midnight
I am unrepentant , even though I am old and the almond tree flourishes and the grasshopper is trying to be a nuisance . I do n't like your oldsters who pretend to be ashamed of the follies of their youth . They are humbugs all . There is no respectable elderly gentleman in the land who does not inwardly chuckle over the chimes he has heard at midnight . Though I always had Joanna 's gracious personality at the back of my mind , and the love of my good master as part of my spiritual equipment , yet I must confess to concerning my thoughts very little with the progress of their romance . I took it for granted as I took many things in those unspeculative days . The actual whirl of Paris caught me and left me little time for conjecture .