seven P.M.
When he returned that night to Brackenhurst with two large trunks , full of underclothing and so forth , he had to come round once more to the Monteiths , as Philip anticipated , to bring back the Gladstone bag and the brown portmanteau . He did it with so much graceful and gracious courtesy , and such manly gratitude for the favour done him , that he left still more deeply than ever on Frida 's mind the impression of a gentleman . He had found out all the right shops to go to in London , he said ; and he had ordered everything necessary to social salvation at the very best tailor 's , so strictly in accordance with Philip 's instructions that he thought he should now transgress no more the sumptuary rules in that matter made and established , as long as he remained in this realm of England . He had commanded a black cut-away coat , suitable for Sunday morning ; and a curious garment called a frock-coat , buttoned tight over the chest , to be worn in the afternoon , especially in London ; and a still quainter coat , made of shiny broadcloth , with strange tails behind , which was considered `` respectable , '' after seven P.M. , for a certain restricted class of citizens -- those who paid a particular impost known as income-tax , as far as he could gather from what the tailor told him : though the classes who really did any good in the state , the working men and so forth , seemed exempted by general consent from wearing it . Their dress , indeed , he observed , was , strange to say , the least cared for and evidently the least costly of anybody 's . He admired the Monteith children so unaffectedly , too , telling them how pretty and how sweet-mannered they were to their very faces , that he quite won Frida 's heart ; though Robert did not like it . Robert had evidently some deep-seated superstition about the matter ; for he sent Maimie , the eldest girl , out of the room at once ; she was four years old ; and he took little Archie , the two-year-old , on his knee , as if to guard him from some moral or social contagion .