midnight
The conscious sinking , at all events , and the awfully good manner , the difference , the bridge , the interval , the skipped leaves of the social atlas -- these , it was to be confessed , had a little , for our young lady , in default of stouter stuff , to work themselves into the light literary legend -- a mixed , wandering echo of Trollope , of Thackeray , perhaps mostly of Dickens -- under favour of which her pilgrimage had so much appealed . She could relate to Susie later on , late the same evening , that the legend , before she had done with it , had run clear , that the adored author of _ The Newcomes _ , in fine , had been on the whole the note : the picture lacking thus more than she had hoped , or rather perhaps showing less than she had feared , a certain possibility of Pickwickian outline . She explained how she meant by this that Mrs. Condrip had not altogether proved another Mrs. Nickleby , nor even -- for she might have proved almost anything , from the way poor worried Kate had spoken -- a widowed and aggravated Mrs. Micawber . Mrs. Stringham , in the midnight conference , intimated rather yearningly that , however the event might have turned , the side of English life such experiences opened to Milly were just those she herself seemed `` booked '' -- as they were all , roundabout her now , always saying -- to miss : she had begun to have a little , for her fellow-observer , these moments of fanciful reaction -- reaction in which she was once more all Susan Shepherd -- against the high sphere of colder conventions into which her overwhelming connection with Maud Manningham had rapt her . Milly never lost sight , for long , of the Susan Shepherd side of her , and was always there to meet it when it came up and vaguely , tenderly , impatiently to pat it , abounding in the assurance that they would still provide for it . They had , however , to-night , another matter in hand ; which proved to be presently , on the girl 's part , in respect to her hour of Chelsea , the revelation that Mrs. Condrip , taking a few minutes when Kate was away with one of the children , in bed upstairs for some small complaint , had suddenly , without its being in the least `` led up to , '' broken ground on the subject of Mr. Densher , mentioned him with impatience as a person in love with her sister . `` She wished me , if I cared for Kate , to know , '' Milly said -- `` for it would be quite too dreadful , and one might do something . ''