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 in the street . Yet Esther Dudley 's most frequent and favored guests were the children of the town . Toward them she was never stern . A kindly and loving nature hindered elsewhere from its free course by a thousand rocky prejudices lavished itself upon these little ones . By bribes of gingerbread of her own making , stamped with a royal crown , she tempted their sunny sportiveness beneath the gloomy portal of the province-house , and would often beguile them to spend a whole play-day there , sitting in a circle round the verge of her hoop-petticoat , greedily attentive to her stories of a dead world . And when these little boys and girls stole forth again from the dark , mysterious mansion , they went bewildered , full of old feelings that graver people had long ago forgotten , rubbing their eyes at the world around them as if they had gone astray into ancient times and become children of the past . At home , when their parents asked where they had loitered such a weary while and with whom they had been at play , the children would talk of all the departed worthies of the province as far back as Governor Belcher and the haughty dame of Sir William Phipps . It would seem as though they had been sitting on the knees of these famous personages , whom the grave had hidden for half a century , and had toyed with the embroidery of their rich waistcoats or roguishly pulled the long curls of their flowing wigs .
`` But Governor Belcher has been dead this many a year , '' would the mother say XXXXX her little boy .
At across amid around as before if to with within