about six o'clock
When Norma went to her room , big boxes were on the bed , boxes that held everything that was simple and beautiful in mourning : plain , charming frocks , a smart long seal-bordered coat , veils and gloves , small and elegant hats , even black-bordered handkerchiefs . She dressed herself soberly , yet not without that mournful thrill that fitness and becomingness lends to bereavement . When she went back to Annie 's side Annie was in beautiful lengths of lustreless crape , too ; they settled down to low , sad conversation , with a few of the privileged old friends . Chris was nowhere to be seen , but at about six o'clock Acton came in to show them a telegram from Leslie , flying homeward . Judge Lee was hurrying to them from Washington , and for a few minutes Annie 's handsome , bewildered little boys came in with a governess , and she cried over them , and clung to them forlornly . After a distracted half-hour in the dining-room , when she and Acton and Annie 's secretary had soup and salad from a sort of buffet meal that was going on there indefinitely , Norma went upstairs to find that the door to the front upper sitting-room , closed for hours , was set ajar , and to see a vague mass of beautiful flowers within -- white and purple flowers , and wreaths of shining dark round leaves . With a quick-beating heart she stepped softly inside , and went to kneel at the nearer coffin , and cover her face with her shaking hands .