seven o'clock
Margot was a good cook , and the dinner was an excellent one , prolonged -- as Margot thought -- beyond all reasonable length , by a discussion , between Ruleson and Angus , of the conservative policy . Ruleson smoked his pipe after dinner , and kept up the threep , and the girls put out of sight the used china , and the meat and pastries left , and Margot put on her usual Sabbath attire -- a light-gray silk dress , a large white collar , and a borderless cap of lace over her dark hair . The indispensable bit of color was , in her case , supplied by a vivid scarlet shawl of Chinese crêpe , one of those heavily embroidered shawls of dazzling color , which seem in these latter days to have disappeared . It was getting near to seven o'clock , when they entered the hall and found it already full and happy . They had not thought it necessary to wait in whispering silence , until the music came and opened the entertainment . They possessed among themselves many good story tellers , and they were heartily laughing in chorus at some comic incident which a fisherman was relating , when the Ruleson party arrived . Then there was one long , loud , unanimous cry for Christine Ruleson , for Christine was preëminent as a vive-voce story teller , a rare art even among the nations of Europe .