nine o'clock
`` Late hours for such a quiet village as Mount Stanning . Good-night , my worthy host . Good-night , Mrs. Marks . You need n't send me my shaving water till nine o'clock to-morrow morning . '' Eleven o'clock struck the next morning , and found Mr. Robert Audley still lounging over the well ordered little breakfast table , with one of his dogs at each side of his arm-chair , regarding him with watchful eyes and opened mouths , awaiting the expected morsel of ham or toast . Robert had a county paper on his knees , and made a feeble effort now and then to read the first page , which was filled with advertisements of farming stock , quack medicines , and other interesting matter . The weather had changed , and the snow , which had for the last few days been looming blackly in the frosty sky , fell in great feathery flakes against the windows , and lay piled in the little bit of garden-ground without .