noon
His handsome daughter he loved with his whole heart . Her dead mother 's relatives were among the plutocracy of New York , but even the memory of the dead Eleanor seemed to have faded utterly out of their minds . One raw February afternoon two years before this March morning , Edith Darrell set out to walk from Millfield , a large manufacturing town , five miles from Sandypoint , home . She had been driven over in the morning by a neighbor , to buy a new dress ; she had dined at noon with an acquaintance , and as the Millfield clocks struck five , set out to walk home . She was a capital walker ; she knew the road well ; she had the garnet merino clasped close in her arms , a talisman against cold or weariness , and thinking how well she would look in it next Thursday at the party , she tripped blithely along . A keen wind blew , a dark drifting sky hung low over the black frozen earth , and before Miss Darrell had finished the first mile of her pilgrimage , the great feathery snow flakes began whirling down . She looked up in dismay -- snow !