nearly
six o'clock
-- This was the text ; but sitting at the open window , looking out into the garden , where the birds , exempt , as they seemed to think , for once from the vulgar scrutiny of man , were singing at the pitch of all their voices as they prepared for breakfast ; and where the sweet air of the morning breathed into his mind a freshness and hopefulness which youth can never resist , and seduced his thoughts away from all the harder problems of his life to dwell upon the sweeter trouble of that doubt about Lucy , -- was not the best means of getting on with his work . He sat thus leaning back -- sometimes dipping his pen in the ink , and hovering over the paper for two or three seconds at a time , sometimes reading over the words , and making a faint effort to recall his own attention to them ; for , on the whole , perhaps , it is not of much use getting up very early in the morning when the chief consequence of it is , that a man feels he has an hour to spare , and a little time to play before he begins . Mr Wentworth was still lingering in this peaceful pause , when he heard , in the stillness , hasty steps coming down Grange Lane . No doubt it was some workmen going to their work , and he felt it must be nearly six o'clock , and dipped his pen once more in the ink ; but , the next moment , paused again to listen , feeling in his heart a strange conviction that the steps would stop at his door , and that something was going to happen . He was sure of it , and yet somehow the sound tingled upon his heart when he heard the bell ring , waking up echoes in the silent house . Cook and Sarah had not yet given any signs of coming down-stairs , and nobody stirred even at the sound of the bell . Mr Wentworth put down his pen altogether , and listened with an anxiety which he could scarcely account for -- knowing , as he said to himself , that it must be the milk , or the baker , or somebody .