midnight
This scrutiny being completed , the stranger , dropping the cloak , said , ` I see , by your physiognomy , that you may be trusted ; ' and revealed to the astonished Scythrop a female form and countenance of dazzling grace and beauty , with long flowing hair of raven blackness , and large black eyes of almost oppressive brilliancy , which strikingly contrasted with a complexion of snowy whiteness . Her dress was extremely elegant , but had an appearance of foreign fashion , as if both the lady and her mantua-maker were of ` a far countree . ' ` I guess 't was frightful there to see A lady so richly clad as she , Beautiful exceedingly . ' For , if it be terrible to one young lady to find another under a tree at midnight , it must , _ à fortiori _ , be much more terrible to a young gentleman to find a young lady in his study at that hour . If the logical consecutiveness of this conclusion be not manifest to my readers , I am sorry for their dulness , and must refer them , for more ample elucidation , to a treatise which Mr Flosky intends to write , on the Categories of Relation , which comprehend Substance and Accident , Cause and Effect , Action and Re-action . Scythrop , therefore , either was or ought to have been frightened ; at all events , he was astonished ; and astonishment , though not in itself fear , is nevertheless a good stage towards it , and is , indeed , as it were , the half-way house between respect and terror , according to Mr Burke 's graduated scale of the sublime . -LSB- 7 -RSB- ` You are surprised , ' said the lady ; ` yet why should you be surprised ?