midnight
As sportive and adventurous schoolboys sometimes ascend a scaffolding in the absence of the builders , and continue to scale from tier to tier , until they pause for breath ; so , I fear , that you this night , in her protector 's absence , have soared in the affections of my ward . Beware , beware : I would not threaten you -- a gentleman neither needs nor brooks a threat -- but , by my life and the strength that yet is left me , woe to the man that shall fool me in yonder girl ! Seek not to trifle with me , Claude Montigny . Tell me your purpose ; inform me how your acquaintance with my ward began ; how it was fostered ; how it has been concealed ; and how it thus has ripened into this secret , midnight interview . Speak ; what do you say , sir , in arrest of judgment ? Be seated , and recount to me the story of your love , if you do love my ward -- as you have told her that you do -- and to that love be attached a story , long or brief ; or if this passion -- which you have propounded most passionately to her -- be of a mere mushroom growth , born of to-night , sown by the hand of moonlight in a girl 's dark eyes ; or in her heart , perhaps , by the fairies that you spoke of , and producing some form of feeling or forced fruit of fancy ; coeval with , and meant to be as transient , as is the present fungi of these fields . Sit down by me , and let your tongue a true deliverance make between yourself , me , and my foster-daughter . ''