three in the afternoon
She was by nature not only alive to all life but alive to surrounding lifeless things . Much alone in the house , she had sent her happiness overflowing its dumb environs -- humanizing these -- drawing them toward her by a gracious responsive symbolism -- extending speech over realms which nature has not yet awakened to it or which she may have struck into speechlessness long æons past . She had symbolized the clock ; it was the wooden God of Hours ; she had often feigned that it might be propitiated ; and opening the door of it she would pin inside the walls little clusters of blossoms as votive offerings : if it would only move faster and bring him home ! The usual hour of his return from college was three in the afternoon . She had symbolized that hour ; one stroke for him , one for her , one for the children -- the three in one -- the trinity of the household . She sat there on the step with the candle burning beside her . The clock struck three !