midnight
She wore a pink lawn dress vastly becoming to her style , and a string of old-fashioned pearl beads was wound through her dark braids . `` You 'd better make amends for spoiling all my pretty work as you and Leigh have done , '' she said in reply to Thaine 's frank compliment . `` I 'll make it a few more dances , for you do dance better than any of the other boys -- '' `` Except Todd Stewart , Junior , '' the owner of the name , who had just come in , declared . `` There is to be a birthday party and an old settlers ' meeting , and maybe a French duel or two before midnight . I remember when I was the only kid in the Grass River Valley . There were others at first , but I always thought the grasshoppers or Darley Champers ate 'em . And Jo is the first white girl baby born in captivity here .