the night before the
battle, that President Langdon went forth from the western door and
prayed for God's blessing on the men just setting forth on their bloody
expedition,--all these things have been told, and perhaps none of them
need be doubted.

But now for fifty years and more that room has been a meeting-ground for
the platoons and companies which range themselves at the scholar's word
of command. Pleasant it is to think that the retreating host of books is
to give place to a still larger army of volumes, which have seen service
under the eye of a great commander. For here the noble collection of him
so freshly remembered as our silver-tongued orator, our erudite scholar,
our honored College President, our accomplished statesman, our courtly
ambassador, are to be reverently gathered by the heir of his name,
himself not unworthy to be surrounded by that august assembly of the
wise of all ages and of various lands and languages.

Could such a many-chambered edifice have stood a century and a half and
not have had its passages of romance to bequeath their lingering
legends to the after-time? There are other names on some of the small
window-panes, which must have had young flesh-and-blood owners, and
there is one of early date which elderly persons have whispered was
borne by a fair woman, whose graces made the house beautiful in the eyes
of the youth of that time. One especially--you will find the name of
Fortescue Vernon, of the class of 1780, in the Triennial Catalogue--was
a favored visitor to the old mansion; but he went over seas, I think
they told me, and died still young, and the name of the maiden which is
scratched on the windowpane was never changed. I am telling the story
honestly, as I remember it, but I may have colored it unconsciously, and
the legendary pane may be broken before this for aught I know. At least,
I have named no names except the beautiful one of the supposed hero of
the romantic story.

It was a great happiness to have been born in an old house haunted by
such recollections, w