noon
`` At least , you believe me ! '' But I answer nothing . It is the tears that keep me dumb , but I think that he thinks me still unconvinced , for he turns away with a groan . `` I made a posy while the day ran by , Here will I smell my remnant out , and tie My life within this band ; But Time did beckon to the flowers , and they By noon most cunningly did steal away , And withered in my hand ! '' We are home again now ; we have been away only three days after all , but they seem to me like three years -- three disastrous years -- so greatly during them has the gulf between Roger and me widened and deepened . Looking back on what it was before that , it seems to me now to have been but a shallow and trifling ditch , compared to the abyss that it is now . We left Mr. Parker standing at the hall-door , his red hair flaming bravely in the morning sun , loudly expressing his regret at our departure , and trying to extract an unlikely promise from us that we will come back next week .