half after nine o'clock, summer
She felt unable to cope with the situation till she had adjusted her thoughts and made her plans . Presently Billy , looking at her shrewdly , said : `` Gim me my rabbit foot , Aunt Minerva , an ' I 'll go right off to sleep . '' When she again looked in on him he was fast asleep , a rosy flush on his babyish , tearstained cheek , his red lips half parted , his curly head pillowed on his arm , and close against his soft , young throat there nestled the left hind foot of a rabbit . Miss Minerva 's bed time was half after nine o'clock , summer or winter . She had hardly varied a second in the years that had elapsed since the runaway marriage of her only relative , the young sister whose child had now come to live with her . But on the night of Billy 's arrival the stern , narrow woman sat for hours in her rocking chair , her mind busy with thoughts of that pretty young sister , dead since the boy 's birth . And now the wild , reckless , dissipated brother-in-law was dead , too , and the child had been sent to her ; to the aunt who did not want him , who did not care for children , who had never forgiven her sister her unfortunate marriage .