y 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 t