seven o'clock in the morning
She resolved to go in person to the Graydon . The entrance to the apartment building displayed a good deal of that joint-stock grandeur which goes for much and yet costs each individual householder but little . Despite her anxiety , Phillida was so far impressed by the elaborate bronze mantelpiece over the great hall fireplace , the carved wooden seats , and the frescoing and gilding of the walls , as to remember that she was dressed for a tenement in Avenue C , and not for a west-side apartment house . The gray shawl she had left behind ; but she felt sure that the important-looking hall boys and , above all , the plump and prosperous-seeming clerk at the desk , with an habitually neutral expression upon his countenance , must wonder why a woman had intruded into the sacred front entrance in so plain a hat and gown at seven o'clock in the morning . She felt in her pocket for her card-case , but of course that had been left in the pocket of a better dress , and she must write upon one of those little cards that the house furnishes ; and all this while the clerk would be wondering who she was . But there was a native self-reliance about Phillida that shielded her from contempt . She asked for the card , took up a pen , and wrote : `` Miss Callender wishes to see Mr. Millard in great haste , on a matter of the utmost importance . ''