But such repinings were merely flitting shadows across the old man’s
heart. He had faith enough to believe, and wisdom enough to know, that the
bloom of the flower would be even holier and happier than its bud. Even
within himself,—though Grandfather was now at that period of life, when
the veil of mortality is apt to hang heavily over the soul,—still, in his
inmost being, he was conscious of something that he would not have
exchanged for the best happiness of childhood. It was a bliss to which
every sort of earthly experience,—all that he had enjoyed or suffered, or
seen, or heard, or acted, with the broodings of his soul upon the
whole,—had contributed somewhat. In the same manner must a bliss, of which
now they could have no conception, grow up within these children, and form
a part of their sustenance for immortality.

So Grandfather, with renewed cheerfulness, continued his history of the
chair, trusting that a profounder wisdom than his own would extract, from
these flowers and weeds of Time, a fragrance that might last beyond all
time.

At this period of the story, Grandfather threw a glance backward, as far
as the year 1660. He spoke of the ill-concealed reluctance with which the
Puritans in America had acknowledged the sway of Charles the Second, on
his restoration to his father’s throne. When death had stricken Oliver
Cromwell, that mighty protector had no sincerer mourners than in New
England. The new king had been more than a year upon the throne before his
accession was proclaimed in Boston; although the neglect to perform the
ceremony might have subjected the rulers to the charge of treason.

During the reign of Charles the Second, however, the American colonies had
but little reason to complain of harsh or tyrannical treatment. But when
Charles died, in 1685, and was succeeded by his brother James, the