about eight o'clock
`` My brain runs this way and that way ; ` twill not fix On aught but vengeance . '' DUKE OF GUISE . I must now go back to an hour or two before Mary and her friends parted for the night . It might be about eight o'clock that evening , and the three Miss Carsons were sitting in their father 's drawing-room . He was asleep in the dining-room , in his own comfortable chair . Mrs. Carson was -LRB- as was usual with her , when no particular excitement was going on -RRB- very poorly , and sitting up-stairs in her dressing-room , indulging in the luxury of a head-ache . She was not well , certainly .