one in the
afternoon
Laura was early instructed in the mysteries of society life by a competent mentor , and thus was preserved from troublesome mistakes . The first fashionable call she received from a member of the ancient nobility , otherwise the Antiques , was of a pattern with all she received from that limb of the aristocracy afterward . This call was paid by Mrs. Major-General Fulke-Fulkerson and daughter . They drove up at one in the afternoon in a rather antiquated vehicle with a faded coat of arms on the panels , an aged white-wooled negro coachman on the box and a younger darkey beside him -- the footman . Both of these servants were dressed in dull brown livery that had seen considerable service . The ladies entered the drawing-room in full character ; that is to say , with Elizabethan stateliness on the part of the dowager , and an easy grace and dignity on the part of the young lady that had a nameless something about it that suggested conscious superiority . The dresses of both ladies were exceedingly rich , as to material , but as notably modest as to color and ornament .