midnight
All night long she holds her stand close by the theatre , with her broad knife and her opened oyster . In vain does the young spark endeavour to engage her in licentious talk . He soon discovers that , wherever her feelings or affections tend , they do not point in his favour . Thus , loaded with pence , and primed with gin , she returns by midnight to her home -- there to share a supper-pint with her man and her neighbours , and to prepare , by deep repose , for the duties of a new day . Far happier and far more useful she , in her day and generation , than that thing of fashion which men call a beau or a belle -- in whose labours no one rejoices , and in whose bosom no sentiment but self finds a place . In Buckhaven , again , the Salique law prevails . There men are men , and women mere appendages .