one o'clock
Would it be thought patronising to Mr. Peck ? The fire from the Franklin-stove diffused a drowsy comfort through the room , the rain lashed the window-panes , and the wind shrilled in the gable . Annie fell off to sleep . When she woke up she heard Mrs. Bolton laying the table for her one o'clock dinner , and she knew it was half-past twelve , because Mrs. Bolton always laid the table just half an hour beforehand . She went out to speak to Mrs. Bolton . There was no want of distinctness in Mrs. Bolton 's opinion , but Annie felt that there was a want of perspective and proportion in it , arising from the narrowness of Mrs. Bolton 's experience and her ignorance of the world ; she was farm-bred , and she had always lived upon the outskirts of Hatboro ' , even when it was a much smaller place than now . But Mrs. Bolton had her criterions , and she believed in them firmly ; in a time when agnosticism extends among cultivated people to every region of conjecture , the social convictions of Mrs. Bolton were untainted by misgiving .