four o'clock
Perhaps she was mistaken for the comic-opera star whose brilliant picture she had seen on a bill board in front of the `` opera house . '' Well , she had the voice and she might have been and she might yet be -- and if she were , this would be the distinction that would be shown her . And , still as it was she was greatly pleased . At four o'clock she started for the hills . In half an hour she was dropping down a winding ravine along a rock-lashing stream with those hills so close to the car on either side that only now and then could she see the tops of them . Through the window the keen air came from the very lungs of them , freighted with the coolness of shadows , the scent of damp earth and the faint fragrance of wild flowers , and her soul leaped to meet them . The mountain sides were showered with pink and white laurel -LRB- she used to call it `` ivy '' -RRB- and the rhododendrons -LRB- she used to call them `` laurel '' -RRB- were just beginning to blossom -- they were her old and fast friends -- mountain , shadow , the wet earth and its pure breath , and tree , plant and flower ; she had not forgotten them , and it was good to come back to them .