The Romance of Old New England RooftreesCrawford, Mary Caroline
History
The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees
Crawford, Mary Caroline
Historic buildings -- New England; New England -- Biography
The reader who is familiar with Mr. Bynner's story of Agnes Surriage
will recall how delightfully Mrs. Shirley, the wife of the governor, is
introduced into his romance, and will recollect with pleasure his
description of Agnes's ride to Roxbury in the collector's coach. This
old mansion is now called the Governor Eustis House, and there are those
still living who remember when Madam Eustis lived there. This grand
dame wore a majestic turban, and the tradition still lingers of madame's
pet toad, decked on gala days with a blue ribbon. Now the old house is
sadly dilapidated; it is shorn of its piazzas, the sign "To Let" hangs
often in the windows, and the cupola is adorned with well-filled
clothes-lines. Partitions have cut the house into tenements; one runs
through the hall, but the grand old staircase and the smaller one are
still there, and the marble floor, too, lends dignity to the back hall.
A few of the carved balusters are missing, carried away by relic
hunters. In this house, which was the residence of Governors Shirley and
Eustis, Washington, Hamilton, Burr, Franklin, and other notables were
entertained. The old place is now entirely surrounded by modern
dwelling-houses, and the pilgrim who searches for it must leave the
Mount Pleasant electric car at Shirley Street.
Yet, though Agnes as a maid was received by the most aristocratic people
of Boston, the ladies of the leading families refused to countenance her
when she became a fine young woman whom Sir Harry Frankland loved but
cared not to marry. That her protector had not meant at first to wrong
the girl he had befriended seems fairly certain, but many circumstances,
such as the death of Agnes's father and Frankland's own sudden elevation
to the baronetcy, may be held to have conspired to force them into the
situation for which Agnes was to pay by many a day of tears and Sir
Harry by many a night of bitter self-reproach.
For Frankland was far from being a libertine. And that he sincerely
loved the beautiful maid of Marblehead is certain. He has come down to
us as one of the most knightly men of his time, a gentleman and a
scholar, who was also a sincere follower of the Church of England and
its teachings. Both in manner and person he is said to have greatly
resembled the Earl of Chesterfield, and his diary as well as his
portrait show him to have been at once sensitive and virile; quite the
man, indeed, very effectually to fascinate the low-born beauty he had
taught to love him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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