about eleven o’clock
Almost the first time we practised this deception I was met at the door by the sweetest and dearest of these old divines , who said , `` Have you ever seen the races here ? I 'm told the spectacle is something very fine , '' and I was obliged to own that I had once had a glimpse of them . But it was in vain that I pleaded this fact with Mrs. March ; she insisted that the appearance of not going to the races was something that we owed the cloth , and no connivance on their part could dispense us from it . As I now went looking up and down the street for the driver who was usually on the watch for me about eleven o'clock on a fair day of the races , I turned over in my mind the several accidents which are employed in novels to bring young people to a realising sense of their feelings toward each other , and wondered which of them I might most safely invoke . I was not anxious to have Kendricks and Miss Gage lovers ; it would be altogether simpler for us if they were not ; but if they were , the sooner they knew it and we knew it the better . I thought of a carriage accident , in which he should seize her and leap with her from the flying vehicle , while the horses plunged madly on , but I did not know what in this case would become of Mrs. March and me . Besides , I could think of nothing that would frighten our driver 's horses , and I dismissed the fleeting notion of getting any others because Mrs. March liked their being so safe , and she had , besides , interested herself particularly in the driver , who had a family and counted upon our custom .