midnight
`` Not till you have broken your fast , I trust ? '' said the Lady of Baldringham ; `` you will not , I hope , do my years and our relationship such foul disgrace ? '' `` Pardon me , madam , '' replied the Lady Eveline ; `` those who have experienced your hospitality at night , have little occasion for breakfast in the morning . -- Rose , are not those loitering knaves assembled in the court-yard , or are they yet on their couches , making up for the slumber they have lost by midnight disturbances ? '' Rose announced that her train was in the court , and mounted ; when , with a low reverence , Eveline endeavoured to pass her relation , and leave the apartment without farther ceremony . Ermengarde at first confronted her with a grim and furious glance , which seemed to show a soul fraught with more rage than the thin blood and rigid features of extreme old age had the power of expressing , and raised her ebony staff as if about even to proceed to some act of personal violence . But she changed her purpose , and suddenly made way for Eveline , who passed without farther parley ; and as she descended the staircase , which conducted from the apartment to the gateway , she heard the voice of her aunt behind her , like that of an aged and offended sibyl , denouncing wrath and wo upon her insolence and presumption .