nine o'clock
`` Girls would n't be eternally losing their watches if they were n't so vain about wearing those silly little châtelaine pins . '' `` Why , David Nesbit ! '' exclaimed Grace , glancing up at the mission clock on the wall . `` It 's almost nine o'clock ! I had no idea it was so late . Let 's go down at once . '' They returned to the parlor to find Anne and Miriam deep in some foreign photographs that Miriam had collected during her trip to Europe the previous summer .