Such is the lesson ye have taught me . '' But the doctor 's four friends had taught no such lesson to themselves . They resolved forthwith to make a pilgrimage to Florida and quaff at morning , noon and night from the Fountain of Youth . 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 XXXXX which is the entrance to the bar-room .
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