six
o’clock
Certainly , in a worldly sense , a handsome face at three-and-forty had never served a man in better stead . The new house at Kensington was ready , and they were all in town . The Hyde Park shrubs had been transplanted as usual , the chairs ranked in line , the grass edgings trimmed , the roads made to look as if they were suffering from a heavy thunderstorm ; carriages had been called for by the easeful , horses by the brisk , and the Drive and Row were again the groove of gaiety for an hour . We gaze upon the spectacle , at six o'clock on this midsummer afternoon , in a melon-frame atmosphere and beneath a violet sky . The Swancourt equipage formed one in the stream . Mrs. Swancourt was a talker of talk of the incisive kind , which her low musical voice -- the only beautiful point in the old woman -- prevented from being wearisome . ` Now , ' she said to Elfride , who , like AEneas at Carthage , was full of admiration for the brilliant scene , ` you will find that our companionless state will give us , as it does everybody , an extraordinary power in reading the features of our fellow-creatures here .