midnight
He soon had enough to talk of , and previously , as he remembered , he had never sustained a conversation of any length with composure and the beneficent sense of fulness . Five thousand pounds , to which sum Lady Camper reduced her stipulation for Elizabeth 's dowry , he signed over to his dear girl gladly , and came out with the confession to her ladyship that a well-invested twelve thousand comprised his fortune . She shrugged she had left off pulling him this way and that , so his chains were enjoyable , and he said to himself : ` If ever she should in the dead of night want a man to defend her ! ' He mentioned it to Reginald , who had been the repository of Elizabeth 's lamentations about her father being left alone , forsaken , and the young man conceived a scheme for causing his aunt 's great bell to be rung at midnight , which would certainly have led to a dramatic issue and the happy re-establishment of our masculine ascendancy at the close of this history . But he forgot it in his bridegroom 's delight , until he was making his miserable official speech at the wedding-breakfast , and set Elizabeth winking over a tear . As she stood in the hall ready to depart , a great van was observed in the road at the gates of Douro Lodge ; and this , the men in custody declared to contain the goods and knick-knacks of the people who had taken the house furnished for a year , and were coming in that very afternoon . ` I remember , I say now I remember , I had a notice , ' the General said cheerily to his troubled daughter .