ten o'clock
The Blairs ' was the only house on the street without one . The evening passed with the brother and sister at opposite sides of the black , marble-topped table in the long parlour , she embroidering on a strip of cambric with nice skill , he quickly and deftly cutting the wrappers and pages of papers and magazines accumulated in his absence . To undertake just what he could do justice to and keep abreast of it , was the method by which he accomplished more than any two men , in business , in church affairs , in civic duties , for the man took his citizenship seriously . Both brother and sister had been raised to economy of time , yet sometimes she mocked at herself for her many excellencies and sometimes sighed , while he -- At ten o'clock Harriet rolled her work together and said good-night , ascending the crimson-carpeted stairway with the unhurried movement of an Olympian goddess ; that is , if an Olympian goddess could have been so genuinely above concern about it . Her room , a front one on the second floor , had a look of spaciousness and exquisite order . She moved about , adjusting a shade , setting a gas-bracket at some self-imposed angle of correctness , giving the sheets of the opened bed a touch of adjustment . It was the price paid for the free exercise of individuality .