eight o'clock in the evening
Convinced he was that Madelon Hautville , believing as she did that he had forsaken her for honest love of another , would hold him in utter scorn and contempt were she to discover him false to Dorothy as she had been to her ; and his very love of her love , strangely enough , kept him true to her rival . So he went to see Dorothy , and found no fault with her coldness . The wedding preparations went on , and at last the day came . The wedding was to be at eight o'clock in the evening , and nearly all the village was bidden to it -- even many of the Unitarian faction who had been Parson Fair 's old parishioners . At half-past seven o'clock the street was full of people . The village women rustled through the soft dusk with silken whispers of wide best skirts . Young girls with spring buds in their hair flounced about with white muslins , and fluttering with ribbons , flitted along .