ten o’clock
Her age was nineteen , and she had now for two years been employed in the show-rooms of a City warehouse . Last comes Henry , a lad of seventeen ; he had been suffered to aim at higher things than the rest of the family . In the industrial code of precedence the rank of clerk is a step above that of mechanic , and Henry -- known to relatives and friends as ` Arry -- occupied the proud position of clerk in a drain-pipe manufactory . At ten o'clock on the evening of Easter Sunday , Mrs. Mutimer was busy preparing supper . She had laid the table for six , had placed at one end of it a large joint of cold meat , at the other a vast flee-pudding , already diminished by attack , and she was now slicing a conglomerate mass of cold potatoes and cabbage prior to heating it in the frying-pan , which hissed with melted dripping just on the edge of the fire . The kitchen was small , and everywhere reflected from some bright surface either the glow of the open grate or the yellow lustre of the gas-jet ; red curtains drawn across the window added warmth and homely comfort to the room . It was not the kitchen of pinched or slovenly working folk ; the air had a scent of cleanliness , of freshly scrubbed boards and polished metal , and the furniture was super-abundant .