noon
Anything -- anything at all that was different and would break the monotony ! Lily Leavitt , who was in the Mantles , too , had never ceased to be friendly , and had often invited Win to go out with her in the long summer evenings , but always in vain , month after month , until one day in mid-July , when the heat wave had surged to its record height . It just chanced -- if there be such a thing as chance -- to happen on the day when the girl 's craving for a change had become an obsession , almost an illness . It was a little past noon , and the seniors in Mantles had gone out to lunch . They were rather by way of being aristocrats , these seniors , for the mantle department , Jewellery , and some others worked `` on commission . '' Salaries were no larger than elsewhere , but a handsome percentage was paid on sales ; and those tigers and tigresses who were strong and ferocious enough to grab meat from under their weaker comrades ' noses did extremely well . The Mantles girls who had gone out were champion tigresses .