about half after
six
The qualities of womanhood well developed , were so entirely the staple of her composition , that there is little to describe in her . Was not she one made to learn ; to lean ; to admire ; to support ; to enhance every joy ; to soften every sorrow of the object of her devotion ? * * * * * Another picture from Honora Charlecote 's life . It is about half after six , on a bright autumnal morning ; and , rising nearly due east , out of a dark pine-crowned hill , the sun casts his slanting beams over an undulating country , clothed in gray mist of tints differing with the distance , the farther hills confounded with the sky , the nearer dimly traced in purple , and the valleys between indicated by the whiter , woollier vapours that rise from their streams , a goodly land of fertile field and rich wood , cradled on the bosoms of those soft hills . Nestled among the woods , clothing its hollows on almost every side , rises a low hill , with a species of table land on the top , scattered over with large thorns and scraggy oaks that cast their shadows over the pale buff bents of the short soft grass of the gravelly soil . Looking southward is a low , irregular , old-fashioned house , with two tall gable ends like eyebrows , and the lesser gable of a porch between them , all covered with large chequers of black timber , filled up with cream-coloured cement . A straight path leads from the porch between beds of scarlet geraniums , their luxuriant horse-shoe leaves weighed down with wet , and china asters , a drop in every quilling , to an old-fashioned sun-dial , and beside that dial stands Honora Charlecote , gazing joyously out on the bright morning , and trying for the hundredth time to make the shadow of that green old finger point to the same figure as the hand of her watch .