midnight
The same to you , and happiness also . ' Finally , she wished him good night , with great pathos ; and Mr. Bounderby went to bed , with a maudlin persuasion that he had been crossed in something tender , though he could not , for his life , have mentioned what it was . Long after Louisa had undressed and lain down , she watched and waited for her brother 's coming home . That could hardly be , she knew , until an hour past midnight ; but in the country silence , which did anything but calm the trouble of her thoughts , time lagged wearily . At last , when the darkness and stillness had seemed for hours to thicken one another , she heard the bell at the gate . She felt as though she would have been glad that it rang on until daylight ; but it ceased , and the circles of its last sound spread out fainter and wider in the air , and all was dead again . She waited yet some quarter of an hour , as she judged .