five o'clock
The slow readjustment , dumfounded rage , and despair simmering gradually to bitterness and hardening finally to despair . The soft , sensitive ground of their sorrow constantly spongy with the wellsprings of grief beneath , but the surface bubbles showing less and less , and ultimately a hard dryness setting in . Her heart would hurt as tangibly as if the surface of her body were red with a wound from it , yet , sitting there at her milk and biscuit , her gaze into the monotonous repetition of wall-paper design , the thought of that Sunday dinner out there , with its invariable roast chicken , bread stuffing , candied sweet potatoes , and lemon-meringue pie ; the Sunday-afternoon lethargy ; the hypothenuse of her father asleep in his chair , the newspaper over his face ; Albert , the celluloid toothpick moving along his lips , puttering around at favorite locks and bells ; the mere visualization was such a fillip to her present that she lay back on the bed , stretching her arms and legs like a great , luxurious cat , her lips curved to a smile . At five o'clock , as she lazed there , Alma Neugass burst in without the usual scrupulously observed preamble of a knock . There were two round spots of color out on her long cheeks , and her white cotton shirt waist , always bearing the imprint of sleeve protectors , was replaced by a dark-blue silk of candy-stripe plaid , with a standing collar of lace that fell in a jabot down the front , held there by an ivory hand of a brooch . There was something of the mausoleum about poor Alma , the grim skeleton of her everyday personality finding but icy warmth beneath the ivory , lace , and the seldom-warn black broadcloth skirt that was pinned over two inches at the waistline to hold it up . `` Did you think I 'd forgotten you ?