LEGENDS OF THE PROVINCE-HOUSE . I. -- HOWE 'S MASQUERADE . II . -- EDWARD RANDOLPH 'S PORTRAIT . III . -- LADY ELEANORE 'S MANTLE . IV . -- OLD ESTHER DUDLEY . I. HOWE 'S MASQUERADE . One afternoon last summer , while walking along Washington street , my eye was attracted by a sign-board protruding over a narrow archway nearly opposite the Old South Church . The sign represented the front of a stately edifice which was designated as the `` OLD PROVINCE HOUSE , kept by Thomas Waite . '' I was glad to be thus reminded of a purpose , long entertained , of visiting and rambling over the mansion of the old royal governors of Massachusetts , and , entering the arched passage which penetrated through the middle of a brick row of shops , a few steps transported me from the busy heart of modern Boston into a small and secluded court-yard . One side of this space was occupied by the square front of the Province House , three stories high and surmounted by a cupola , on the top of which a gilded Indian was discernible , with his bow bent and his arrow on the string , as if aiming at the weathercock on the spire of the Old South . The figure has kept this attitude for seventy years or more , ever since good Deacon Drowne , a cunning carver of wood , first stationed him on his long sentinel 's watch over the city . The Province House is constructed of brick , which seems recently to have been overlaid with a coat of light-colored paint . A flight of red freestone steps fenced in by a balustrade of curiously wrought iron ascends from the court-yard to the spacious porch , over which is a balcony with an iron balustrade of similar pattern and workmanship to that beneath . These letters and figures -- `` 16 P.S. 79 '' -- are wrought into the ironwork of the balcony , and probably express the date of the edifice , with the initials of its founder 's name . A wide door with double leaves admitted me into the hall or entry , on the right of which is the entrance to the bar-room . It was in this apartment , I presume , that the ancient governors held their levees with vice-regal pomp , surrounded by the military men , the counsellors , the judges , and other officers of the Crown , while all the loyalty of the province thronged to do them honor . But the room in its present condition can not boast even of faded magnificence .
The panelled wainscot is covered with dingy paint and acquires a duskier hue from the deep shadow into which the Province XXXXX is thrown by the brick block that shuts it in from Washington street .
Church Drowne House PROVINCE-HOUSE archway ascends bar-room counsellors first right