six o'clock
`` Roses ? '' asked Miss Kippy , drawing a quick breath of delight ; and when Mr. Opp nodded , she closed her eyes and smiled as if heaven were within sight . For Miss Kippy was like a harp across which some rough hand had swept , snapping all the strings but two , the high one of ecstasy and the low one of despair . At six o'clock Mr. Opp went up to make his toilet . The rain , which had been merely rehearsing all day , was now giving a regular performance , and it played upon the windows , and went trilling through the gutters on the roof , while the old cedar-tree scraped an accompaniment on the corner of the porch below . But , nothing daunted , Mr. Opp donned his bravest attire . Cyclones and tornadoes could not have deterred him from making the most elaborate toilet at his command .