about nine
o'clock
And all that winter , with the papers full of rumors that Miss Patty Jennings was going to marry a prince , we 'd followed it by the spring-house fire , the old doctor and I , getting angry at the Austrian emperor for opposing it when we knew how much too good Miss Patty was for any foreigner , and then getting nervous and fussed when we read that the prince 's mother was in favor of the match and it might go through . Miss Patty and her father came every winter to Hope Springs and I could n't have been more anxious about it if she had been my own sister . Well , as I say , it all began the very day the old doctor died . He stamped out to the spring-house with the morning paper about nine o'clock , and the wedding seemed to be all off . The paper said the emperor had definitely refused his consent and had sent the prince , who was his cousin , for a Japanese cruise , while the Jennings family was going to Mexico in their private car . The old doctor was indignant , and I remember how he tramped up and down the spring-house , muttering that the girl had had a lucky escape , and what did the emperor expect if beauty and youth and wealth were n't enough . But he calmed down , and soon he was reading that the papers were predicting an early spring , and he said we 'd better begin to increase our sulphur percentage in the water .