nine A.M.
There were blue silk shoes , likewise home-made , with silver buckles , and the long mittens and deep lace ruffles were of Betty 's fabrication . Even the dress itself had been cut by Harriet from old wedding hoards of their mother 's , and made up after the last mode imported by Madam Churchill at the Deanery . The only part of the equipment not of domestic handiwork was the structure on the head . The Carminster hairdresser had been making his rounds since daylight , taking his most distinguished customers last ; and as the Misses Delavie were not high on the roll , Harriet and Aurelia had been under his hands at nine A.M. From that time till three , when the coach called for them , they had sat captive on low stools under a tent of table-cloth over tall chair-backs to keep the dust out of the frosted edifice constructed out of their rich dark hair , of the peculiar tint then called mouse-colour . Betty had refused to submit to this durance . `` What sort of dinner would be on my father 's table-cloth if I were to sit under one all day ? '' said she in answer to Harriet 's representation of the fitness of things .