eleven o'clock
So , indeed , it was . Mattie and Evey could not , for instance , begin naturally by asking , `` Cally , did you have a lovely summer ? '' -- when of course they knew very well that she had had a perfectly frightful summer . Mattie came in before eleven o'clock on the first morning , chirping affectionate greetings ; but neither then nor later did she manage to convey any real sense of sympathy with Cally , or of understanding what she had been through , or even of wanting to understand . Cally would have liked to justify herself to Mattie , to talk her heart out to her , or to somebody ; but Mattie 's idea was clearly to keep Cally 's mind off it , as you do with the near relatives of the deceased . And was it possible that even Mats 's sweet girlishness showed a subtle trace of confirmation of the Frenchman 's bitter maxim , that in the misfortunes of our friends there is something not altogether displeasing to us ? ... If with Mats and Evey , so and much more so with others , less genuinely friendly .