twenty minutes past six
in the evening
I had fallen into my serene state one evening , when we heard a letter dropped through the slit in the said door , and fall on the ground . `` It 's for you , Handel , '' said Herbert , going out and coming back with it , `` and I hope there is nothing the matter . '' This was in allusion to its heavy black seal and border . The letter was signed Trabb & Co. , and its contents were simply , that I was an honored sir , and that they begged to inform me that Mrs. J. Gargery had departed this life on Monday last at twenty minutes past six in the evening , and that my attendance was requested at the interment on Monday next at three o'clock in the afternoon . It was the first time that a grave had opened in my road of life , and the gap it made in the smooth ground was wonderful . The figure of my sister in her chair by the kitchen fire , haunted me night and day . That the place could possibly be , without her , was something my mind seemed unable to compass ; and whereas she had seldom or never been in my thoughts of late , I had now the strangest ideas that she was coming towards me in the street , or that she would presently knock at the door .