been a wild and forest-covered peninsula. The province, now so fertile
and spotted with thriving villages, had been a desert wilderness. He was
surrounded by a shouting multitude, most of whom had- been born in the
country which he had helped to found. They were of one generation, and
he of another. As the old man looked upon them, and beheld new faces
everywhere, he must have felt that it was now time for him to go whither
his brethren had gone before him."

"Were the former governors all dead and gone?" asked Laurence.

"All of them," replied Grandfather. "Winthrop had been dead forty years.
Endicott died, a very old man, in 1665. Sir Henry Vane was beheaded, in
London, at the beginning of the reign of Charles II. And Haynes, Dudley,
Bellingham, and Leverett, who had all been governors of Massachusetts,
were now likewise in their graves. Old Simon Bradstreet was the sole
representative of that departed brotherhood. There was no other public
man remaining to connect the ancient system of government and manners
with the new system which was about to take its place. The era of the
Puritans was now completed."

"I am sorry for it!" observed Laurence; "for though they were so stern,
yet it seems to me that there was something warm and real about them. I
think, Grandfather, that each of these old governors should have his
statue set up in our State House, Sculptured out of the hardest of New
England granite."

"It would not be amiss, Laurence," said Grandfather; "but perhaps clay,
or some other perishable material, might suffice for some of their
successors. But let us go back to our chair. It was occupied by Governor
Bradstreet from April, 1689, until May, 1692. Sir William Phips then