five o'clock
She read the books of the period , and generally pronounced them ridiculous ; she believed in her husband 's politics , and aristocratically approved the way in which he abstained from putting theory into practice , from voting , and in a general way from dirtying his fingers with anything so corrupt as government , or so despicable as elections ; she understood Boston business to some extent , and called it finance , but she despised the New York Stock Market and denounced its doings as gambling . She made fine distinctions , but she was a woman of sense , and was generally more likely to be right than wrong when she had a definite opinion , or expressed a definite dislike . Her religious views were simple and unobtrusive , and never changed . Her custom of being at home after five o'clock was perhaps the only deviation she allowed herself from the established manners of her native city , and since two or three other ladies had followed her example , it had come to be regarded as a perfectly harmless idiosyncrasy for which she could not properly be blamed . The people who came to see her were chiefly men , except , of course , on the inevitable Monday . A day or two before Christmas , then , Mrs. Sam Wyndham was at home in the afternoon . The snow lay thick and hard outside , and the sleigh bells tinkled unceasingly as the sleighs slipped by the window , gleaming and glittering in the deep red glow of the sunset .