about ten
o'clock
He was very much taken with the unaffected simplicity of the young girl 's talk . Her mother might scold as much as she liked , and remind her continually of the high rank of the knight , she was not to be deterred from entertaining him , and she was particularly bent upon not giving up her secret plan to ascertain whether she or her mother were right in their views respecting the white and blue scarf . Upon this subject she had her own thoughts , arising out of the following circumstance : One night when Albert was very ill , she had remained up late to keep her father company , who was watching by his bed-side . But having fallen asleep over her work , she was aroused , it might have been about ten o'clock , by a noise in the room . She saw a man in earnest conversation with her father , whose features did not escape her notice , although he tried to conceal them under a large cap . She thought she recognised in the stranger a servant of the knight of Lichtenstein , who had often been in the habit of coming in a mysterious way to the fifer of Hardt , upon which occasion she was always obliged to leave the apartment . Bent upon knowing what this man had to communicate to her father , she feigned to be asleep thinking he would not disturb her .