seven o'clock in the evening
Her days had lately been so filled with adventure that the placid immobility of the top back room was not only irksome , but maddening , and her mother 's hasty and troubled breathing came between her and her thoughts . The poor furniture of the room was hideous to her eyes , the uncarpeted floor and bleak , stained walls dulled her . She went out , and in a few moments was part of the crowd which passes and repasses nightly from the Rotunda up the broad pathways of Sackville Street , across O'Connell Bridge , up Westmoreland Street , past Trinity College , and on through the brilliant lights of Grafton Street to the Fusiliers ' Arch at the entrance to St. Stephen 's Green Park . Here from half-past seven o'clock in the evening youthful Dublin marches in joyous procession . Sometimes bevies of young girls dance by , each a giggle incarnate . A little distance behind these a troop of young men follow stealthily and critically . They will be acquainted and more or less happily paired before the Bridge is reached .