four o'clock
They were not even linen , -- how could they be for Fritzing 's three hundred marks ? And their newness had not yet been exposed to the softening influence of any wash-tub . Straight did they come , in all their crackling stiffness , out of the shop and on to the Princess . Annalise had been supposed to wash them or cause them to be washed the day before , but Annalise had been far too busy crying to do anything of the sort ; and by four o'clock Priscilla was goaded by them into a condition of mind so unworthy that she was thinking quite hard about the Kunitz fine linen and other flesh-pots and actually finding the recollection sweet . It was a place , Priscilla mused , where her body had been exquisitely cared for . Those delicate meals , served in spotlessness , surely they had been rather of the nature of poems ? Those web-like garments , soft as a kiss , how beautiful they had been to touch and wear .