five o'clock
She followed his gaze , and saw walking across to him a flexible young creature in whom she perceived the features of her she had known as Miss Grace Melbury , but now looking glorified and refined above her former level . Winterborne , being fixed to the spot by his apple-tree , could not advance to meet her ; he held out his spare hand with his hat in it , and with some embarrassment beheld her coming on tiptoe through the mud to the middle of the square where he stood . Miss Melbury 's arrival so early was , as Marty could see , unexpected by Giles , which accounted for his not being ready to receive her . Indeed , her father had named five o'clock as her probable time , for which reason that hour had been looming out all the day in his forward perspective , like an important edifice on a plain . Now here she was come , he knew not how , and his arranged welcome stultified . His face became gloomy at her necessity for stepping into the road , and more still at the little look of embarrassment which appeared on hers at having to perform the meeting with him under an apple-tree ten feet high in the middle of the market-place . Having had occasion to take off the new gloves she had bought to come home in , she held out to him a hand graduating from pink at the tips of the fingers to white at the palm ; and the reception formed a scene , with the tree over their heads , which was not by any means an ordinary one in Sherton Abbas streets .