about nine o'clock
sobbed Evelyn convulsively . `` You had better go away from the table , dear , '' said Ida calmly . `` I will have a plate of dinner kept warm for you , and by-and-by when you feel like it , you can go down to the kitchen and Agnes will give it to you . '' In fact , poor little Evelyn , who was only a child and needed her food , did steal down to the kitchen about nine o'clock and got her plate of dinner . But she was more satisfied by Agnes bursting into tears and talking about her `` blissed father that was gone , and how there was niver a man like him , '' and actually holding her in her great lap while she ate . It was a meal seasoned with tears , but also sweetened with honest sympathy . Evelyn , when she slipped up the back stairs to her own room after her supper , longed to go into her sister 's room and sleep with her , but she did not dare .