While the republican governor spoke he had continued to support the helpless form of Esther Dudley; her weight grew heavier against his arm, but at last, with a sudden effort to free herself, the ancient woman sank down beside one of the pillars of the portal.  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