eight o'clock
Annabel Sinclair 's coming for a fitting at ten o'clock and that young Mis ' Thompson at eleven . And I 'm as sure as I can be of anything but death and taxes , that Annabel will be late . '' Persis ' apprehension would have taken on a keener edge , could she have been favored at that moment with a glimpse of the patron of whose punctuality she was in doubt . Ever since eight o'clock , Diantha Sinclair had been opening the door of her mother 's room at intervals of five minutes and closing the same noiselessly , after a brief survey of the figure on the bed . As the tenantry of field and forest apprehend the approach of some natural cataclysm , by means of signs imperceptible to man 's grosser senses , so to Diantha the curve of her mother 's shoulder under the sheet , presaged a storm . Her uneasiness was due to a horrid uncertainty as to which would anger her mother the more , to be wakened too early or to be allowed to sleep too long . By nine o'clock , the second of the alternatives seemed to Diantha the more serious .