the eight o'clock morning
`` But it is one , most decidedly , '' continued Miss Lavinia , nodding brightly across at him , while father , who now realized the change he could not locate , cried : -- `` Do n't let them grow again , my boy . You look ten years younger , at the very least , which you know at our age is not to be despised ! '' Then we all grew hilarious , and talked together like a lot of school children , and when the boys came in to dessert , as usual , they also were infectiously boisterous over the catching of some bass in the river where Timothy Saunders had taken them that afternoon as a special treat . They clamoured and begged so for Uncle Martin to stop over the next day for fishing and have one more good time with them , that he , feeling flattered almost to the point of embarrassment , yielded upon Evan 's suggesting that , instead of going by the eight o'clock morning train as he intended , he could wait for one late in the evening , which would get him to town before eleven . For Martin was to move into his new bachelor apartments the following morning . The three men lingered long at the table , smoking , the talk punctuated by long periods of silence , each regretting in his own way the present terminating of the summer intercourse , and yet , I fancy , realizing that it had lasted exactly the safe length of time . To be able to adapt oneself temporarily to the presence of outsiders in a house is a healthy habit , but to adjust a family to do it permanently is to lose what can never be regained .