twelve o'clock
She offered to them good honest household cake , made of currants and flour and eggs and sweetmeat ; but they would feed themselves on trashy wafers from the shop of the Barchester pastry-cook , on chalk and gum and adulterated sugar . Poor Miss Thorne ! yours is not the first honest soul that has vainly striven to recall the glories of happy days gone by ! If fashion suggests to a Lady De Courcy that when invited to a dejeuner at twelve o'clock she ought to come at three , no eloquence of thine will teach her the advantage of a nearer approach to punctuality . She had fondly thought that when she called on her friends to come at twelve , and especially begged them to believe that she meant it , she would be able to see them comfortably seated in their tents at two . Vain woman -- or rather ignorant woman -- ignorant of the advances of that civilization which the world had witnessed while she was growing old . At twelve she found herself alone , dressed in all the glory of the newest of her many suits of raiment ; with strong shoes however , and a serviceable bonnet on her head , and a warm rich shawl on her shoulders .