half past ten
The sudden bereavement of her youth bewildered and overwhelmed her ; her capacity for dependent , self-devoting love sought for an object and lavished itself upon her brother . She went to live with an aunt , her father 's sister , and when she was eighteen her aunt brought her to London , a tall , heavy and rather clumsy country girl , arrested rather than developed by grief . Her aunt was a world-worn , harassed woman ; she had married off her four daughters with difficulty and felt the need of a change of occupation ; but she accepted as a matter of course the duty of marrying off Amabel . That task accomplished she would go to bed every night at half past ten and devote her days to collecting coins and enamels . Her respite came far more quickly than she could have imagined possible . Amabel had promise of great beauty , but two or three years were needed to fulfill it ; Mrs. Compton could but be surprised when Sir Hugh Channice , an older colleague of Bertram 's , a fashionable and charming man , asked for the hand of her unformed young charge . Sir Hugh was fourteen years Amabel 's senior and her very guilelessness no doubt attracted him ; then there was the money ; he was not well off and he lived a life rather hazardously full .