nearly midnight
She was tired , very tired , from the responsibilities and excitement of the day but she did not feel that she could sleep . From the fire , she looked up to the clock that ticked away so industriously on the mantle . It was a little clock with a fat , golden , cupid grasping the dial in his chubby arms as though striving to do away with time when he might better have been busy with his bow and arrows . The hands of the clock pointed nearly midnight . The young woman looked into the fire again . Already her girl friend had been a wife several hours -- a wife . Already the train was miles away bearing the newly wedded ones to their future home -- their home .