four o'clock
He was a much greater general favourite than Mr. Browne ; everybody appreciated his affable manner and bland smile , and the little jokes with which he punctuated his remarks . The girls always felt that it made a change to have anybody coming in from the outside world . The one disadvantage of a boarding-school is that mistresses and pupils , shut up together , and seeing one another week in , week out , are rather apt to get on each others ' nerves . At a day school the girls take their worries home at four o'clock , and the mental atmosphere has time to clear before nine next morning ; but , when there is no home-going until the end of the term , little trifles are sometimes unduly magnified , and a narrow element -- the bane of all communities -- begins to creep in . To do Miss Beasley justice , she made a great effort to combat this very evil , and to run her school on broad lines . She recognized the necessity of letting the girls mix sometimes with outsiders . In a country place it was impossible to take them to concerts or entertainments , but they occasionally joined the rambles of the County Antiquarian Society or the local Natural History Club .