a quarter past nine
No such frivolity as evening dinner was known at Hillard House . Soup after dark except for an invalid would have been considered a pitfall ; but the old lady liked to linger alone over the last meal of the day , reading a religious volume by the light of a lamp placed on the table at the left of her plate . When Miss Hepburn and Barrie finished they always , as a matter of form , asked to be excused , though they both knew , and Mrs. MacDonald knew that they knew , how more than willing she was to be left alone with her book . At a quarter past nine the servants were called , they having already supped on bread and cheese . A chapter , preferably from the Old Testament , was read , a prayer offered up , and at nine-thirty precisely the family was ready to go to bed . Miss Hepburn had reason to believe that for three quarters of an hour she was free to do as she wished , and she wished as ardently as she was able to wish anything , to see Barrie . She had heard next to nothing of the day 's events from Mrs. MacDonald , whose companion she was supposed to be now that the girl no longer needed her whole morning 's services as governess .