midnight
When you find that the same thing is done in the country , only in a different way , which you do n't in the least understand , you will begin to experience a certain feeling of discouragement . Then , the humorous papers have taught you to look upon the Suburban Furnace as part of the machinery or property of a merry jest ; and you will be shocked to discover that to the new-comer it is a stern and cold reality . I use the latter adjective deliberately and advisedly . There will surely come an awful night when you will get home from New York with Mrs. Modestus in the midnight train , too tired for anything but a drowsy chat by the lingering embers of the library fire over the festivities of the evening . You will open your broad hospitable door , and enter an abode of chill and darkness . Your long-slumbering household has let fires and lights go out ; the thermometer in the children 's room stands at forty-five degrees , and there is nothing for you to do but to descend to the cellar , arrayed in your wedding garments , and try your unskilful best to coax into feeble circulation a small , faintly throbbing heart of fire that yet glows far down in the fire-pot 's darksome internals . Then , when you have done what you can at the unwonted and unwelcome task , you will see , by the feeble candle-light , that your black dress-coat is gray with fine cinder dust , and that your hands are red and raw from the handling of heavy implements of toil .