three o'clock in the afternoon
`` I will stay with Mother , '' she said with a virtuous air . The old lady , stately in her black satin , with white diamonds gleaming on her veinous hands , glanced acutely at them . The next day , when her daughter Harriet insisted that the cross barred muslin was not too spoiled to wear to the inspection of curios , she declared that it was simply filthy , and that Annie must wear her blue , and that the little string of turquoise beads was not in the least too dressy for the occasion . It therefore happened that Annie and her Aunt Harriet set forth at three o'clock in the afternoon , Annie in blue , and her aunt in thin black grenadine with a glitter of jet and a little black bonnet with a straight tuft of green rising from a little wobble of jet , and a black-fringed parasol tilted well over her eyes . Annie 's charming little face was framed in a background of white parasol . Margaret saw them pass as she sat on her verandah . She had received more congratulatory letters that day , and the thief envied the one from whom she had taken .