five o'clock
He told Lydia that those palpably hired-for-the-occasion nigger waiters were very bad form , and belonged to a phase of Endbury 's social gaucheries as outgrown now as charade parties . But now , of course , nothing else was possible . In the intervals of cooking , Lydia left her makeshift help in the kitchen , to see that nothing burned , and in a frenzy of activity flew at some of the manifold things to be done to prepare the house for the festivity . She swept and wiped up herself the expansive floors of the two large parlors , set the rooms in order , dusted the innumerable wedding present knickknacks , cleaned the stairs , wiped free from dust the carved balustrades , ordered the bedrooms that were to serve as dressing rooms in the evening , answered the ` phone a thousand times , arranged flowers in the vases , received a reportorial call from Miss Burgess , gave cut glass and china its final polish , laid out Paul 's evening clothes and arranged her own toilet ready -- it was five o'clock ! There were innumerable other tasks to accomplish , but she dared no longer put off setting the table . It was to be a large dinner -- large , that is , for Endbury -- of twenty covers , and Lydia had never prepared a table for so many guests . The number of objects necessary for the conventional setting of a dinner table appalled her .