three o'clock
she suddenly thought , and then felt as if she had been getting ready to go all day . She felt deceitful , sly , in spite of her constant reiteration that it had just occurred to her . She left the house unseen ; she hid behind a bush when she saw the hounds raise their heads from the sunny porch -- she wanted to go alone to the cabin across the river . It was three o'clock when she reached it , and she had hurried along the short trail , too . Mary was not in sight , but the living-room door was open and Nancy stood looking in with a baffling sense of unreality ; the place looked different ; almost as if she had never seen it before . She mentally took note of the furniture as though checking the pieces off . The big bed , gay with patchwork quilts -- Nancy knew all the patterns : Sunrise on the Peaks ; Drunkard 's Path ; the Rainbow -- Mary was making up for all that her forebears had neglected to do .