‘Go home? I don’t know! It’s New Year’s eve!’
‘Ay! but yo’r mother ‘ll lie awake till yo’ come home, Sylvie!’
But Mrs. Corney, having heard his question, broke in with all sorts of upbraidings. ‘Go home! Not see t’ New Year in! Why, what should take ‘em home these six hours? Wasn’t there a moon as clear as day? and did such a time as this come often? And were they to break up the party before the New Year came in? And was there not supper, with a spiced round of beef that had been in pickle pretty nigh sin’ Martinmas, and hams, and mince-pies, and what not? And if they thought any evil of her master’s going to bed, or that by that early retirement he meant to imply that he did not bid his friends welcome, why he would not stay up beyond eight o’clock for King George upon his throne, as h
