zas, the sign "To Let" hangs
often in the windows, and the cupola is adorned with well-filled
clothes-lines. Partitions have cut the house into tenements; one runs
through the hall, but the grand old staircase and the smaller one are
still there, and the marble floor, too, lends dignity to the back hall.
A few of the carved balusters are missing, carried away by relic
hunters. In this house, which was the residence of Governors Shirley and
Eustis, Washington, Hamilton, Burr, Franklin, and other notables were
entertained. The old place is now entirely surrounded by modern
dwelling-houses, and the pilgrim who searches for it must leave the
Mount Pleasant electric car at Shirley Street.

Yet, though Agnes as a maid was received by the most aristocratic people
of Boston, the ladies of the leading families refused to countenance her
when she became a fine young woman whom Sir Harry Frankland loved but
cared not to marry. That her protector had not meant at first to wrong
the girl he had befriended seems fairly certain, but many circumstances,
such as the death of Agnes's father and Frankland's own sudden elevation
to the baronetcy, may be held to have conspired to force them into the
situation for which Agnes was to pay by many a day of tears and Sir
Harry by many a night of bitter self-reproach.

For Frankland was far from being a libertine. And that he sincerely
loved the beautiful maid of Marblehead is certain. He has come down to
us as one of the most knightly men of his time, a gentleman and a
scholar, who was also a sincere follower of the Church of England and
its teachings. Both in manner and person he is said to have greatly
resembled the Earl of Chesterfield, and his diary as well as his
portrait show him to have been at once sensitive and virile; quite the
man, indeed, very effectually to fascinate the low-born beauty he had
taught to love him.

The indignation of the ladies in town toward Frankland and his ward made
the baronet prefer at this stage of the story rural Hopkinton to
censorious Boston. Reverend Roger Price, known to us as rector of King's
Chapel, had already land and a mission church in this village, and so,
when Boston frowned too pointedly, Frankland purchased four hundred odd
acres of him, and there built, in 1751, a commodious mansion-house. The
following year he and Agnes took up their abode on the place. Here
Frankland passed his days, contentedly pursuing his horticultural fad,
angling, hun