eleven o'clock at night
Daylight is friendly to man toiling under a sun which warms his heart ; and cloudy soft nights are more kindly to our littleness . I nearly ran back again to my lighted parlour ; Fyne fussing in a knicker-bocker suit before the hosts of heaven , on a shadowy earth , about a transient , phantom-like girl , seemed too ridiculous to associate with . On the other hand there was something fascinating in the very absurdity . He cut along in his best pedestrian style and I found myself let in for a spell of severe exercise at eleven o'clock at night . In the distance over the fields and trees smudging and blotching the vast obscurity , one lighted window of the cottage with the blind up was like a bright beacon kept alight to guide the lost wanderer . Inside , at the table bearing the lamp , we saw Mrs Fyne sitting with folded arms and not a hair of her head out of place . She looked exactly like a governess who had put the children to bed ; and her manner to me was just the neutral manner of a governess .