.

A Penelope secret.
Shortly after midnight our own little company broke up, loath to leave the charming spectacle.

The guests departed with the greatest reluctance, having given Dawson a half-sovereign for waiting up to lock the door.

Mrs.Beresford said that it seemed unendurable to leave matters in such an unfinished condition, and her son promised to come very early next morning for the latest bulletins.
"I leave all the romances in your hands," he whispered to me; "do let them turn out happily, do!" Salemina also retired to her virtuous couch, remembering that she was to visit infant schools with a great educational dignitary on the morrow.
Francesca and I turned the gas entirely out, although we had been sitting all the evening in a kind of twilight, and slipping on our dressing-gowns sat again at the window for a farewell peep into the past, present, and future of the 'Brighthelmston set.' At midnight the dowager duchess arrived.

She must at least have been a dowager duchess, and if there is anything greater, within the bounds of a reasonable imagination, she was that.