four o'clock
`` And mamma will come too ? '' `` Of course mamma 's coming too ; unless , indeed , you mean to charge so high a price for the exhibition , '' said my father comically , `` that I can not afford it . But even then , '' he added , `` mamma shall see it ; I 'll give it up for her . '' I was off from the luncheon-table as soon as possible , but found nurse lying in wait to capture me and enforce upon my mind the first duty of returning by four o'clock , to be dressed properly before the arrival of our visitors , whose impression of me , she conceived , would be most unfavourable were they to find me in what she was pleased to call `` this trumpery , '' referring to a little sailor 's suit of white and blue in which I was very generally attired , and which nurse chose to disapprove . She wound up her admonition by a sort of lament over my light-mindedness as to my best clothes ; a spirit which , she remarked , was apt to cling to people to their graves -- sometimes afterwards ; which I scarcely thought possible . Frisk and I darted down the Zig-zag at our usual pace , so soon as I was released from nurse 's kind offices , and joined old George , who was on the look-out for us . Very pleased we were with the result of our exertions when the really pretty triumphal arch was completed ; the letters of the word _ Welcome _ in conspicuously gay flowers forming a pretty contrast to the leafy background , and eliciting what we felt to be a well-merited admiration from my parents and a select committee of servants , who came severally to inspect our handiwork in the course of the afternoon .