noon
Their splendour lasted throughout all the years that saw their Midland town spread and darken into a city , but reached its topmost during the period when every prosperous family with children kept a Newfoundland dog . In that town , in those days , all the women who wore silk or velvet knew all the other women who wore silk or velvet , and when there was a new purchase of sealskin , sick people were got to windows to see it go by . Trotters were out , in the winter afternoons , racing light sleighs on National Avenue and Tennessee Street ; everybody recognized both the trotters and the drivers ; and again knew them as well on summer evenings , when slim buggies whizzed by in renewals of the snow-time rivalry . For that matter , everybody knew everybody else 's family horse-and-carriage , could identify such a silhouette half a mile down the street , and thereby was sure who was going to market , or to a reception , or coming home from office or store to noon dinner or evening supper . During the earlier years of this period , elegance of personal appearance was believed to rest more upon the texture of garments than upon their shaping . A silk dress needed no remodelling when it was a year or so old ; it remained distinguished by merely remaining silk . Old men and governors wore broadcloth ; `` full dress '' was broadcloth with `` doeskin '' trousers ; and there were seen men of all ages to whom a hat meant only that rigid , tall silk thing known to impudence as a `` stove-pipe . ''