I go hence in misfortune -- perchance in disgrace -- to return no more . And you , whose present being is incorporated with the past , who have seen governor after governor in stately pageantry ascend these steps , whose whole life has been an observance of majestic ceremonies and a worship of the king , -- how will you endure the change ? Come with us ; bid farewell to a land that has shaken off its allegiance , and live still under a royal government at Halifax . '' `` Never ! never ! '' said the pertinacious old dame . `` Here will I abide , and King George shall still have one true subject in his disloyal province . '' `` Beshrew the old fool ! '' muttered Sir William Howe , growing impatient of her obstinacy and ashamed of the emotion into which he had been betrayed . `` She is the very moral of old-fashioned prejudice , and could exist nowhere but in this musty edifice . -- Well , then , Mistress Dudley , since you will needs tarry , I give the province-house in charge to you . 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 -- XXXXX 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 .
Among about as at by from in on under with