midnight
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 .