Take this key , and keep it safe until myself or some other royal governor shall demand it of you . '' Smiling bitterly at himself and her , he took the heavy key of the province-house , and , delivering it into the old lady 's hands , drew his clonk around him for departure . As the general glanced back at Esther Dudley 's antique figure he deemed her well fitted for such a charge , as being so perfect a representative of the decayed past -- of an age gone by , with its manners , opinions , faith and feelings all fallen into oblivion or scorn , of what had once been a reality , but was now merely a vision of faded magnificence . Then Sir William Howe strode forth , smiting his clenched hands together in the fierce anguish of his spirit , and old Esther Dudley was left to keep watch in the lonely province-house , dwelling there with Memory ; and if Hope ever seemed to flit around her , still it was Memory in disguise . The total change of affairs that ensued on the departure of the British troops did not drive the venerable lady from her stronghold . There was not for many years afterward a governor of Massachusetts , and the magistrates who had charge of such matters saw no objection to Esther Dudley 's residence in the province-house , especially as they must otherwise have paid a hireling for taking care of the premises , which with her was a labor of love ; and so they left her the undisturbed mistress of the old historic edifice . Many and strange were the fables which the gossips whispered about her in all the chimney-corners of the town . Among the time-worn articles of furniture that had been left in the mansion , there was a tall antique mirror which was well worthy of a tale by itself , and perhaps may hereafter be the theme of one . The gold of its heavily-wrought frame was tarnished , and its surface so blurred that the old woman 's figure , whenever she paused before it , looked indistinct and ghostlike . But it was the general belief that Esther could cause the governors of the overthrown dynasty , with the beautiful ladies who had once adorned their festivals , the Indian chiefs who had come up to the province-house to hold council or swear allegiance , the grim provincial warriors , the severe clergymen -- in short , all the pageantry of gone days , all the figures that ever swept across the broad-plate of glass in former times , -- she could cause the whole to reappear and people the inner world of the mirror with shadows of old life . Such legends as these , together with the singularity of her isolated existence , her age and the infirmity that each added winter flung upon her , made Mistress Dudley the object both of fear and pity , and it was partly the result of either sentiment that , amid all the angry license of the times , neither wrong nor insult ever fell upon her unprotected head . Indeed , there was so much haughtiness in her demeanor toward intruders -- among whom she reckoned all persons acting under the new authorities -- that it was really an affair of no small nerve to look her in the face . And , to do the people justice , stern republicans as they had now become , they were well content that the old gentlewoman , in her hoop-petticoat and faded embroidery , should still haunt the palace of ruined pride and overthrown power , the symbol of a departed system , embodying a history in her person . So Esther Dudley dwelt year after year in the province-house , still reverencing all that others had flung aside , still faithful to her king , who , so long as the venerable dame yet held her post , might be said to retain one true subject in New England and one spot of the empire that had been wrested from him . And did she dwell there in utter loneliness ? Rumor said , `` Not so . '' Whenever her chill and withered heart desired warmth , she was wont to summon a black slave of Governor Shirley 's from the blurred mirror and send him in search of guests who had long ago been familiar in those deserted chambers . Forth went the sable messenger , with the starlight or the moonshine gleaming through him , and did his errand in the burial-grounds , knocking at the iron doors of tombs or upon the marble slabs that covered them , and whispering to those within , `` My mistress , old Esther Dudley , bids you to the province-house at midnight ; '' and punctually as the clock of the Old South told twelve came the shadows of the Olivers , the Hutchinsons , the Dudleys -- all the grandees of a bygone generation -- gliding beneath the portal into the well-known mansion , where Esther mingled with them as if she likewise were a shade . Without vouching for the truth of such traditions , it is certain that Mistress Dudley sometimes assembled a few of the stanch though crestfallen old Tories who had lingered in the rebel town during those days of wrath and tribulation . Out of a cobwebbed bottle containing liquor that a royal governor might have smacked his lips over they quaffed healths to the king and babbled treason to the republic , feeling as if the protecting shadow of the throne were still flung around them .
But , draining the last drops of their liquor , they stole timorously homeward , and answered not again if the rude mob reviled them XXXXX the street .
across amid around as in into on through toward upon