nearly noon
This may in part account for the uneventfulness of its passage ; events do not happen rapidly among the Creoles in bad weather . However , trade was good . But the weather cleared ; and when it was getting well on into the Creole spring and approaching the spring of the almanacs , something did occur that extended Frowenfeld 's acquaintance without Doctor Keene 's assistance . It is nearly noon of a balmy morning late in February . Aurore Nancanou and her daughter have only this moment ceased sewing , in the small front room of No. 19 rue Bienville . Number 19 is the right-hand half of a single-story , low-roofed tenement , washed with yellow ochre , which it shares generously with whoever leans against it . It sits as fast on the ground as a toad .