nine o'clock
The Tudor and Elizabethan periods had left more permanent traces , and , though later architects had played havoc with the simplicity of the style , they had not altogether destroyed its sixteenth-century appearance . The greater part was built of northern stone , with mullioned windows , twisted chimneys , peaked gables surmounted with stone balls , and a roof of flat slabs of the same yellow-brown stone that formed the walls . A section of black and white timbered Elizabethan work , a Queen Anne wing , and some early Victorian alterations made a strange conglomeration of styles of architecture ; but the roses and ivy had climbed up and clothed ancient and modern alike , and Time had softened the jarring nineteenth-century additions , so that the whole now blended into a mellow , brownish mass , with large , bright windows enclosed in a frame of well-clipped greenery . There was accommodation in the roomy old house for twenty boarders , and though no day pupils were supposed to be received a special exception had been made in the case of Meg and Elsie Fleming , the Vicar 's daughters , who arrived every morning by nine o'clock , and Nell Gledhill , whose governess brought her each Friday afternoon for dancing-lessons . So far the school had jogged along very happily under Mrs. Gifford 's mild regime . Fathers and mothers had sometimes shrugged their shoulders and hinted that her methods were old-fashioned , but they always added that the tone of the place was so excellent , and the health of the pupils so well looked after , that there was really no just cause for complaint . Miss Todd , sitting in her study , and writing twenty neat , well-thought-out letters to explain the sudden transfer of the school , assured parents that , while preserving all the traditions of her predecessor , she hoped to introduce a modern element of progress in keeping with the needs of the day .