five o'clock
Sweet and gracious Ellen Berstoun , so slender and pretty and charming , wasting her fragrance in the old garden and the dark pine-woods for the sake of certain passionate memories and the most impractical of day-dreams , was a sight to make a philosopher despair . Undoubtedly Andrew 's were the proper principles . With the drawing in of dusk a thin mist stole up from the river and stealthily crept through the streets and lanes of Chelsea . It was not yet five o'clock , but on an afternoon in the depth of winter the little touch of fog converted dusk to darkness . The mist was not thick , but very cold and clammy , and in the zigzag lane the lamps were blurred and the shadows deep . Two people left a bus in the King 's Road and turned down it . He was broad-shouldered , and swung along with a fine decided stride : she was trim and erect , and very quietly clad ; her face was fresh and bright , a smile haunted her eyes , and her straight little nose seemed to breathe independence .