ten o'clock
I 'm fond of him . Miss Marion , your mother is a genius . I hope she can plan these little affairs oftener . '' It was half-past ten o'clock when Ben Cameron entered the room with Elsie a little ruffled at his delay over imaginary business at his office . Ben answered her criticisms with a strange elation . She had felt a secret between them and resented it . At Mrs. Lenoir 's special request , he had put on his full uniform of a Confederate Colonel in honour of Marion and the poem her father had written of one of his gallant charges .