four o'clock
`` Then you 'll be all alone ? '' `` I 'm never alone , '' said Lathrop , with decision . And rising he went to the door of the cottage -- which opened straight on the hill-side , and set it open . It was four o'clock on a November day . The autumn was late , and of a marvellous beauty . The month was a third gone and still there were trees here and there , isolated trees , intensely green as though they defied decay . The elder trees , the first to leaf under the Spring , were now the last to wither .