nearly one o'clock
The servants were all asleep ; the little motherless children safely wrapped in happy unconsciousness in their nursery with Ayah . The last sad offices had been done for Fay , and the nurse , tired out , was also sleeping -- on Jan 's bed . Jan , alone of all the household , kept watch , standing in the verandah , a ghostly figure , still in the tumbled white muslin frock she had had no time all day to change . It was nearly one o'clock . Motors and carriages were beginning to come back from Government House , where there was a reception . The motor-horns and horses ' hoofs sounded loud in the wide silent street , and the head lights swept down the Queen 's Road like fireflies in flight . Jan turned on the light in the verandah .