midnight
As to that pretty little fool , Edith , I 'm glad she ai n't my daughter , runnin ' round all the time with that Dutch boy , an ' her parents both so possessed with the idea that she ai n't out of her cradle yet -- she bein ' the youngest -- that they ca n't see it . Peter ai n't the only one she keeps company with either -- if he was , it would n't be so bad , for I guess he 's a good enough boy , though I ca n't understand a mortal word he says , an ' them foreigners all have a kinder vacant look , to me . But the other night I was took awful sudden with one of them horrible attacks of indigestion I 'm subject to -- we 'd had rhubarb pie for supper , an ' 't was just elegant , but I guess I ate too much of it , an ' the telephone would n't work on account of the thunderstorm we 'd had that day -- seems like that there 'd been a lot of them this season -- so Joe had to hitch up an ' go for the doctor . As he went past the cemetery , he see Edith leanin ' over the fence with that no-count Jack Weston -- an ' it was past midnight , too ! '' In the midst of such general satisfaction , it was perhaps inevitable that at least one person should not be pleased . And that person , as will be readily guessed , was Thomas . Sylvia , thinking the blow might fall more bearably from his brother 's hand than from hers , relegated the task of writing him to Austin ; and Austin , with a wicked twinkle in his eye , wrote him in this wise : DEAR THOMAS : When you made that little break that I warned you against this spring , Sylvia probably offered to be a sister to you .