three o'clock
No , wait , Annie , I 'll go out and see Celia myself . '' Little Mrs. George Carew , flushed and excited , crossed the pantry as she spoke , and pushed open the swinging door that connected it with the kitchen . She was a pretty woman , even now when her hair , already dressed , was hidden under snugly pinned veils and her trim little figure lost under a flying kimono . Mrs. Carew was expecting the twenty-eight members of the Santa Paloma Bridge Club on this particular evening , and now , at three o'clock on a beautiful April afternoon , she was almost frantic with fatigue and nervousness . The house had been cleaned thoroughly the day before , rugs shaken , mirrors polished , floors oiled ; the grand piano had been closed , and pushed against the wall ; the reading-table had been cleared , and wheeled out under the turn of the stairway ; the pretty drawing-room and square big entrance hall had been emptied to make room for the seven little card-tables that were already set up , and for the twenty-eight straight-back chairs that Mrs. Carew had collected from the dining-room , the bedrooms , the halls , and even the nursery , for the occasion . All this had been done the day before , and Mrs. Carew , awakening early in the morning to uneasy anticipations of a full day , had yet felt that the main work of preparation was out of the way . But now , in mid-afternoon , nothing seemed done .