nine o'clock at night
He had asked Jack Beardsley to give him time to get out on the lawn before he arrived , and so the three , who were still seated around a tea table under a spreading oak , saw Ralph coming from the house at the same time that the tallyho entered the front gate . They little dreamed of all that had happened . And now while these young people are having a care-free , happy time in the beautiful Orange Hill country , let us return to the East Side that is sweltering in the heat of late June . It was nine o'clock at night and the air was still breathlessly stifling . The playground that edged the East River was thronged with neighboring folk who had brought what portable bedding they had and who planned sleeping upon the ground out-of-doors to catch some possible breeze from over the water . Many of these people were residents of the rickety tenement across from the model apartments , but one there was who had been unable to leave the small , hot room that she called home , and that one was Mrs. Wilovich . She was not alone , nor had she been , for all that day Lena May had been at her bedside .