four in the afternoon
Numbers of well-appointed carriages , filled with well-dressed ladies , drove to and fro , and crowds of officers and civilians strolled under the trees , greeting their acquaintances and discussing the latest gossip of the town . As to the coming of the French , the topic was so threadbare that no one alluded to it ; and no stranger could have imagined from the aspect of the scene that three great armies were lying thirty or forty miles away in readiness to engage at any moment in a desperate struggle . The great subject of talk was the ball that was to be given that evening by the Duchess of Richmond ; this was expected altogether to outshine any of the other festivities that had taken place in Brussels during that gay season . It was about half-past four in the afternoon that the young men saw Captain O'Connor approaching . `` Can you young fellows keep a secret ? '' he asked . `` I think so , '' Ralph laughed .