seven o'clock
The habits of the Gulmore household were in some respects primitive . Though it was not yet seven o'clock two negro girls were clearing away the breakfast things under the minute supervision of their mistress , an angular , sharp-faced woman with a reedy voice , and nervously abrupt movements . Near the table sat a girl of nineteen absorbed in a book . In an easy-chair by the open bay-window a man with a cigar in his mouth was reading a newspaper . Jonathan Byrne Gulmore , as he always signed himself , was about fifty years of age ; his heavy frame was muscular , and the coarse dark hair and swarthy skin showed vigorous health .