ten o'clock
`` Lights-out '' as usual , rang at nine-thirty , but it rang to deaf ears . A spirit of restless festivity was abroad . The little girls in the `` Baby Ward '' larked about the halls in a pillow fight , until they were sternly ordered to bed by the Dowager herself . It was close to ten o'clock when the candy-pullers washed their sticky hands and turned upstairs . Patty found a delegation of potato racers waiting with the news that she had won the prize . An interested crowd gathered to watch her open the box ; it contained a tin funeral wreath that had been displayed that winter in the window of the village undertaker -- Kid had bought it cheap , owing to fly specks that would not rub off . The wreath was hoisted on the end of a shinny stick and marched through the corridor to the tune of `` John Brown 's Body , '' while Mademoiselle ineffectually wrung her hands and begged for quiet . ''