one o'clock in the morning
Thirdly , there was that daughter , a dear , sweet girl , who seemed to me perfectly content in her enjoyment of the social pleasures in which she was so well adapted to shine . I regarded her as still a mere child , and though youths came and went , never for one moment did I suspect that she was meditating the blow which she has since inflicted upon me , until Josephine told me one evening , with a mysterious , agitated air , that Mr. James Perkins wished to see me in the library . He saw me , and all the consolation I derived from our interview was the impression that he considered that he was acting generously in asking my consent to the match , and that custom would have justified him in letting me hear the news of my daughter 's engagement elsewhere and in seeing me further , as the phrase is , before he saw me at all . Remembering as I did that I regarded the views of Josephine 's father concerning our little matter twenty-five years ago as a matter of mere detail , only think how far I fell short of the temper of a real philosopher in allowing myself to become violently angry , and to pace the library until one o'clock in the morning after my would-be son-in-law had left it ! An especially futile proceeding , as Josephine subsequently remarked , inasmuch as , by my own admission , I had behaved like a veritable lamb in his presence and had told him blandly that if he and my daughter were agreed upon the subject I had not a word to say against it . This was the first break in our peaceful , happy domestic circle . Do you know what the period of an idolized daughter 's engagement seems to the disdained and discarded husband and father ?