three minutes to eleven
If only there had been one for her in Tom 's clear , bold handwriting . But it was useless to linger , even for a moment , over what might have been . Grace gathered up her letters and , locking them in her desk , went upstairs , with slow , dragging steps , to dress for her call upon President Morton . It was three minutes to eleven when a slim , erect figure walked up the steps of Overton Hall . Grace wore a smartly tailored suit of white serge , white buckskin shoes , white kid gloves and a white hemp hat trimmed with curved white quills . The lining of the hat bore the name of a famous maker . She had taken a kind of melancholy pride in her toilet that morning , and the result was all that she could have wished .