ten o'clock
Except , perhaps , some travellers now and then , bound for a first express from Boston , or an excursion party to take a harbor steamer for a day 's trip to Nantasket or Nahant . Did you ever contrast one of these trains -- when perhaps you were such traveller or excursionist -- with the after , leisurely , comfortable one at ten or eleven ; when gentlemen who only need to be in the city through banking hours , and ladies bent on calls or elegant shopping , come chatting and rustling to their seats , and hold a little drawing-room exchange in the twenty-five minutes ' trip ? If you have , -- and if you have a little sympathetic imagination that fills out hints , -- you have had a glimpse of some of these `` other girls '' and the thing that daily living is to them , with which my story means to concern itself . Have you noticed the hats , with the rose or the feather behind or at top , scrupulously according to the same dictate of style that rules alike for seven and ten o'clock , but which has often to be worn through wet and dry till the rose has been washed by too many a shower , and the feather blown by too many a dusty wind , to stand for anything but a sign that she knows what should be where , if she only had it to put there ? Have you seen the cheap alpacas , in two shades , sure to fade in different ways and out of kindred with each other , painfully looped in creasing folds , very much sat upon , but which would not by any means resign themselves to simple smoothed straightness , while silks were hitched and crisp Hernanis puffed ? Yet the alpacas , and all their innumerable cousinhood , have also their first mornings of fresh gloss , when the newness of the counter is still upon them ; there is a youth for all things ; a first time , a charm that seems as if it might last , though we know it neither will nor was meant to ; if it would , or were , the counters might be taken down . And people who wear gowns that are creased and faded , have each , one at a time , their days of glory , when they begin again .