nd time, Frankland Hall was razed by fire.

The ancient Fountain Inn, with its "flapping sign," and the "spreading
elm below," long since disappeared, and its well, years ago filled up,
was only accidentally discovered at a comparatively recent date, when
some workmen were digging a post hole. It was then restored as an
interesting landmark. This inn was a favourite resort, legends tell us,
for jovial sea captains as well as for the gentry of the town. There are
even traditions that pirates bold and smugglers sly at times found
shelter beneath its sloping roof. Yet none of the many stories with
which its ruins are connected compares in interest and charm to the
absolutely true one given us by history of Fair Agnes, the Maid of
Marblehead.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: "Three Heroines of New England Romance." Little, Brown &
Co.]

AN AMERICAN-BORN BARONET

One of the most picturesque houses in all Middlesex County is the Royall
house at Medford, a place to which Sir Harry Frankland and his lady used
often to resort. Few of the great names in colonial history are lacking,
indeed, in the list of guests who were here entertained in the brave
days of old.

The house stands on the left-hand side of the old Boston Road as you
approach Medford, and to-day attracts the admiration of electric car
travellers just as a century and a half ago it was the focus for all
stage passenger's eyes. Externally the building presents three stories,
the upper tier of windows being, as is usual in houses of even a much
later date, smaller than those underneath. The house is of brick, but is
on three sides entirely sheathed in wood, while the south end stands
exposed. Like several of the houses we are noting, it seems to turn its
back on the high road. I am, however, inclined to a belief that the
Royall house set the fashion in this matter, for Isaac, the Indian
nabob, was just the man to assume an attitude of fine indifference to
the world outside his gates. When in 1837, he came, a successful Antigua
merchant, to establish his seat here in old Charlestown, and to rule on
his large estate, sole monarch of twenty-seven slaves, he probably felt
quite indifferent, if not superior, to strangers and casual passers-by.

His petition of December, 1737, in regard to the "chattels" in his
train, addressed to the General Court, reads:

"Petition of Isaac Royall, late of Antigua, now of Charlestown, in the
county of Middlesex, that he removed