three o'clock
... Oh , there 's a big motor-boat going by like the wind . '' For though she might sometimes jeer aloud over processes , the daughter was known to be quite as serious at heart as her mother , over the great matters of life . Otherwise , look you , she might not have been at the Beach at all to-day . The fact was that she and mamma had not _ positively _ decided on this recuperative excursion -LRB- though they had _ practically _ decided -RRB- until after the arrival of Cousin Willie Kerr 's notelet at breakfast : in which notelet Willie mentioned laconically that he and Mr. Canning were themselves going Beachward by the three o'clock train , and concluded his few lines with _ verbum sap _ , which is a Latin quotation . Standing idly at the window , the girl had indeed been thinking of Mr. Canning before her mother spoke ; and thinking with most pleasurable speculations . Truly he was worth a thought , was Mr. Canning , proud stranger within the gates -- `` house-guest , '' as the society column prefers it -- for whom , if reports were true , many ladies fair had sighed , sickened , and died . And she , alone in her maidenly coterie , had already met the too exclusive metropolitan -- four days ago , by the lucky fluke of turning in at the Country Club at an out-of-the-way morning moment , when she might have motored straight on home , and had been within an ace of doing so .