eight in the morning
It was more peaceful than it had been for a long time . In fact , he wore the look of a man who had been through the mill but now contemplated a restful and health-restoring vacation . For there are people in this world who have no respect for the memory of Ponce de Leon , and Mr. Parcher had come to be of their number . The elimination of William from his evenings had lightened the burden ; nevertheless , Mr. Parcher would have stated freely and openly to any responsible party that a yearning for the renewal of his youth had not been intensified by his daughter 's having as a visitor , all summer long , a howling belle of eighteen who talked baby-talk even at breakfast and spread her suitors all over the small house -- and its one veranda -- from eight in the morning until hours of the night long after their mothers -LRB- in Mr. Parcher 's opinion -RRB- should have sent their fathers to march them home . Upon Mr. Parcher 's optimism the effect of so much unavoidable observation of young love had been fatal ; he declared repeatedly that his faith in the human race was about gone . Furthermore , his physical constitution had proved pathetically vulnerable to nightly quartets , quintets , and even octets , on the porch below his bedchamber window , so that he was wont to tell his wife that never , never could he expect to be again the man he had been in the spring before Miss Pratt came to visit May . And , referring to conversations which he almost continuously overheard , perforce , Mr. Parcher said that if this was the way HE talked at that age , he would far prefer to drown in an ordinary fountain , and be dead and done with it , than to bathe in Ponce de Leon 's .