morning, noon
My horror was completed one morning on finding a china hen , artistically represented as brooding on a nest , made to cover , not boiled eggs , but a lot of greasy hash , over which she sat so that her head and tail bewilderingly projected beyond the sides of the nest , instead of keeping lengthwise within it , as a respectable hen in her senses might be expected to do . There certainly is a great amount of native vigor shown by these untrained Hibernians in always finding an unexpected wrong way of doing the simplest thing . It quite enlarges one 's ideas of human possibilities . In a paroxysm of vexation , I reviled matrimony and Murphy O'Connor , who had stolen our household treasure , and further expressed my griefs , as elder sons are apt to do , by earnest expostulations with the maternal officer on the discouraging state of things ; declaring most earnestly , morning , noon , and night , that all was going to ruin , that everything was being spoiled , that nothing was even decent , and that , if things went on so much longer , I should be obliged to go out and board , -- by which style of remark I nearly drove that long-suffering woman frantic . `` Do be reasonable , Tom , '' said she . `` Can I make girls to order ? Can I do anything more than try such as apply , when they seem to give promise of success ?