one o’clock
This was on New Year 's Day , when Mr. Walrond asked him to dinner to meet Barbara , who was coming down for the first time . Needless to say he went , taking with him a large bunch of violets which he had grown in a frame at the Hall especially for Barbara . Indeed , she had already received many of those violets through the agency of her numerous younger sisters . The Rectory dinner was at one o'clock , and the feast could not be called sumptuous . It consisted of a piece of beef , that known as the `` aitch-bone , '' which is perhaps the cheapest that the butcher supplies when the amount of eating is taken into consideration ; one roast duck , a large Pekin , the Near Year offering of the farmer Stevens ; and a plum pudding somewhat pallid in appearance . These dainties with late apples and plenty of cold water made up the best dinner that the Walrond family had eaten for many a day . The Rectory dining-room was a long , narrow chamber of dilapidated appearance , since between meals it served as a schoolroom also .