midnight
`` My dear , what did you look at me like that for ? What did the child mean ? And what on _ earth _ is the matter ? '' After the ladies had gone to bed , on the night of Lady Kitty 's recitation , William Ashe stayed up till past midnight talking with old Lord Grosville . When relieved of the presence of his women-kind , who were apt either to oppress him , in the person of his wife , or to puzzle him , in the persons of his daughters , Lord Grosville was not by any means without value as a talker . He possessed that narrow but still most serviceable fund of human experience which the English land-owner , while our English tradition subsists , can hardly escape , if he will . As guardsman , volunteer , magistrate , lord-lieutenant , member -- for the sake of his name and his acres -- of various important commissions , as military _ attaché _ even , for a short space , to an important embassy , he had acquired , by mere living , that for which his intellectual betters had often envied him -- a certain shrewdness , a certain instinct , as to both men and affairs , which were often of more service to him than finer brains to other persons .