midnight
He was the brother of one of the girls who had been forbidden by her mother to stay out in canoes with young men after nine at night . The rumor had reached Flossy that this same mother had referred to her in `` the fish pond '' at Rodick 's as `` that dreadful girl . '' It would have pleased her after that to have wrung an offer of marriage from the son and heir , who knew her cousins , the Morton Prices , and to whom she would have been willing to engage herself temporarily at all events . He was very devoted ; they stayed out in his canoe until past midnight ; he wrote verses to her and told her his innermost thoughts ; but he stopped there . He went away without committing himself , and she was left to chew the cud of reflection . It was bitter , not because she was in love with him , for she was not . In her heart she knew he bored her a little .