And, when Grandfather’s meditations had grown very profound indeed, he fancied that he heard a sound over his head, as if somebody were preparing to speak. “Hem!” it said, in a dry, husky tone. “H-e-m! Hem!” As Grandfather did not know that any person was in the room, he started up in great surprise, and peeped hither and thither, behind the chair, and into the recess by the fireside, and at the dark nook yonder near the bookcase. Nobody could be seen. “Poh!” said Grandfather to himself, “I must have been dreaming.” But, just as he was going to resume his seat, Grandfather happened to look at the great chair. The rays of firelight were flickering upon it in such a manner that it really seemed as if its oaken frame were all alive. What! did it not move its elbow? There, too! It certainly lifted one of its ponderous fore legs, as if it had a notion of drawing itself a little nearer to the fire. Meanwhile the lion’s head nodded at Grandfather with as polite and sociable a look as a lion’s visage, carved in oak, could possibly be expected to assume. Well, this is strange! “Good evening, my old friend,” said the dry and husky voice, now a little clearer than before. “We have been intimately acquainted so long that I think it high time we have a chat together.” Grandfather was looking straight at the lion’s head, and could not be mistaken in supposing that it moved its lips. So here the mystery was all explained. “I was not aware,” said Grandfather, with a civil salutation to his oaken companion, “that you possessed the faculty of speech. Otherwise I should often have been glad to converse with such a solid, useful, and substantial if not brilliant member of society.” “Oh!” replied the ancient chair, in a quiet and easy tone, for it had now cleared its throat of the dust of ages, “I am naturally a silent and incommunicative sort of character. Once or twice in the course of a century I unclose my lips. When the gentle Lady Arbella departed this life I uttered a groan. When the honest mint-master weighed his plump daughter against the pine-tree shillings I chuckled audibly at the joke. When old Simon Bradstreet took the place of the tyrant Andros I joined in the general huzza, and capered on my wooden legs for joy. To be sure, the by-standers were so fully occupied with their own feelings that my sympathy was quite unnoticed.” “And have you often held a private chat with your friends?” asked Grandfather.