midnight
And Struthers was reading _ Tam O'Shanter _ aloud to her laird . `` Read slow , noo , lassie , an ' tak ' it a ' in , '' said the placidly triumphant voice of Whinstane Sandy , `` for it 'll be lang before ye ken its like ! '' _ Thursday the Seventeenth _ The migration has been effected ... I am alone in my room , I have two and three-quarters trunks unpacked , and I feel like a President 's wife the night after Inauguration . It is well past midnight , but I am too tired and too unsettled to sleep . Things turn out so differently to what one expects ! And all change , to the home-staying heart , can be so abysmally upsetting ! ... We were a somewhat disheveled and intimidated flock when we emerged from our train and found Duncan awaiting us with an amazingly big touring-car which , as he explained with a short laugh at my gape of wonder , the Barcona Mines would pay for in a week .