three o'clock on
Christmas Eve
`` You can do as you like about that , '' said Sir Raffle . Eames did do as he liked , and went home , or to his club ; and as he went he resolved that he would put an end , and at once , to the present trouble of his life . Lily Dale should accept him or reject him ; and , taking either the one or the other alternative , she should hear a bit of his mind plainly spoken . It was Christmas-time down at Allington , and at three o'clock on Christmas Eve , just as the darkness of the early winter evening was coming on , Lily Dale and Grace Crawley were seated together , one above the other , on the steps leading up to the pulpit in Allington Church . They had been working all day at the decorations of the church , and they were now looking round them at the result of their handiwork . To an eye unused to the gloom the place would have been nearly dark ; but they could see every corner turned by the ivy sprigs , and every line on which the holly-leaves were shining . And the greeneries of the winter had not been stuck up in the old-fashioned , idle way , a bough just fastened up here and a twig inserted there ; but everything had been done with some meaning , with some thought towards the original architecture of the building .