"I _knew_ it--I _knew_ it--I _said_ how it would be--he can't endure the idea, he thinks it such audacity. I knew he must, and I really think I shall lose my reason. I could not--I _could_ not live. Oh! Agnes, I _could_n't if he prevents it." In came Miss Charity, very red and angry. "He's just in one of his odd tempers. I don't mind one _word_ he says to-night. He'll be quite different, you'll _see_, in the morning. We'll sit up here, and have a good talk about it, till it's time for you to go; and you'll see I'm quite right. I'm _surprised_," she continued, with severity, "at his talking as he did to-night. I consider it quite worldly and _wicked_! But I contented myself with telling him that he did not think one word of what he said, and that he _knew_ he didn't, and that he'd tell me so in the morning; and instead of feeling it, as I thought he would, he said something intolerably rude." Old Etherage, about an hour later, when they were all in animated debate, shuffled to the door, and put in his head, and looked surprised to see Tom, who looked alarmed to see him. And the old gentleman bid them all a glowering good night, and shortly afterwards they heard him wheeled away to his bed-room, and were relieved. They sat up awfully late, and the old servant, who poked into the room oftener than he was wanted towards the close of their sitting, looked wan and bewildered with drowsiness; and at last Charity, struck by the ghastly resignation of his countenance, glanced at the French clock over the chimney-piece, and ejaculated-- "Why, merciful goodness! is it possible? A quarter to one! It _can't possibly be_. Thomas Sedley, _will_ you look at your watch, and tell us what o'clock it really is?" His watch corroborated the French clock. "_If_ papa heard this! I really can't the least _conceive_ how it happened. I did not think it could have been _eleven_. Well, it is _undoubtedly_ the _oddest_ thing that _ever_ happened in this house!" In the morning, between ten and eleven, when Tom Sedley appeared again at the drawing-room windows, he learned from Charity, in her own emphatic style of narration, what had since taken place, which was not a great deal, but still was uncomfortably ambiguous. She had visited her father at his breakfast in the study, and promptly introduced the subject of Tom Sedley, and he broke into this line of observation-- "I'd like to know what the deuce Tom Sedley means by talking of business to girls. I'd like to know it. I say, if he has anything to say, why doesn't he _say_ it, that's what _I_ say. Here I _am_. What has he to _say_. I don't object to hear him, be it sense or be it nonsense--out with it! That's my maxim; and be it sense or be it nonsense, I won't have it at second-_hand_. That's _my_ idea." Acting upon this, Miss Charity insisted that he ought to see Mr. Etherage; and, with a beating heart, he knocked at the study door, and asked an audience.