midnight
The elder said he would go in to his mistress 's tea-table . The young lad , with a heightened color and voice , began singing a snatch of a song , and marched out of the room . Esmond heard him presently calling his dogs about him , and cheering and talking to them ; and by a hundred of his looks and gestures , tricks of voice and gait , was reminded of the dead lord , Frank 's father . And so , the sylvester night passed away ; the family parted long before midnight , Lady Castlewood remembering , no doubt , former New Years ' Eves , when healths were drunk , and laughter went round in the company of him , to whom years , past , and present , and future , were to be as one ; and so cared not to sit with her children and hear the Cathedral bells ringing the birth of the year 1703 . Esmond heard the chimes as he sat in his own chamber , ruminating by the blazing fire there , and listened to the last notes of them , looking out from his window towards the city , and the great gray towers of the Cathedral lying under the frosty sky , with the keen stars shining above . The sight of these brilliant orbs no doubt made him think of other luminaries . `` And so her eyes have already done execution , '' thought Esmond -- `` on whom ?