With a shuddering impulse that showed her a woman still , the widow clasped her skinny hands before her face and wished that the coffin-lid were over it , since it could be no longer beautiful . `` Yes , friends , ye are old again , '' said Dr. Heidegger , `` and , lo ! the Water of Youth is all lavished on the ground . Well , I bemoan it not ; for if the fountain gushed at my very doorstep , I would not stoop to bathe my lips in it -- no , though its delirium were for years instead of moments . 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 XXXXX his long sentinel 's watch over the city .
OF as before by from on over since that to