nine o'clock
He dwelt upon the effect of the scenery -- he quoted passages from his own epic -- and he spoke of the time when his fair companion was his mother 's first-foot . She informed him that she was then hastening to the death-bed of her grandfather , whom she believed to be the only relative that she had in life -- that she arrived in time to receive his blessing , and that , with his dying breath , he told her her father yet lived -- and , for the first time , she heard his name , and had found him . George would have asked what that name was , but when he attempted to do so he hesitated , and the question was left unfinished . They spoke of many things , and often they walked in silence ; and it was not until the watchman called , `` Past nine o'clock , '' that they seemed to discover that , instead of proceeding towards Pimlico , they had been walking backward and forward upon the Mall . Ho accompanied her to her father 's door , and left her with his heart filled with unutterable thoughts . The three months had not quite expired , when the anxiously-looked-for invitation arrived , and George Rogers was to dine at the house of his uncle 's friend , the father of the fair Isabel . I shall not describe his feelings as he hastened along the streets towards Pimlico .