three o'clock
This discussion as to the propriety or impropriety of giving her lover a dinner had not been pleasant to Alice , but , nevertheless , when it was over she felt grateful to Lady Macleod . There was an attempt in the arrangement to make Mr. Grey 's visit as little painful as possible ; and though such a discussion at such a time might as well have been avoided , the decision to which her ladyship had at last come with reference both to the dinner and the management of the visit was , no doubt , the right one . Lady Macleod had been quite correct in all her anticipations . At three o'clock Mr. Grey was announced , and Lady Macleod , alone , received him in her drawing-room . She had intended to give him a great deal of good advice , to bid him still keep up his heart and as it were hold up his head , to confess to him how very badly Alice was behaving , and to express her entire concurrence with that theory of bodily ailment as the cause and origin of her conduct . But she found that Mr. Grey was a man to whom she could not give much advice . It was he who did the speaking at this conference , and not she .