hly-clad gentleman, seated
in a stately chair, with gilding upon the carved work of its back, and a
gilded lion's head at the summit. This was Governor Shirley, meditating
upon matters of war and state, in Grandfather's chair!

If such an incident did happen, Shirley, reflecting what a ruin of
peaceful and humble hopes had been wrought by the cold policy of the
statesman and the iron band of the warrior, might have drawn a deep
moral from it. It should have taught him that the poor man's hearth
is sacred, and that armies and nations have no right to violate it. It
should have made him feel that England's triumph and increased dominion
could not compensate to mankind nor atone to Heaven for the ashes of a
single Acadian cottage. But it is not thus that statesmen and warriors
moralize.

"Grandfather," cried Laurence, with emotion trembling in his voice,
"did iron-hearted War itself ever do so hard and cruel a thing as this
before?"

"You have read in history, Laurence, of whole regions wantonly laid
waste," said Grandfather. "In the removal of the Acadians, the troops
were guilty of no cruelty or outrage, except what was inseparable from
the measure."

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 anything 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
almshouses, or bind them out to taskmasters. 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 to 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 Acadi