midnight
An hour later , when Phillida and Agatha had just got to a stage in unpacking in which all that one owns is lying in twenty heaps about the room , each several heap seeming larger than the trunk in which it came , there was a ring at the door , and Mr. Millard was announced . `` Oh , dear ! I think he might have waited until to-morrow , '' grumbled Agatha to her mother , after Phillida had gone to the parlor . `` He 'll stay for hours , I suppose , and I never can get these things put away alone , and we wo n't get you to bed before midnight . He ought to remember that you 're not strong . But it 's just like a man in love to come when you 're in a mess , and never to go away . '' Millard was more thoughtful than another might have been , and in half an hour Phillida returned to the back room , with a softly radiant expression of countenance , bearing a bouquet of flowers which Millard had brought for Mrs. Callender .