one
o’clock
One night she sat late , making her aunt a cap . The one sign of originality in her was the character of her millinery , of which kind of creation she was fond , displaying therein both invention as to form , and perception as to effect , combined with lightness and deftness of execution . She was desirous of completing it before the next morning , which was that of her aunt 's birthday . They had had friends to dine with them who had stayed rather late , and it was now getting towards one o'clock . But Helen was not easily tired , and was not given to abandoning what she had undertaken ; so she sat working away , and thinking , not of George Bascombe , but of one whom she loved better -- far better -- her brother Leopold . But she was thinking of him not quite so comfortably as usual . Certain anxieties she had ground for concerning him had grown stronger , for the time since she heard from him had grown very long .