eight o'clock p.m.
If she lingered much later dusk would draw on , and Fanny would be put to the trouble of coming to fetch her . It was both baking and ironing day at the rectory , she remembered -- Fanny would be busy . Still , she could not quit her seat at the little parlour window . From no point of view could the west look so lovely as from that lattice with the garland of jessamine round it , whose white stars and green leaves seemed now but gray pencil outlines -- graceful in form , but colourless in tint -- against the gold incarnadined of a summer evening -- against the fire-tinged blue of an August sky at eight o'clock p.m. Caroline looked at the wicket-gate , beside which holly-oaks spired up tall . She looked at the close hedge of privet and laurel fencing in the garden ; her eyes longed to see something more than the shrubs before they turned from that limited prospect . They longed to see a human figure , of a certain mould and height , pass the hedge and enter the gate . A human figure she at last saw -- nay , two .