twelve o'clock
A little after ten o'clock on the next morning , Mr. Dinneford and Edith took their way to the mission-school in Briar street . They found from fifteen to twenty ladies and gentlemen already there , and at work helping to arrange the tables , which were set in the two long upper rooms . There were places for nearly four hundred children , and in front of each was an apple , a cake and a biscuit , and between every four a large mince pie . The forty turkeys were at the baker 's , to be ready at a little before twelve o'clock , the dinner-hour , and in time for the carvers , who were to fill the four hundred plates for the expected guests . At eleven o'clock Edith and her father went down to the chapel on the first floor , where the children had assembled for the morning exercises , that were to continue for an hour . Edith had a place near the reading-desk where she could see the countenances of all those children who were sitting side by side in row after row and filling every seat in the room , a restless , eager , expectant crowd , half disciplined and only held quiet by the order and authority they had learned to respect . Such faces as she looked into !