eleven o'clock
asked Father O'Hogan . `` ` Och ! me darlin ' pracher , may ye niver be done ! ' '' We all agreed that we should like to reconstruct the scene for a moment and look at a drawing-room of two hundred years ago , when the Lady Lieutenant after the minuets at eleven o'clock went to her basset table , while her pages attended behind her chair , and when on ball nights the ladies scrambled for sweetmeats on the dancing-floor . As to their probable toilets , one could not give purer pleasure than by quoting Mrs. Delany 's description of one of them : -- ` The Duchess 's dress was of white satin embroidered , the bottom of the petticoat brown hills covered with all sorts of weeds , and every breadth had an old stump of a tree , that ran up almost to the top of the petticoat , broken and ragged , and worked with brown chenille , round which twined nasturtiums , ivy , honeysuckles , periwinkles , and all sorts of running flowers , which spread and covered the petticoat ... . The robings and facings were little green banks covered with all sorts of weeds , and the sleeves and the rest of the gown loose twining branches of the same sort as those on the petticoat . Many of the leaves were finished with gold , and part of the stumps of the trees looked like the gilding of the sun .