midnight
This discourse brought them home , where Amelia , finding her children asleep , and her husband not returned , invited her companion to partake of her homely fare , and down they sat to supper together . The clock struck twelve ; and , no news being arrived of Booth , Mrs. Ellison began to express some astonishment at his stay , whence she launched into a general reflexion on husbands , and soon passed to some particular invectives on her own . `` Ah , my dear madam , '' says she , `` I know the present state of your mind , by what I have myself often felt formerly . I am no stranger to the melancholy tone of a midnight clock . It was my misfortune to drag on a heavy chain above fifteen years with a sottish yoke-fellow . But how can I wonder at my fate , since I see even your superior charms can not confine a husband from the bewitching pleasures of a bottle ? '' `` Indeed , madam , '' says Amelia , `` I have no reason to complain ; Mr. Booth is one of the soberest of men ; but now and then to spend a late hour with his friend is , I think , highly excusable . ''