That was the signal for the Marches to go home.

He said that the spectacle of so much courtship as the eye might take in there at a glance was not, perhaps, oppressive, but the thought that at the same hour the same thing was going on all over the country, wherever two young fools could get together, was more than he could bear; he did not deny that it was natural, and, in a measureuthorized, but he declared that it was hackneyed; and the fact that it must go on forever, as long as the race lasted, made him tired.
At home, generally, they found that the children had not missed them, and were perfectly safe.

It was one of the advantages of a flat that they could leave the children there whenever they liked without anxiety.
They liked better staying there than wandering about in the evening with their parents, whose excursions seemed to them somewhat aimless, and their pleasures insipid.

They studied, or read, or looked out of the window at the street sights; and their mother always came back to them with a pang for their lonesomeness.

Bella knew some little girls in the house, but in a ceremonious way; Tom had formed no friendships among the boys at school such as he had left in Boston; as nearly as he could explain, the New York fellows carried canes at an age when they would have had them broken for them by the other boys at Boston; and they were both sissyish and fast.