Little Alice, whose eyes had, all along, been brimming full of tears, now burst forth a-sobbing; for Grandfather had touched her sympathies more than he intended.

“To think of a whole people, homeless in the world!” said Clara, with moistened eyes.  “There never was any thing so sad!”

“It was their own fault,” cried Charley, energetically.  “Why did not they fight for the country where they were born?  Then, if the worst had happened to them they could only have been killed and buried there.  They would not have been exiles then!”

“Certainly, their lot was as hard as death,” said Grandfather.  “All that could be done for them, in the English provinces, was to send them to the alms-houses, or bind them out to task-masters.  And this was the fate of persons, who had possessed a comfortable property in their native country.  Some of them found means to embark for France; but though it was the land of their forefathers, it must have been a foreign land to them.  Those, who remained behind, always cherished a belief, that the king of France would never make peace with England, till his poor Acadians were restored their country and their homes.”

“And did he?” inquired Clara.

“Alas, my dear Clara,” said Grandfather, “it is improbable that the slightest whisper of the woes of Acadia ever reached the ears of Louis the Fifteenth.  The exiles grew old in the British provinces, and never saw Acadia again.  Their descendants remain among us, to this day.  They have forgotten the language of their ancestors, and probably retain no tradition of their misfortunes.  But, methinks, if I were an American poet, I would choose Acadia for the subject of my song.”

Since Grandfather first spoke these words, the most famous of American poets has drawn sweet tears from all of us, by his beautiful poem of Evangeline.

And now, having thrown a gentle gloom around the Thanksgiving fire-side, by a story that made the children feel the blessing of a secure and peaceful hearth, Grandfather put off the other events of the Old French War till the next evening.

Chapter X

In the twilight of the succeeding eve, when the red beams of the fire were dancing upon the wall, the children besought Grandfather to tell them what had next happened to the old chair.

“Our chair,” said Grandfather, “stood all this time in the Province House.  But, Governor Shirley had seldom an opportunity to repose within its arms.  He was loading his troops through the forest, or sailing in a flat-boat on Lake Ontario, or sleeping in his tent, while the awful cataract of Niagara sent its roar through his dreams.  At one period, in the early part of the war, Shirley had the chief command of all the king’s forces in America.”

“Did his young wife go with him to the war?” asked Clara.

“I rather imagine,” replied Grandfather, “that she remained in Boston.  This lady, I suppose, had our chair all to herself, and used to sit in it, during those brief intervals when a young French woman can be quiet enough to sit in a chair.  The people of Massachusetts were never fond of Governor Shirley’s young French wife.  They had a suspicion that she betrayed the military plans of the English to the generals of the French armies.”