nine o'clock
He had sympathized with her microscopic cut fingers , he had smiled into her glowing , damp little face when she stuttered to him long tales of bad doggies and big ` ticks ; he had brought her `` jacks '' and paper-dolls and hair ribbons ; he loved the diminutive femininity of the creature ; she was all a woman , even at three . Alix he proudly called his `` boy '' ; Alix used hair ribbons to tie up her dogs , and demanded hip boots and an air rifle and got them , too , and used them , but when he took Alix in his arms she was apt to bump his nose violently with her hard young head , to break his glasses , or at best to wriggle herself free . Little Cherry , however , was ` fraid of dogs , she told her father , and of guns , and she would curl up in his arms for happy half-hours , with her gold curls sprayed against his shoulder , and her soft little hand tucked into his own . `` Mr. Lloyd had to take the nine o'clock train , '' Cherry answered her father dreamily , `` and he and Peter walked home with me ! '' She did not add that Peter had left them at his own turning , a quarter of a mile away . `` I thought he was n't going to be at Mrs. North 's for dinner , '' Anne observed quietly , in the silence . She had been informally asked to the Norths ' for dinner that evening herself , and had declined for no other reason than that attractive Martin Lloyd was presumably not to be there .