nine o'clock
He was tall and severe-looking , with a gray , trooperish mustache and iron-gray hair , and , as Alma decided , iron-gray eyes . His daughter was short , plump , and fresh-colored , with an effect of liveliness that did not all express itself in her broad-vowelled , rather formal speech , with its odd valuations of some of the auxiliary verbs , and its total elision of the canine letter . `` We awe from the Soath , '' she said , `` and we arrived this mawning , but we got this cyahd from the brokah just befo ' dinnah , and so we awe rathah late . '' `` Not at all ; it 's only nine o'clock , '' said Mrs. Leighton . She looked up from the card the young lady had given her , and explained , `` We have n't got in our servants yet , and we had to answer the bell ourselves , and -- '' `` You were frightened , of coase , '' said the young lady , caressingly . The gentleman said they ought not to have come so late , and he offered some formal apologies . `` We should have been just as much scared any time after five o'clock , '' Alma said to the sympathetic intelligence in the girl 's face .