midnight
As this was for the convenience of listening to our stories , he submitted that they might be suffered to come in , and hear them more pleasantly . To this we one and all yielded a ready assent , and the party being discovered , as Jack had supposed , and invited to walk in , entered -LRB- though not without great confusion at having been detected -RRB- , and were accommodated with chairs at a little distance . Then , the lamp being trimmed , the fire well stirred and burning brightly , the hearth clean swept , the curtains closely drawn , the clock wound up , we entered on our new story . -LCB- 311 -RCB- -LSB- Picture : Master Humphrey 's Visionary Friends -RSB- It is again midnight . My fire burns cheerfully ; the room is filled with my old friend 's sober voice ; and I am left to muse upon the story we have just now finished . It makes me smile , at such a time as this , to think if there were any one to see me sitting in my easy-chair , my gray head hanging down , my eyes bent thoughtfully upon the glowing embers , and my crutch -- emblem of my helplessness -- lying upon the hearth at my feet , how solitary I should seem . Yet though I am the sole tenant of this chimney-corner , though I am childless and old , I have no sense of loneliness at this hour ; but am the centre of a silent group whose company I love .