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 ground , 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 by-gone 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 .