midnight
When I and Frances have dined and spent an evening with Hunsden , he often walks home with us . His wood is large , and some of the timber is old and of huge growth . There are winding ways in it which , pursued through glade and brake , make the walk back to Daisy Lane a somewhat long one . Many a time , when we have had the benefit of a full moon , and when the night has been mild and balmy , when , moreover , a certain nightingale has been singing , and a certain stream , hid in alders , has lent the song a soft accompaniment , the remote church-bell of the one hamlet in a district of ten miles , has tolled midnight ere the lord of the wood left us at our porch . Free-flowing was his talk at such hours , and far more quiet and gentle than in the day-time and before numbers . He would then forget politics and discussion , and would dwell on the past times of his house , on his family history , on himself and his own feelings -- subjects each and all invested with a peculiar zest , for they were each and all unique . One glorious night in June , after I had been taunting him about his ideal bride and asking him when she would come and graft her foreign beauty on the old Hunsden oak , he answered suddenly -- `` You call her ideal ; but see , here is her shadow ; and there can not be a shadow without a substance . ''