s former occupants,
one after another, had resumed the seat which they had each left vacant,
such a dim length of years ago.

First, the gentle and lovely lady Arbella would have been seen in the old
chair, almost sinking out of its arms, for very weakness; then Roger
Williams, in his cloak and band, earnest, energetic, and benevolent; then
the figure of Anne Hutchinson, with the like gesture as when she presided
at the assemblages of women; then the dark, intellectual face of Vane,
"young in years, but in sage counsel old." Next would have appeared the
successive governors, Winthrop, Dudley, Bellingham, and Endicott, who sat
in the chair, while it was a Chair of State. Then its ample seat would
have been pressed by the comfortable, rotund corporation of the honest
mint-master. Then the half-frenzied shape of Mary Dyer, the persecuted
Quaker woman, clad in sackcloth and ashes, would have rested in it for a
moment. Then the holy apostolic form of Eliot would have sanctified it.
Then would have arisen, like the shade of departed Puritanism, the
venerable dignity of the white-bearded Governor Bradstreet. Lastly, on the
gorgeous crimson cushion of Grandfather's chair, would have shone the
purple and golden magnificence of Sir William Phips.

But, all these, with the other historic personages, in the midst of whom
the chair had so often stood, had passed, both in substance and shadow,
from the scene of ages. Yet here stood the chair, with the old Lincoln
coat of arms, and the oaken flowers and foliage, and the fierce lion's
head at the summit, the whole, apparently, in as perfect preservation as
when it had first been placed in the Earl of Lincoln's Hall. And what vast
changes of society and of nations had been wrought by sudden convulsions
or by slow degrees, since that era!

"This chair has stood firm when the thrones of kings were overturned!"
thought Laurence. "Its oaken frame has proved stronger than many frames of
government!"

More the thoughtful and imaginative boy might have mused; but now a large
yellow cat, a great favorite with all the children, leaped in at the open
window. Perceiving that Grandfather's chair was empty, and having often
before experienced its comforts, puss laid herself quietly down upon the
cushion. Laurence, Clara, Charley, and little Alice, all laughed at the
idea of such a successor to the worthies of old times.

"Pussy," said little Alice, putting out her hand, into which the cat laid