7:30
When Sarah ate she set aside , with a sigh , the dish of dandelions with its crowning ovarious accompaniment . As this dark mass had been transformed from a bright and love-indorsed flower to be an ignominious vegetable , so had her summer hopes wilted and perished . Love may , as Shakespeare said , feed on itself : but Sarah could not bring herself to eat the dandelions that had graced , as ornaments , the first spiritual banquet of her heart 's true affection . At 7:30 the couple in the next room began to quarrel : the man in the room above sought for A on his flute ; the gas went a little lower ; three coal wagons started to unload -- the only sound of which the phonograph is jealous ; cats on the back fences slowly retreated toward Mukden . By these signs Sarah knew that it was time for her to read . She got out `` The Cloister and the Hearth , '' the best non-selling book of the month , settled her feet on her trunk , and began to wander with Gerard . The front door bell rang .