five o’clock
On the appointed Sundays when they received their guests , she was , despite her years , active in the kitchen to superintend the dishes , which she served at the table with an agility that -LRB- to use a favorite expression of the worthy Ragon -RRB- might have given points to Mademoiselle Contat when she played Susanne in the `` Mariage de Figaro . '' The guests on this occasion were Popinot the judge , Pillerault , Anselme , the three Birotteaus , three Matifats , and the Abbe Loraux . Madame Matifat , whom we lately met crowned with a turban for the ball , now wore a gown of blue velvet , with coarse cotton stockings , leather shoes , gloves of chamois-skin with a border of green plush , and a bonnet lined with pink , filled in with white puffs about the face . These ten personages assembled at five o'clock . The old Ragons always requested their guests to be punctual . When this worthy couple were invited out , their hosts always put the dinner at the same hour , remembering that stomachs which were sixty-five years old could not adapt themselves to the novel hours recently adopted in the great world . Cesarine was sure that Madame Ragon would place her beside Anselme ; for all women , be they fools or saints , know what is what in love .