midnight in July
It was startling to us of those days , it might be startling in these ; what was more than startling was the manner in which the thing was done . That is known to very few persons indeed . I had seen enough upon that April day , whose events form my prelude , to give me remembrance of the handsome telegraph boy . The next time I saw him , which was near midnight in July -- the place Hyde Park -- I knew him at once . I had been sharing in Prince 's Gate , with a dull company , an interminable dinner , one of those at which you eat twice as much as you intend , or desire , because there is really nothing else to do . On one side of me I had had a dowager whom I entirely failed to interest , on the other , a young person who only cared to talk with her left-hand neighbour . There was a reception afterward to which I had to stop , so that I could not make my escape till eleven or more .