three o'clock in the afternoon
But I was Mrs. McPhee 's friend , for she allowed me to convoy her westward , sometimes , to theatres where she sobbed or laughed or shivered with a simple heart ; and she introduced me to a new world of doctors ' wives , captains ' wives , and engineers ' wives , whose whole talk and thought centred in and about ships and lines of ships you have never heard of . There were sailing-ships , with stewards and mahogany and maple saloons , trading to Australia , taking cargoes of consumptives and hopeless drunkards for whom a sea-voyage was recommended ; there were frowzy little West African boats , full of rats and cockroaches , where men died anywhere but in their bunks ; there were Brazilian boats whose cabins could be hired for merchandise , that went out loaded nearly awash ; there were Zanzibar and Mauritius steamers and wonderful reconstructed boats that plied to the other tide of Borneo . These were loved and known , for they earned our bread and a little butter , and we despised the big Atlantic boats , and made fun of the P. & O. and Orient liners , and swore by our respective owners -- Wesleyan , Baptist , or Presbyterian , as the case might be . I had only just come back to England when Mrs. McPhee invited me to dinner at three o'clock in the afternoon , and the notepaper was almost bridal in its scented creaminess . When I reached the house I saw that there were new curtains in the window that must have cost forty-five shillings a pair ; and as Mrs. McPhee drew me into the little marble-papered hall , she looked at me keenly , and cried : `` Have ye not heard ? What d' ye think o ' the hatrack ? '' Now , that hat-rack was oak-thirty shillings , at least .