`` Alas , venerable lady ! '' said Governor Hancock , lending her his support with all the reverence that a courtier would have shown to a queen , `` your life has been prolonged until the world has changed around you . You have treasured up all that time has rendered worthless -- the principles , feelings , manners , modes of being and acting which another generation has flung aside -- and you are a symbol of the past . And I and these around me -- we represent a new race of men , living no longer in the past , scarcely in the present , but projecting our lives forward into the future . Ceasing to model ourselves on ancestral superstitions , it is our faith and principle to press onward -- onward . -- Yet , '' continued he , turning to his attendants , `` let us reverence for the last time the stately and gorgeous prejudices of the tottering past . '' While the republican governor spoke he had continued to support the helpless form of Esther Dudley ; her weight grew heavier against his arm , but at last , with a sudden effort to free herself , the ancient woman sank down beside one of the pillars of the portal . The key of the province-house fell from her grasp and clanked against the stone . `` I have been faithful unto death , '' murmured she . `` God save the king ! '' `` She hath done her office , '' said Hancock , solemnly . `` We will follow her reverently to the tomb of her ancestors , and then , my fellow-citizens , onward -- onward . We are no longer children of the past . '' As the old loyalist concluded his narrative the enthusiasm which had been fitfully flashing within his sunken eyes and quivering across his wrinkled visage faded away , as if all the lingering fire of his soul were extinguished . Just then , too , a lamp upon the mantelpiece threw out a dying gleam , which vanished as speedily as it shot upward , compelling our eyes to grope for one another 's features by the dim glow of the hearth . With such a lingering fire , methought , with such a dying gleam , had the glory of the ancient system vanished from the province-house when the spirit of old Esther Dudley took its flight . And now , again , the clock of the Old South threw its voice of ages on the breeze , knolling the hourly knell of the past , crying out far and wide through the multitudinous city , and filling our ears , as we sat in the dusky chamber , with its reverberating depth of tone . In that same mansion -- in that very chamber -- what a volume of history had been told off into hours by the same voice that was now trembling in the air ! Many a governor had heard those midnight accents and longed to exchange his stately cares for slumber . And , as for mine host and Mr. Bela Tiffany and the old loyalist and me , we had babbled about dreams of the past until we almost fancied that the clock was still striking in a bygone century .
Neither of us would have wondered had a hoop-petticoated phantom of Esther Dudley tottered into the chamber , walking her rounds in the hush of midnight as of yore , and motioned us to quench the fading embers of the XXXXX and leave the historic precincts to herself and her kindred shades .
Dudley Hancock Tiffany fire hours knell mantelpiece methought province-house republican