seven
o'clock in the evening
With these feelings , she rather dreaded than sought for the first view of that well-known spire which would announce her within twenty miles of home . Salisbury she had known to be her point on leaving Northanger ; but after the first stage she had been indebted to the post-masters for the names of the places which were then to conduct her to it ; so great had been her ignorance of her route . She met with nothing , however , to distress or frighten her . Her youth , civil manners , and liberal pay procured her all the attention that a traveller like herself could require ; and stopping only to change horses , she travelled on for about eleven hours without accident or alarm , and between six and seven o'clock in the evening found herself entering Fullerton . A heroine returning , at the close of her career , to her native village , in all the triumph of recovered reputation , and all the dignity of a countess , with a long train of noble relations in their several phaetons , and three waiting-maids in a travelling chaise and four , behind her , is an event on which the pen of the contriver may well delight to dwell ; it gives credit to every conclusion , and the author must share in the glory she so liberally bestows . But my affair is widely different ; I bring back my heroine to her home in solitude and disgrace ; and no sweet elation of spirits can lead me into minuteness . A heroine in a hack post-chaise is such a blow upon sentiment , as no attempt at grandeur or pathos can withstand .