a quarter past two
When our friends first went aboard the `` Rose Standish '' that day they were almost the sole passengers , and they had a feeling of ownership and privacy which was pleasant enough in its way , but which they lost afterwards ; though to lose it was also pleasant , for enjoyment no more likes to be solitary than sin does , which is notoriously gregarious , and I dare say would hardly exist if it could not be committed in company . The preacher , indeed , little knows the comfortable sensation we have in being called fellow-sinners , and what an effective shield for his guilt each makes of his neighbor 's hard-heartedness . Cousin Frank never felt how strange was a lonely transgression till that day , when in the silence of the little cabin he took the bottle of claret from the handbag , and prepared to moisten the family lunch with it . `` I think , Aunt Melissa , '' he said , `` we had better lunch now , for it 's a quarter past two , and we shall not get to the beach before four . Let 's improvise a beach of these chairs , and that water-urn yonder can stand for the breakers . Now , this is truly like Newport and Nahant , '' he added , after the little arrangement was complete ; and he was about to strip away the bottle 's jacket of brown paper , when a lady much wrapped up came in , and , reclining upon one of the opposite seats , began to take them all in with a severe serenity of gaze that made them feel for a moment like a party of low foreigners , -- like a set of German atheists , say . Frank kept on the bottle 's paper jacket , and as the single tumbler of the party circled from mouth to mouth , each of them tried to give the honest drink the false air of a medicinal potion of some sort ; and to see Aunt Melissa sipping it , no one could have put his hand on his heart and sworn it was not elderberry wine , at the worst .