and true a thing he had said.




Chapter III


Not long after Grandfather had told the story of his great chair, there
chanced to be a rainy day. Our friend Charley, after disturbing the
household with beat of drum and riotous shouts, races up and down the
staircase, overturning of chairs, and much other uproar, began to feel the
quiet and confinement within doors intolerable. But as the rain came down
in a flood, the little fellow was hopelessly a prisoner, and now stood
with sullen aspect at a window, wondering whether the sun itself were not
extinguished by so much moisture in the sky.

Charley had already exhausted the less eager activity of the other
children; and they had betaken themselves to occupations that did not
admit of his companionship. Laurence sat in a recess near the book-case,
reading, not for the first time, the Midsummer Night’s Dream. Clara was
making a rosary of beads for a little figure of a Sister of Charity, who
was to attend the Bunker Hill Fair, and lend her aid in erecting the
Monument. Little Alice sat on Grandfather’s foot-stool, with a
picture-book in her hand; and, for every picture, the child was telling
Grandfather a story. She did not read from the book, (for little Alice had
not much skill in reading,) but told the story out of her own heart and
mind.

Charley was too big a boy, of course, to care any thing about little