ther walked to and fro across the room, the imaginative boy was
gazing at the historic chair. He endeavored to summon up the portraits
which he had seen in his volume, and to place them, like living figures,
in the empty seat.

"The old chair has begun another year of its existence, to-day," said
Laurence. "We must make haste, or it will have a new history to be told
before we finish the old one."

"Yes, my children," replied Grandfather, with a smile and a sigh, "another
year has been added to those of the two centuries, and upward, which have
passed since the Lady Arbella brought this chair over from England. It is
three times as old as your Grandfather; but a year makes no impression on
its oaken frame, while it bends the old man nearer and nearer to the
earth; so let me go on with my stories while I may."

Accordingly, Grandfather came to the fireside, and seated himself in the
venerable chair. The lion's head looked down with a grimly good-natured
aspect, as the children clustered around the old gentleman's knees. It
almost seemed as if a real lion were peeping over the back of the chair,
and smiling at the group of auditors, with a sort of lion-like
complaisance. Little Alice, whose fancy often inspired her with singular
ideas, exclaimed that the lion's head was nodding at her, and that it
looked as if it were going to open its wide jaws and tell a story.

But, as the lion's head appeared to be in no haste to speak, and as there
was no record or tradition of its having spoken, during the whole
existence of the chair, Grandfather did not consider it worth while to
wait.

Chapter II

"Charley, my boy," said Grandfather, "do you remember who was the last
occupant of the chair?"

"It was Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson," answered Charley. "Sir Francis
Bernard, the new governor, had given him the chair, instead of putting it
away in the garret of the Province House. And when we took leave of
Hutchinson, he was sitting by his fireside, and thinking of the past
adventures of the chair, and of what was to come."

"Very well," said Grandfather; "and you recollect that this was in 1763,
or thereabouts, at the close of the Old French War. Now, that you may
fully comprehend the remaining adventures of the chair, I must make some
brief remarks on the situation and character of the New England colonies
at this period."

So Grandfather spoke of the earnest loyalty of our fathers during the Old
French War, and a