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 fire and leave the historic precincts to herself and her kindred shades . But , as no such vision was vouchsafed , I retired unbidden , and would advise Mr. Tiffany to lay hold of another auditor , being resolved not to show my face in the Province House for a good while hence -- if ever . THE HAUNTED MIND . What a singular moment is the first one , when you have hardly begun to recollect yourself , after starting from midnight slumber ! By unclosing your eyes so suddenly you seem to have surprised the personages of your dream in full convocation round your bed , and catch one broad glance at them before they can flit into obscurity . Or , to vary the metaphor , you find yourself for a single instant wide awake in that realm of illusions whither sleep has been the passport , and behold its ghostly inhabitants and wondrous scenery with a perception of their strangeness such as you never attain while the dream is undisturbed . The distant sound of a church-clock is borne faintly on the wind .
You question with yourself , half seriously , whether it has stolen to your waking ear from some gray tower that stood within the precincts XXXXX your dream .
By In across against as from of to with within