eight o'clock
There was just the faintest wind at the waters edge , but it seemed almost too tired after the hot , long day to breathe and make ripples . Very slowly the grey , still light deepened , and a white star or two came out and blinked up away in the high , far heavens . Down behind the gum trees , across the river , there was a still whiter moon ; a stretch of water near was beginning to smile up to it . Meg hoped it would not climb past the tree-tops before eight o'clock , or the long paddocks would be flooded with light and she would be seen . At tea-time , and during the early part of the evening , she was preoccupied and inclined to be irritable in her anxiety , and she snubbed Bunty two or three times quite unkindly . He had been hovering about her ever since six o'clock in almost a pitiable way . It was characteristic of this small boy that when he had been tempted into departing from the paths of truth he was absolutely wretched until he had confessed , and rubbed his little unclean hands into his wet eyes until he was `` a sight to dream of , not to tell . ''