five o'clock
Since , however , the Colonel , after this chapter , mounts his best hunter and disappears over a high hedge into space so far as our story is concerned , any further delineation of his wholesome but very ordinary type is unnecessary . One winter 's evening , not very long after Christmas , the Colonel made a discovery . It alarmed him a little ; for it suggested to his cocksure mind that he did not understand _ all _ his children as comprehensively as he imagined . Between five o'clock tea and dinner -- that magic hour when lessons were over and the big house was full of shadows and mystery -- there came a timid knock at the study door . `` Come in , '' growled the soldier in his deepest voice , and a little girl 's face , wreathed in tumbling brown hair , poked itself hesitatingly through the opening . The Colonel did not like being disturbed at this hour , and everybody in the house knew it ; but the spell of Christmas holidays was still somehow in the air , and the customary order was not yet fully re-established . Moreover , when he saw who the intruder was , his growl modified itself into a sort of common sternness that yet was not cleverly enough simulated to deceive the really intuitive little person who now stood inside the room .