about three o’clock
Only the way Mr. Flack does it 's a different style . '' `` Well , people like to be praised in any style . '' `` That 's so , '' Delia had continued to brood . One afternoon , coming in about three o'clock , Mr. Flack found Francie alone . She had expressed a wish after luncheon for a couple of hours of independence : intending to write to Gaston , and having accidentally missed a post , she had determined her letter should be of double its usual length . Her companions had respected her claim for solitude , Mr. Dosson taking himself off to his daily session in the reading-room of the American bank and Delia -- the girls had now at their command a landau as massive as the coach of an ambassador -- driving away to the dressmaker 's , a frequent errand , to superintend and urge forward the progress of her sister 's wedding-clothes . Francie was not skilled in composition ; she wrote slowly and had in thus addressing her lover much the same sense of sore tension she supposed she should have in standing at the altar with him .