noons
As the workmen disappeared down the driveway to the main road , running to catch the next trolley-car to Endbury , he looked after them with little of the usual exasperation of the house-builder whose work they were slighting , but with an agreeable sense of their extreme inferiority to him in the matter of fixity of purpose . He felt that they symbolized the weakness of most of humanity , and promised himself with a comfortable confidence an easy and lifelong victory over such feeble adversaries . Of late , business had been going even better than ever . The days had begun to grow appreciably longer with the approach of spring , and there had been several noons of an almost summer-like mildness , but now , in spite of the fact that the sun was still shining , the first chill of the late March evening dropped suddenly upon the bare-raftered structure whose open windows and door-spaces offered no barrier to the damp breeze . Hollister stirred from his pleasant reverie and began to walk briskly about , inspecting the amount of work accomplished since his last visit . He kept very close track of the industry of his workmen and the competence of his contractor , and Lydia 's father admired greatly the way in which his future son-in-law did not allow himself to be `` done '' by those past masters of the art . It argued well for the future , Judge Emery thought , and he called Lydia 's attention to the trait with approval .