eight
o'clock
`` She 's Cousin Olaf 's wife . '' Mrs. Olaf Ericson -- Clara Vavrika , as many people still called her -- was moving restlessly about her big bare house that morning . Her husband had left for the county town before his wife was out of bed -- her lateness in rising was one of the many things the Ericson family had against her . Clara seldom came downstairs before eight o'clock , and this morning she was even later , for she had dressed with unusual care . She put on , however , only a tight-fitting black dress , which people thereabouts thought very plain . She was a tall , dark woman of thirty , with a rather sallow complexion and a touch of dull salmon red in her cheeks , where the blood seemed to burn under her brown skin . Her hair , parted evenly above her low forehead , was so black that there were distinctly blue lights in it .