midnight
Mystery slips , almost unawares , into the domestic story . There are , for instance , vague hints of it in Charlotte Smith 's _ Old Manor House _ -LRB- 1793 -RRB- . The author of _ The Ghost _ and of _ More Ghosts _ adopts the pleasing pseudonym of Felix Phantom . The gloom of night broods over many of the stories , for we know : `` affairs that walk , As they say spirits do , at midnight , have In them a wilder nature than the business That seeks despatch by day , '' and we are confronted with titles like _ Midnight Weddings _ , by Mrs. Meeke , one of Macaulay 's favourite `` bad-novel writers , '' _ The Midnight Bell _ , awakening memories of Duncan 's murder , by George Walker , or _ The Nocturnal Minstrel _ -LRB- 1809 -RRB- , by Miss Sleath . These `` dismal treatises '' abound in reminiscences of Mrs. Radcliffe and of `` Monk '' Lewis , and many of them hark back as far as _ The Castle of Otranto _ for some of their situations . The novels of Miss Wilkinson may perhaps serve as well as those of any of her contemporaries to show that Scott was not unduly harsh in his condemnation of the romances fashionable in the first decade of the nineteenth century , when `` tales of terror jostle on the road . '' -LSB- 57 -RSB- The sleeping potion , a boon to those who weave the intricate pattern of a Gothic romance , is one of Miss Wilkinson 's favourite devices , and is employed in at least three of her stories .